Lately (as in the past few weeks or so), I've been getting problems whereby Firefox seemed to hang (beachball) and cause the OS to hang with it (pointer would move, but it would take 20-30 seconds to get a force quit option to come up). Quitting Firefox got the OS behaving normal speed again. Even a reboot didn't seem to help and it seemed to affect Safari (which I hardly ever use) as well even though I hadn't been using it. So I tried removing Flash. Firefox started normally again. I left Flash off the system.
It's now a couple of weeks later and it happened again with on Flash installed on the system. I was playing Baldur's Gate 2 and went to look something up (for the umpteenth time) and suddenly it caused the freeze when I tried to use Firefox. After force quitting (took awhile), everything seemed back to normal (game running normal again, etc.). But it would do it again on start. I forced quit again and tried Safari and it caused the same darn behavior. This time a reboot restored normal browser operation.
So the question is what is causing this behavior if it's not Flash? I saw a thread on the Apple forums (where others were reporting the same behavior with Safari) that suggested it had to do with javascript text on certain sites and font sizes. That's absurd since i never use Safari and I never had any issue like this until recently.
I'm afraid it might have something to do with a recent OS security update or something of that nature since i never had this issue until recently and I don't ever recall a browser screwing up the entire OS like that before (i.e. browser might lock up, but not slow down the entire OS with it, at least not on a quad-core i7). Of course, given all the hacking world-wide reported lately to do with Russia, I can't help but wonder if there's some new form of malware we don't know about yet. I've heard of fake Flash updates that pop-up while you're browsing and you think it's the regular system check and end up installing a hacked version that then is able to harm your computer. Given the lack of malware detection software on the Mac, I often wonder if you did get some kind of malware, how long it would be before anybody knew about it? Apple hasn't been the most timely for security issues and most Mac users aren't used to not worrying about malware since it's so rare for Macs. But I suspect there's an OS bug that affects both browsers. I didn't get any security report offer this time, but I did turn some in the last few times when I still had Flash installed.
Has anyone else noticed beach ball browsing issues that also slow down the entire OS until you force quit or reboot?
It's now a couple of weeks later and it happened again with on Flash installed on the system. I was playing Baldur's Gate 2 and went to look something up (for the umpteenth time) and suddenly it caused the freeze when I tried to use Firefox. After force quitting (took awhile), everything seemed back to normal (game running normal again, etc.). But it would do it again on start. I forced quit again and tried Safari and it caused the same darn behavior. This time a reboot restored normal browser operation.
So the question is what is causing this behavior if it's not Flash? I saw a thread on the Apple forums (where others were reporting the same behavior with Safari) that suggested it had to do with javascript text on certain sites and font sizes. That's absurd since i never use Safari and I never had any issue like this until recently.
I'm afraid it might have something to do with a recent OS security update or something of that nature since i never had this issue until recently and I don't ever recall a browser screwing up the entire OS like that before (i.e. browser might lock up, but not slow down the entire OS with it, at least not on a quad-core i7). Of course, given all the hacking world-wide reported lately to do with Russia, I can't help but wonder if there's some new form of malware we don't know about yet. I've heard of fake Flash updates that pop-up while you're browsing and you think it's the regular system check and end up installing a hacked version that then is able to harm your computer. Given the lack of malware detection software on the Mac, I often wonder if you did get some kind of malware, how long it would be before anybody knew about it? Apple hasn't been the most timely for security issues and most Mac users aren't used to not worrying about malware since it's so rare for Macs. But I suspect there's an OS bug that affects both browsers. I didn't get any security report offer this time, but I did turn some in the last few times when I still had Flash installed.
Has anyone else noticed beach ball browsing issues that also slow down the entire OS until you force quit or reboot?