Flash block {web link} Never be annoyed by a Flash animation again! Blocks Flash so it won't get in your way, but if you want to see it, just click on it

If you have problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions then check this:

• see if there are updates for your graphics drive drivers

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

• disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)

https://forums.adobe.com/message/4468493#TemporaryWorkaround

• disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/891337 See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Troubleshooting

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-common-audio-and-video-issues?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=Video+or+audio+does+not+play

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-common-audio-and-video-issues

I've been hearing disable Flash for years which I interpret as, "Don't use the internet for anything normal people do on the internet." One iteration of Firefox works great, another hangs and locks, so maybe Flash needs an update and I'll just have to wait, but I won't be disabling Flash.

Try to disable IPv6 (check for other possible causes as well).

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-cant-load-websites-other-browsers-can

Thanks cor-el. With IPv6 disabled the problem remains. An update to Flash stopped the total lockups, but some pages still hang badly. In further testing, it is a) not happening on a Mac running 10.6.8 and b) it is also happening in Chrome but not Opera or Safari. Some pages with video load just fine while others do not. Will just have to wait for another Flash update I suppose. I'm sympathetic to the call for disabling Flash, but can't see that as a realistic option.

Two weeks in and Flash is disabled along with most plugins and Firefox is becoming an unusable mess. It crashes or locks up several times a day. It caused a complete system lockup that required a hard restart, something that hasn't happened in years. We are working on abandoning for Chrome. Not a big Google fan, but the browser actually works no matter what I do with Flash.

New version of Firefox 39.0.3 fixes major security flaw and now crashes Mac OSX 10.8. It's quite an accomplishment to lock and crash an application repeatedly, but when you can lock up not just one version of the Mac OS but two, that's Emmy level amazing. And it's so buggy on an Android tablet that I removed it and run Opera and Chrome only.

You could use plugins click-to-play to control plugins if you set the settings in about:config to force the items to be controllable individually instead of per site. Set the time intervals for "activate" and "activate and remember". plugin.persistentPermissionAlways.intervalInDays -> 0 plugin.sessionPermissionNow.intervalInMinutes -> 0 If that is too much trouble, there is an extension that can do it for you.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/click-to-play-per-element/

Thanks finitarry. May still try this, but I now have Flash disabled as well as Silverlight, Quicktime and Java. It is under these conditions that Firefox continues to lock, and as I mentioned yesterday, took out Mac OSX 10.8...twice. Nothing on this computer or the one running OSX 10.6 has locked up so bad that I had to hard restart the system in years. And Firefox was working fine before the 39 update. I get that the .0.3 was necessary to patch a security flaw, and I assume that Firefox will stabilize eventually, but this is a pattern with Firefox for many years. Damned frustrating.