same problem. BUT, strangely, this did not happen at all for the first 2 weeks I had 4.0.1. then suddenly, multiple times a day it hangs on me. It even allows me to choose items from the main pulldown menus ... for instance I can select "new window" but then the program just ignores the fact that I chose that menu item. I have to force quit -- and when I go to force quit, the box where I choose that does NOT have a "Not Responding" note next to the entry for Firefox. I guess that mac OS force quit applications menu has the impression that firefox is not truly hung.

Reinstall it will work fine. I read that somewhere on here and it is working fine now. Not sure how long it will work fine but it's really easy to uninstall and reinstall.

Reinstalling Firefox definitely helped. Unfortunately, I lost my bookmarks so one must be extremely careful when reinstalling. Lets hope that this continues to work for a while.

Uninstalling and reinstalling did not help, same problem. I hope you fix this problem soon.

Uninstalling and reinstalling worked for a few days. Sorry guys, the folks developing the MAC version of Firefox are simply not addressing critical issues. I really do feel like I've lost an old friend. I have used Firefox since release 1, but no more until this is fixed.

Same here and been like it since FF3. FF5 still does the same, with memory creeping up to over 1gb, then having to force quit and restart. Happens a lot when one of my add-ons autoupdates.

I'm in the same boat too, I don't know what's triggering my system hanging and having to force quit. I was fine when I was updated it and then one night when I was trying to clear my system preferences ... it didn't work and froze on me. and then kept on hanging and then i tried to do all these uninstalls and reinstalls ... and a las ... nothing ... perhaps time to ditch ship and use chrome.

Thanks for all the responses. None of them, unfortunately, are of any help, apart from showing me that I am not the only "sufferer".

I use Firefox 3.6.24, which works fine. But every new version, including 8, causes webpages to hang.

I've tried 5, 6, and 7, reinstalling each one at least twice each time.

Usually things go well for the first few webpages. Then the hanging starts, and happens even when I try to open the few pages that worked fine originally.

There may be ways around this, but I don't know them. And above all, this never happened with Firefox 3.

There is a problem here, and ( judging from the kind responses I've been reading ) I'm not the only one to have experienced it. Perhaps Mozilla should do something about it.

I know it's free and I know it's kind of Mozilla to put this in the public domain, but it's useless if it doesn't work. And a pity when one considers that Firefox is one of Mozilla's "flagship" applications.

Of course, there are other browsers around. I now use Firefox ( 3.6.24 ) only rarely.

In case it's relevant, I'm running Mac OS 10.6.8

Thanks again

Hi - me again

Just one last point : I have a feeling that Mozilla don't know what they're talking about - or at least that the software they use on this forum is blind.

I received an email saying "We just wanted to let you know that cbui has found a solution to a Firefox question that you're following".

Well, no. cbui says "perhaps time to ditch ship and use chrome. "

The email also tells me that the problem "was marked as solved by its asker, rjcancilla". They must be kidding : rjcancilla, far from saying that, says "I have used Firefox since release 1, but no more until this is fixed. "

So is this forum useless ?

I'd deleted Firefox and all its files ( preferences etc ) and given it up. But I saw a positive review of the latest version, 8.0.1, which I downloaded and installed.

It hangs when opening any web page. Hangs. Hangs. I have to fore quit it. It beats me why Firefox is so popular.

I've been using 8.0.1 and it is much better than previous versions. It definitely does not hang as much as previous versions.

this happened to me while downloading google chrome because of this problem.... just thought I would share