Spinning circle rainbow while using the internet......

I FINALLY SOLVED MY HANGING, "STOPPED" LOADING AND FORCE QUIT PROBLEMS AFTER TRYING EVERYTHING SHORT OF ARCHIVE AND INSTALL.

I FINALLY SOLVED MY HANGING, "STOPPED" LOADING AND FORCE QUIT PROBLEMS AFTER TRYING EVERYTHING SHORT OF ARCHIVE AND INSTALL:
I HAD TO RESTART
"FORCED" TEN TIMES A DAY:

I UPDATED JAVA:

Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 9
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4438

also

JavaEmbeddingPlugin 0.9.7.5

I have a PPC G5 dual 2.0
OSX 10.5.8

Firefox 3.6.16

Good advice so far.

Very Important, how much Free Space is on your Hard Drive first of all? Click on the Macintosh HD on the Desktop, then do a Get Info on it.

At this point I think you should get Applejack...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667/applejack

After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...

applejack AUTO

Then let it do all 5 of it's things.

At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.

The 6 things it does are...

Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
Trash old Log files.

First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files! 🙂

Disconnect the USB cable from any Uninterruptible Power Supply so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.

How long does the speedup last?

I am running a G4 dual 867 (2GB RAM; 10.4.11) with dual displays. When I run FireFox usually am I also running VirtualPC running XP, various graphics programs such as Illustrator and Photoshop, and Safari, so my G4 is getting a workout on the CPUs, yet performance in FireFox 3.6.15 is sometimes strange regardless of actual CPU use.

Write now I have 3 windows open (two in dock) and it running reasonable well:
5 tabs
11 tabs
40 tabs

It usually gets slower the more tabs, but less so if you divide those tabs among different windows. The window with 40 tabs is slower.

If I run Apple's secure empty trash it seems to get a lot worse, so I tend to use 3rd party trash emptying software.

Restarting the Mac always seems to seem to make it run faster so I am curious if FireFox has memory leak issues (not sure if possible?).

Rather than a Mac restart; however, I simply do a force quit of FireFox (rather than shutting it down after saving the tabs). Then I restart FireFox (it will then ask if you want to restart the last session - yes). I then work in other applications while it reconstitutes the previous windows and tabs (could take a minute or so if you have a lot of tabs/windows). Seems to make it work better and I can always use Safari while I wait for it to restart :0).

Also I think it may have to do with certain site contents. For example, lots of flash content; sites than use pull down alert windows (i.e., confirm emptying your email folder), certain scripts.

Thanks for the link. 🙂