Firefox 3.6.4 Released with Crash Protection from Plugins

Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.4 which provides crash protection for Windows and Linux users by isolating third-party plugins when they crash.

"Results from our beta testing show Firefox 3.6.4 will significantly reduce the number of Firefox crashes experienced by users who are watching online videos or playing games. When a plugin crashes or freezes while using Firefox, users can enjoy uninterrupted browsing by simply refreshing the page", said Mozilla's Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner in the Mozilla's blog.

This feature, named Out-of-Process Plug-in (OOPP), makes plugins run independently from Firefox main process and their crash will no more affect the entire browser. OOPP is also more advanced from Google Chrome's solution. Even if the entire browser will not go down in case of plugin crash, the page will become unaccessible. In Firefox only the section that requires the plugin will go down.

Firefox 3.6.4 users can be informed on when plugins need to be updated. A web site created by Mozilla automatically scans the installed plugins and displays update information and download links.

In this version Firefox offers crash protection for Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime and Microsoft Silverlight on Windows and Linux computers, support for other plugins and operating systems, like Mac, is planned to be become available in a future Firefox release, probably Firefox 4.

The new version also comes with fixes for 9 vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 3.5, 6 of them were considered critical.