Conflict between Norton 360 3.0 and Firefox 3?

This problem began yesterday after I installed Norton 360 3.0 (a new installation, not an upgrade). After a few hours, Firefox becomes incredibly slow. For instance, I am spending several minutes simply describing this problem. If I try to push the issue, FF gives me the "Not Responding" message for a few seconds. I have 4GB RAM installed, though I understand that 32-bit Vista utilizes only about 3GB. I do not have the same problem with Internet Explorer, only Firefox.

 

I assume there is some issue between Norton 360 and FF since I did not have the problem before I installed Norton.

 

BTW, I posted this problem on the Firefox forum but without any real help, just some Norton bashing.

 

Thanks much.

Hi Broadus,

 

Try these steps:

1. Start Norton 360.

2. Click Settings.

3. Click Firewall.

4. In the Program Rules tab, find the entry for Mozilla Firefox.

5. Change the Internet Access from Auto/Custom to Allow.

6. Click Apply > Close.

 

Let us know the results.

 

Yogesh

I'm sorry Yogesh, but I failed to mention that the one thing I have tried is setting Firefox to "Allow" in the firewall program rules. It had no effect.

 

Do you have to restart Firefox or reboot your computer for that to take effect?

 

Any other suggestions? Thanks.

Try to run LiveUpdate from Norton 360 repeatedly until you see the message “No more Updates…”. Then restart the computer and check whether the firefox still freezes. If the problem persists, try to remove the entry for firefox from Program Rules, and then add the firefox.exe from C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.

Hi Broadus-

 

There are some basic things to try with Firefox like running in safe mode and seeing if the issue still exists and trying to narrow it down to a particular theme or extension/add-on. 

 

You may want to try downloading and running Process Explorer; with it you can examine thread performance within the firefox process and possibly identify a specific thread + its instruction stack that is contributing to the high CPU.

 

Also take a look at Process Monitor (procmon).. check out the "related links" on the page for some examples of troubleshooting procedures using this tool.  You may be able to identify specific activities in your Firefox usage that are taking up unexpected amounts of time.

 

Regards,

 

Matt Powers

Symantec Corp.

Matt, thanks. I tried Yogesh's suggestion few days ago about removing Firefox from the Program Rules and then adding the firefox.exe the Mozilla Firefox file in Program Files. I wanted to give it a few days before I reported back to make sure it worked. It seems to have. I haven't experienced the problem since. I'll keep my fingers crossed but will come back to your suggestios if needed.

 

Bill