Mozilla has issued a new update to its web browser Firefox because of errors caused by FarmVille, the wildly popular Facebook game.
Last week, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.4. It included dozens of bug fixes, but it also added one new feature: plugin browser crash protection. In the past, when Flash or Quicktime crashed in the browser, it would take the entire browser down with it. Firefox 3.6.4 changed it so that non-responsive plugins crash the plugin, not the browser, after 10 seconds.
The update had an unanticipated side effect, however. Many users found that they couldn't play FarmVille, which runs on Adobe Flash. Because FarmVille was crashing so often for so many users, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.6 and installed one small change: The timeout for unresponsive plugins was increased from 10 seconds to 45 seconds, giving the hefty Flash-based game enough time to properly load.