I just upgraded from Firefox 3 Beta 4 to Beta 5. It’s amazing how unstable Beta 5 is compared to the earlier version. Gmail crashes. Google maps crashes. Almost every other site I visit crashes. And looks like I’m not alone: doing a Google search for “Firefox 3 beta x crash” shows a consistently increasing number of results.

![Number of Google search results for Firefox 3 Beta crashes, by Beta version](http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvs&chs=300x200&chd=t:12300,17200,24400,48700,151000&chds=0,150000&chtt="Firefox 3 Beta x crashes": Google results&chco=dbdbff&chg=20,33,1,5&chbh=40,10,10&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|Beta 1|Beta 2|Beta 3|Beta 4|Beta 5|1:|0|50,000|100,000|150,000)

Update (8/Apr/08): As the comments rightly point out, this could simply be because more people use Beta 5. Here’s the number of Google hits for “Firefox 3 Beta x” – and it shows a clear increasing trend.

![Number of Google search results for Firefox 3 Beta, by Beta version](http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvs&chs=300x200&chd=t:202000,251000,413000,865000,1830000&chds=0,1000000&chtt="Firefox 3 Beta x": Google results&chco=dbdbff&chg=20,25,1,5&chbh=40,10,10&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|Beta 1|Beta 2|Beta 3|Beta 4|Beta 5|1:|0|250k|500k|750k|1m)

So, adjusting for this, here’s the relative crash frequency:

![% of Firefox 3 Beta crash mentions on Google, by Beta version](http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvs&chs=300x200&chd=t:6.09,6.85,5.91,5.63,8.25&chds=5,10&chtt=% of Firefox Beta x crash mentions&chco=dbdbff&chg=20,50,1,5&chbh=40,10,10&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|Beta 1|Beta 2|Beta 3|Beta 4|Beta 5|1:|5%|7.5%|10%)

Beta 5 still stands out.

Maybe Google search results are not a good proxy. Maybe the mention of “crash” doesn’t indicate the software itself crashing. But it sure crashes a lot more for me.