Firefox becomes unresponsive when loading Debian popcon stats page

[David Hilvert]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Loading the following URL causes Firefox to become unresponsive:

http://popcon.debian.org/by_inst

Debian has a collection of similar pages here:

http://popcon.debian.org/

Firefox appears to peg a single processor at 100% while loading this page, and seems to make rather slow progress on the page, as though it were attempting to repeatedly perform some sort of expensive operation (rendering?) rather than completing the download.

Retrieving the page to a local file and then displaying the file using Firefox's file:// URL syntax does not exhibit this problem. Rather, the local file loads within seconds, and can be scrolled easily without any lack of responsiveness, either in rendering or otherwise.

$ dpkg -l "*firefox*" | grep ^ii
ii firefox 3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3 meta package for the popular mozilla web browser
ii firefox-3.0 3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3 safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
ii firefox-3.0-gnome-support 3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3 Support for Gnome in Mozilla Firefox
ii firefox-gnome-support 3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3 meta package pointing to the latest gnome-suppor

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Aug 28 18:52:04 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: ath_hal
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-19-generic i686