: Sorry, I'll buy only brand name bulbs.

And where do you think those bulbs are made? Chances are, it's China.

As the article says:

- CFL bulbs are meant to be fireproof
- The normal failure mode may alarm some people, but it's harmless
- Abnormal failures are possible in ANY device

I've been using CFLs from a variety of sources (generally whatever I can find at a good price) for over a decade and have had many burn out. None of them have have produced any noise, smoke or burnt ends, they just stopped working.

FWIW, I've seen 6" flames shoot out of a computer video card. That didn't stop me from using computers. One-off, bizarre failures are not a reason to panic and stop buying a product.