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processor hog

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Paul Pedersen

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Nov 21, 2009, 2:49:41 PM11/21/09
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Firefox often grabs 90+% of processor cycles. I'm using 3.5.5, but it's
neither worse nor better than previous versions in this regard.

It happens most often when I have several tabs open (which is the usual case
with me).

It's been this way for years, and it's very frustrating. Disabling
extensions doesn't help. If it weren't for Flashblock, I'd go back to IE.

Ron Hunter

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Nov 21, 2009, 3:29:08 PM11/21/09
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And if you had a lot of tabs open, you would probably have the same
problem. There are only so many CPU cycles available on a give machine.
Solution is fewer tabs, or a faster computer.

John McGaw

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Nov 21, 2009, 3:44:51 PM11/21/09
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I don't know what to tell you besides it surely doesn't do that on any of
my machines. I just ran FF 3.5.5 on this trusty old Pentium 4 1gB machine
and it loaded the normal 26 tab "home page" that I use every day. The CPU
usage flashed as high as 50% while loading them but now it has dropped off
to the 2-20% range, tending to stay very much in the lower part of the range.

David McRitchie

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Nov 22, 2009, 2:36:02 AM11/22/09
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"John McGaw" <no.where@all> wrote in message news:UqWdnWXOrJLZzJXW...@mozilla.org...

My main problems are memory, page faults, and disk space. Even though
memory hardly ever hits 70% I'm told I'm out of memory often in other applications.
But having a lot of tabs open in itself never bothered me though I don't leave
them all open all day. Basically I read them and then close them.

Paul, if you are not using "Adblock Plus" with a filterset under subscription plus
your own additions which are kept separate then you could well have lots of
problems with Flash ads, the idea is to prevent them from ever coming up, by
blocking them from being opened, and often by blocking their style sheets
that invoke them. There are some things that Firefox extensions can't block
and that is where a good hosts file comes in.

More information on the hosts file at
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Adblock Plus
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1865

Even with all that you could still get killed if you have several web pages
that automatically update such as news sites.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/07/27/stop-and-disable-web-pages-auto-refresh-or-reload-in-firefox

Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Accessibility section, and then tick the check box labeled as
"Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page."
Checking the option is equivalent to setting preference setting in about:config
accessibility.blockautorefresh user set True
(though I have it a the default of False you probably want to set that at True)

see http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries (for the second item)
see https://developer.mozilla.org/en/controlling_dns_prefetching (for first item)
network.dns.disablePrefetch user set True
network.prefetch-next user set False

--
HTH,
David McRitchie, extensions I use are briefly documented on my site
Firefox Custom: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm


Paul Pedersen

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Nov 24, 2009, 1:09:49 AM11/24/09
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"Ron Hunter" <rphu...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:rfidnabphr0M0JXW...@mozilla.org...

I frequently have many tabs open, with no problem at all. Then suddenly
Firefox starts grabbing all the cycles, and the entire computer becomes very
unresponsive.

I wish I knew what the trigger was. Closing tabs (when I can get Firefox to
respond at all) does not help. Only quitting altogether does the trick. But
quitting often takes several minutes.

Paul Pedersen

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Nov 24, 2009, 1:11:49 AM11/24/09
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"David McRitchie" <fire...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:86SdndYmJZaRqZTW...@mozilla.org...


Thank you for the tips.

David McRitchie

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Nov 24, 2009, 5:28:03 PM11/24/09
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"Paul Pedersen" wrote

> Thank you for the tips.

You're welcome. I was looking to see if some should be added
to MozillaZine KB, but the idea there is to first actually to identify your problem
so there is no specific article. But you might add these articles to
items already mentioned.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Reducing_memory_usage_-_Firefox

Plugin Check
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/
more information
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Testing_plugins

Needless to say keeping Firefox, Extensions,
and plug-ins up to date helps or at least helps to get things resolved
on a level playing field.

I do not use a plug-in for Adobe Reader, for instance, you lose
the full features of the program that you are using, and valuable
reading area within the window.

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