Slow firefox and high cpu usage

[Pétùr]

Hi,

I experience a very slow response time (and high cpu usage) for firefox
in debian sid these days.

I use the 62.0.3 version and the latency is particularly present at the
startup. I have to wait few seconds before being able to enter text in
the address bar.

I tried to reset (install new profile) firefox and launch it in safe
mode (ie without extensions). No improvements.

Are other users of sid experiencing the same behavior ?

Pétùr

[Patrick Bartek]

I'm using Firefox Quantum (62.0.3) on Stretch. Works just fine.
Responsive. Very Little CPU usage. What does Top show is using the cpu?

B

[Pétùr]

Top shows several threads with high cpu usage such as :

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+
COMMAND

12452 petur 20 0 4030664 1,9g 67248 R 72,4 50,1 2:54.34
firefox
12937 petur 20 0 1830092 381016 156676 R 82,7 9,7 0:12.11 Web
Content
12503 petur 20 0 1715976 216820 87436 R 81,3 5,5 0:55.60 Web
Content
13078 petur 20 0 1454508 95080 65480 R 81,3 2,4 0:05.02 Web
Content

I am using Xfce.

Pétùr

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

I have slow startup and a brief hang during initial UI layout, but only
with Adblock Plus enabled.

Kind regards,

--
Ben Caradoc-Davies <b...@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/>
New Zealand

[Patrick Bartek]

Openbox window manager only. Phenom II x4 3.0GHZ CPU on my
5 to 11 year old system -- numerous upgrades over those 11 years.

First, Firefox is using 50% of your RAM. That's way too much unless
you have very little RAM to begin with. How much total RAM do you have?
My system has 8GB. Firefox Quantum only shows on average 3 to 4% RAM
usage even when streaming a video.

Also, check what those three "web contents" are. I'm think THEY are the
cause of Firefox's slowness. As I don't know what they are, I can't
hazard a guess as to what's causing the high CPU usage. The only time
I've seen something like this is when an app has crashed into an
infinite loop of some sort. "Kill" those one at a time and see what
happens to Firefox's CPU usage. Also, clear you cache. Check to see if
files are being written continuously to your hard drive.

FWIW, I'd purge Firefox and reinstall. You're running Sid after all,
and all kinds of things can go wrong at any time. Why ARE you running
Sid anyway?

B

[Pétùr]

Le 08/10/2018 à 23:31, Ben Caradoc-Davies a écrit :
> I have slow startup and a brief hang during initial UI layout, but only
> with Adblock Plus enabled.

Thanks for the report. I have the same behavior (and lag when creating
new tab) but even with all the modules (including ublock) disabled.

[bw]

I can confirm the "Web Content" thing on stretch... but it only
happened once so far. Thanks for any help tracking it down, and thanks
for the heads up letting people know about the issue.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=138811

[Sven Joachim]

On 2018-10-08 22:06 +0200, Pétùr wrote:

> Top shows several threads with high cpu usage such as :
>
> PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+
> COMMAND
>
> 12452 petur 20 0 4030664 1,9g 67248 R 72,4 50,1 2:54.34
> firefox
> 12937 petur 20 0 1830092 381016 156676 R 82,7 9,7 0:12.11
> Web Content
> 12503 petur 20 0 1715976 216820 87436 R 81,3 5,5 0:55.60
> Web Content
> 13078 petur 20 0 1454508 95080 65480 R 81,3 2,4 0:05.02
> Web Content
>
> I am using Xfce.

Try killing xfsettingsd, that helps according to
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818#15.

Cheers,
Sven

[Pétùr]

Le 09/10/2018 à 02:04, Patrick Bartek a écrit :
> First, Firefox is using 50% of your RAM. That's way too much unless
> you have very little RAM to begin with. How much total RAM do you have?
> My system has 8GB. Firefox Quantum only shows on average 3 to 4% RAM
> usage even when streaming a video.

I have 8GB of RAM.

> Also, check what those three "web contents" are. I'm think THEY are the
> cause of Firefox's slowness. As I don't know what they are, I can't
> hazard a guess as to what's causing the high CPU usage. The only time
> I've seen something like this is when an app has crashed into an
> infinite loop of some sort. "Kill" those one at a time and see what
> happens to Firefox's CPU usage. Also, clear you cache. Check to see if
> files are being written continuously to your hard drive.

I think also these "web content" threads are the causes of my problem.
But they appears even if I disable all modules.

> FWIW, I'd purge Firefox and reinstall. You're running Sid after all,
> and all kinds of things can go wrong at any time. Why ARE you running
> Sid anyway?

I did purge and refresh (ie new profile) firefox. I don't complain for
this bug. I use sid because I need last versions of some packages for my
work.

Pétùr

[songbird]

Pétùr wrote:
...

> Are other users of sid experiencing the same behavior ?

not that i've noticed but i only use testing most of
the time and sid/experimental only for selected items...


songbird

[Dan Ritter]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 09:59:00PM +0200, Pétùr wrote:
> Le 09/10/2018 à 02:04, Patrick Bartek a écrit :
> > First, Firefox is using 50% of your RAM. That's way too much unless
> > you have very little RAM to begin with. How much total RAM do you have?
> > My system has 8GB. Firefox Quantum only shows on average 3 to 4% RAM
> > usage even when streaming a video.
>
>
> I have 8GB of RAM.
>
> > Also, check what those three "web contents" are. I'm think THEY are the
> > cause of Firefox's slowness. As I don't know what they are, I can't
> > hazard a guess as to what's causing the high CPU usage. The only time
> > I've seen something like this is when an app has crashed into an
> > infinite loop of some sort. "Kill" those one at a time and see what
> > happens to Firefox's CPU usage. Also, clear you cache. Check to see if
> > files are being written continuously to your hard drive.
>
> I think also these "web content" threads are the causes of my problem. But
> they appears even if I disable all modules.

That's because Firefox is now multiprocess.

The main Firefox process handles the user interface, fetching
web pages, decoding them, and some of the rendering work.

The Web Content process(es) are fired off to run things that the
web pages demand be run: JavaScript, CSS animations, weird media
things. Mostly JavaScript.

Killing them off won't help. You need to solve the underlying
problem.

I don't know what that is, exactly, but advertising and trackers
now take up 90% of most web processing time and space. Running a
good ad blocker like uBlock Origin will help a lot.

-dsr-

[bw]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2018, Dan Ritter wrote:

> That's because Firefox is now multiprocess.
>
> The main Firefox process handles the user interface, fetching
> web pages, decoding them, and some of the rendering work.
>
> The Web Content process(es) are fired off to run things that the
> web pages demand be run: JavaScript, CSS animations, weird media
> things. Mostly JavaScript.
>
> Killing them off won't help. You need to solve the underlying
> problem.
>
> I don't know what that is, exactly, but advertising and trackers
> now take up 90% of most web processing time and space. Running a
> good ad blocker like uBlock Origin will help a lot.
>
> -dsr-
>
>

How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

On 11/10/2018 11:15, bw wrote:
> How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
> the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?

Install an extension built for webextensions such as Adblock Plus 3.0 or
later using Firefox Add-ons Manager?:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

I see that there is a webext-ublock-origin for sid but I have never used it:
https://packages.debian.org/sid/web/webext-ublock-origin

[bw]

p.s. and I use stable, because it is stable, not sid, which is unstable.
thanks anyway but I think your advice is a little dubious.

[bw]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:

That might be against my religion. I use debian because I prefer software
that complies with DFSG, and mozilla does not have the same guidelines for
the definition of
"free"
.

[Dan Ritter]

Ah, that's easy. Turns out that stretch is perfectly capable of
running software that the Debian Project does not package, and I
would argue that trying to keep a firefox-esr running is not the
right thing to do. Firefox just isn't ready for the Debian
definition of stable.

The Debian volunteers working on Firefox would be better serving
the community if they were only spending a few minutes packaging
up each major-number release from Mozilla, and putting the rest
of the time towards looking for security problems in it.

There may well be a use for a "stable" web browser, but Firefox
can't be that one.

-dsr-

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

On 11/10/2018 11:36, bw wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
>> On 11/10/2018 11:15, bw wrote:
>>> How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
>>> the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?

>> I see that there is a webext-ublock-origin for sid but I have never used it:
>> https://packages.debian.org/sid/web/webext-ublock-origin

> p.s. and I use stable, because it is stable, not sid, which is unstable.
> thanks anyway but I think your advice is a little dubious.

My point is not that you should use unstable, but that the evidence on
sid suggests that webext-* packages are coming to stable ... when stable
is called buster. I did not see any webext-* packages in
stretch-backports. The workaround is to install them directly from
upstream via Firefox.

I agree that it is sad that Firefox on stretch has been upgraded to
break the xul-ext-* packages before webext-* packages are available.
Unfortunately Debian is wedged between upstream dropping support for
xul-ext-* extensions in ESR 60 and the end of life of ESR 52. You do
want security patches, don't you? I think that ESR 60 with unpackaged
extensions is the lesser evil. Normal service will likely be resumed in
buster.

[bw]

I agree with this opinion, and also what Dan Ritter replied. Firefox is
now unreliable on stretch and should be avoided. Security updates to a
browser that crashes with strange processes named "Web Content" aren't
really all that secure are they?

Why not just remove the package from stretch if it is insecure, or since
it relies on pkgs from outside the repo, should it be moved to "contrib"
until buster is released and we have working extensions?

[David Wright]

On Wed 10 Oct 2018 at 19:11:46 (-0400), bw wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
>
> > On 11/10/2018 11:36, bw wrote:
> > > On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
> > > > On 11/10/2018 11:15, bw wrote:
> > > > > How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
> > > > > the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?
> > > > I see that there is a webext-ublock-origin for sid but I have never used
> > > > it:
> > > > https://packages.debian.org/sid/web/webext-ublock-origin
> > > p.s. and I use stable, because it is stable, not sid, which is unstable.
> > > thanks anyway but I think your advice is a little dubious.

I find a lot of adverts are blocked by my very long /etc/hosts file.
I download the bulk of it from http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
occasionally. (The rest of the file is static addresses for my LAN.)

I originally did this because the adverts would totally overload a
browser running on a 1.5GHz laptop with 500MB memory. But I've kept
using it because the side effects are so minor: occasional nagging by
sites that notice you're blocking ads, and the inability to click on
the paid-for links at the top of google searches.

> > My point is not that you should use unstable, but that the evidence on sid
> > suggests that webext-* packages are coming to stable ... when stable is called
> > buster. I did not see any webext-* packages in stretch-backports. The
> > workaround is to install them directly from upstream via Firefox.
> >
> > I agree that it is sad that Firefox on stretch has been upgraded to break the
> > xul-ext-* packages before webext-* packages are available. Unfortunately
> > Debian is wedged between upstream dropping support for xul-ext-* extensions in
> > ESR 60 and the end of life of ESR 52. You do want security patches, don't you?
> > I think that ESR 60 with unpackaged extensions is the lesser evil. Normal
> > service will likely be resumed in buster.

I have noticed that the old xul…runner processes have gone, and that
plugin-container processes are pretty rare, presumably being replaced
by these Web Content processes.

But my experience is that FF on stretch is a lot more reliable than
the one on jessie ever was. The latter would crash about every couple
of weeks or so, and then there were all those scripts that "stopped
responding".

> I agree with this opinion, and also what Dan Ritter replied. Firefox is
> now unreliable on stretch and should be avoided. Security updates to a
> browser that crashes with strange processes named "Web Content" aren't
> really all that secure are they?

Well, I hope the Debian team ignore your opinions, take note of any
bug reports, and continue to support FF for all the happy Debian users
who are using it to do important work.

It's sensible to come here for help and advice with your problems, but
not to assume that everyone else is suffering in the same manner. If
you know of specific security problems, then report them. Meanwhile,
we'll carry on using FF as usual.

I routinely run two instances on this 4-core 1.6GHz laptop with 4GB
memory, one as myself for mainly financial and administrative sites,
and one as a different user for other sites. That's my nod to security.

> Why not just remove the package from stretch if it is insecure, or since
> it relies on pkgs from outside the repo, should it be moved to "contrib"
> until buster is released and we have working extensions?

Doesn't it have to Depend on packages, rather than just relying on
them, which would be more like a Recommend or Suggest. AIUI the main
difference between FF and more regular packages is that they take
upstream versions more frequently than normal, and that's in order
to increase security, recognising that applying all the security
patches to a static 2016/7 version is impractical.

Cheers,
David.

[bw]

I would sure be interested in your method of running firefox on stretch,
without using extensions or addons from outside the debian repositories?

I never mentioned jessie, not sure what the reference is about? My point
was that is ff needs extensions to be "secure" or reliable, and if the
only place to get them is from outside the debian repo, then logically,
the pkg belongs in "contrib" or plain kicked out of the repo.

[Celejar]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 18:34:32 -0400 (EDT)
bw <bwt...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
>
> > On 11/10/2018 11:15, bw wrote:
> > > How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
> > > the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?
> >
> > Install an extension built for webextensions such as Adblock Plus 3.0 or later
> > using Firefox Add-ons Manager?:
> > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

...

> That might be against my religion. I use debian because I prefer software
> that complies with DFSG, and mozilla does not have the same guidelines for
> the definition of
> "free"

You can use privoxy - not a plugin, but it does the trick.

Celejar

[dekks herton]

On 10/10, bw wrote:

>I would sure be interested in your method of running firefox on stretch,
>without using extensions or addons from outside the debian repositories?
>
>I never mentioned jessie, not sure what the reference is about? My point
>was that is ff needs extensions to be "secure" or reliable, and if the
>only place to get them is from outside the debian repo, then logically,
>the pkg belongs in "contrib" or plain kicked out of the repo.

It doesn't need extensions to be secure, all browsers suffer if they process all the tracking cruft that bogs down the web today.

ESR60 is a far better browser than ESR52 was, XUL was a security nightmare and was depreceated due to that, sometimes ypou have to take a step back to progress.

--
regards.....

Thinkpad T60p 2.33Ghz 2GB SXGA+

Jabber IM: dekk...@jabber.hot-chilli.net

[dekks herton]

Seeing its Sid it's probably a library missmatch.

[Pétùr]

Le 10/10/2018 à 23:57, Dan Ritter a écrit :
>
> I don't know what that is, exactly, but advertising and trackers
> now take up 90% of most web processing time and space. Running a
> good ad blocker like uBlock Origin will help a lot.

I use ublock origin (installed from firefox addons "store" not from
debian package webext-ublock-origin).

I will tried to use webext-ublock-origin instead and keep you informed.

Petùr

[David Wright]

> I would sure be interested in your method of running firefox on stretch,
> without using extensions or addons from outside the debian repositories?

After installing it, I type, say, my-cups to open up the browser for
CUPS administration. (Of course I get all the previously opened tabs.)
I have a slew of bash functions according to what I want to see come up,
like my-weather my-forecast my-radar … …

$ type my-cups
my-cups is a function
my-cups ()
{
local SITE="${1:-http://localhost:631/}";
-myfirefox "$SITE"
}
$ type -- -myfirefox
-myfirefox is a function
-myfirefox ()
{
grep -q "$HOSTNAME-$MYCODENAME" <<< "$BROWSERCODENAMES" && printf 'myfirefox %s\n' "$1" && ( /usr/bin/firefox "$1" & ) || printf '%s\n' "Incorrect release for firefox"
}
$

As for other packages, here's a list of the origin of packages on this
stretch installation, but filtered with grep -v 'main_binary'
(it's massaged output from apt-cache dump.)

Package: amd64-microcode Version: 3.20180524.1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: emacs24-common-non-dfsg Version: 24.5+1-2 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-amd-graphics Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-ipw2x00 Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-iwlwifi Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-linux Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-linux-nonfree Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-misc-nonfree Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: firmware-realtek Version: 20180825+dfsg-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: intel-microcode Version: 3.20180807a.1~deb9u1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/security.debian.org_debian-security_dists_stretch_updates_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: iucode-tool Version: 2.3.1-1~bpo9+1 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch-backports_contrib_binary-amd64_Packages
Package: xtoolwait Version: 1.3-6.2 File: /var/lib/dpkg/status
Package: youtube-dl Version: 2018.09.10-1 File: /var/lib/dpkg/status

> I never mentioned jessie, not sure what the reference is about?

Jessie is just a shorthand for "older versions of firefox" which is
what I'm comparing with FF on stretch. I've been running FF since at
least etch, and perhaps sarge and woody (I'm not sure what the package
mozilla-browser actually ran), woody being the last Debian where I ran
opera. I don't remember all the FF versions I have run, but they'll
all be listed in the mainline Debian distributions of the time.

There seems to have been a lot of criticism here of stretch, not just
per se (which is to be expected as it's the current version) but in
comparison with previous releases, and that's doesn't match my experience.
If anything, vanilla stretch has been better for me than recent releases.

> My point
> was that is ff needs extensions to be "secure" or reliable, and if the
> only place to get them is from outside the debian repo, then logically,
> the pkg belongs in "contrib" or plain kicked out of the repo.

It would surely be more to the point for you to indicate what it is
you think I'm missing. I can tell you that Themes is default and
Languages is English(GB). That's it. I don't count my doctored
/etc/hosts as an add-on because it's not a software component.

Cheers,
David.

[Patrick Bartek]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 21:59:00 +0200
Pétùr <petu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Le 09/10/2018 à 02:04, Patrick Bartek a écrit :
> > First, Firefox is using 50% of your RAM. That's way too much unless
> > you have very little RAM to begin with. How much total RAM do you
> > have? My system has 8GB. Firefox Quantum only shows on average 3 to
> > 4% RAM usage even when streaming a video.
>
>
> I have 8GB of RAM.

Then lack of RAM is not the problem . . .

> > Also, check what those three "web contents" are. I'm think THEY
> > are the cause of Firefox's slowness. As I don't know what they
> > are, I can't hazard a guess as to what's causing the high CPU
> > usage. The only time I've seen something like this is when an app
> > has crashed into an infinite loop of some sort. "Kill" those one
> > at a time and see what happens to Firefox's CPU usage. Also, clear
> > you cache. Check to see if files are being written continuously to
> > your hard drive.
>
> I think also these "web content" threads are the causes of my
> problem. But they appears even if I disable all modules.

Based on other responses, we know what "web content" in Top
constitutes. I wish they would have unique names instead of just "web
content." Would make things easier. Someone said your slowness
problems is caused by library, etc. incompatibility. I was
wondering . . .

You said you're running Firefox 62.0.3, IIRC. Did you install this
from Sid's repo or download directly from Mozilla? I downloaded
Firefox Quantum 62.0.3 from Mozilla (tar.gz file) and installed it
manually. Quantum isn't in the Stretch repo. I just copied the
entire firefox directory to /opt. (FYI: I run only Openbox with a
single LXPanel with menu.) If you haven't done this, maybe, give it a
try. The binary has to be very generic as it's designed to run on
various versions of Linux not just Debian. Maybe, it will be more
compatible.


B

[Pétùr]

Le 10/10/2018 à 20:43, Sven Joachim a écrit :
> Try killing xfsettingsd, that helps according to
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818#15.

Thanks!

I can confirm killing xfsettingsd fixes the issue (but Xfce is not
really usable after that).

I have launch again xfsettings with the debug option and use firefox, I
have the following messages related to fontconfig.

$ XFSETTINGSD_DEBUG=1 xfsettingsd --replace --no-daemon
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(workspaces): 4 desktop names set from xfconf
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336916)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=1, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336919)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=2, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
Fontconfig warning: Directory/file mtime in the future. New fonts may
not be detected.
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336922)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=3, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
Fontconfig warning: Directory/file mtime in the future. New fonts may
not be detected.
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336925)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=4, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336928)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=5, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336931)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=6, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336934)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=7, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): timestamp updated (time=1539336937)
xfce4-settings(xsettings): 33 settings changed (serial=8, len=1252)
xfce4-settings(fontconfig): monitoring 131 paths

[David Wright]

On Wed 10 Oct 2018 at 18:45:16 (-0400), Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 06:15:06PM -0400, bw wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Oct 2018, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > > That's because Firefox is now multiprocess.
> > >
> > > The main Firefox process handles the user interface, fetching
> > > web pages, decoding them, and some of the rendering work.
> > >
> > > The Web Content process(es) are fired off to run things that the
> > > web pages demand be run: JavaScript, CSS animations, weird media
> > > things. Mostly JavaScript.

I'm running FF 60.2.2esr and displaying some ancient html (2001) with
static pages containing text and photos. Top shows "firefox-esr"
(7932) most of the time, "Web content" (7988) infrequently, and
"file:// Content" (8026) perhaps a little more often (it's difficult
to judge). These processes pop up almost regardless of when I click to
add another tab to the collection that are open.

ps ax shows the following list of processes:

7932 pts/17 Sl 0:33 firefox-esr file:///home/david/…the index page….html
7988 pts/17 Sl 0:02 /usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr -contentproc -childID 1 -isForBrowser -intPrefs 235:1| -boolPrefs 36:1|261:1|301:0| -stringPrefs 2
8026 pts/17 Sl 0:07 /usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr -contentproc -childID 2 -isForBrowser -intPrefs 235:1| -boolPrefs 36:1|261:1|301:0| -stringPrefs 2
8095 pts/17 Sl 0:00 /usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr -contentproc -childID 3 -isForBrowser -intPrefs 235:1| -boolPrefs 36:1|261:1|301:0| -stringPrefs 2

I've not observed 8095 in top at all. There's no java/css or anything
like that. I did notice that if I hold down Ctrl-PageUp (ie circulate
through tabs), 7932 and 8026 stay firm at the top of top.

When I close all the tabs and leave open just the Mozilla Firefox
start page that displays the one-inch icons of sites I visit,
PID 8026 disappears, and it's easy to see that 7988 (Web content)
is processing the icons as I move the mouse over them.

> > > Killing them off won't help. You need to solve the underlying
> > > problem.
> > >
> > > I don't know what that is, exactly, but advertising and trackers
> > > now take up 90% of most web processing time and space. Running a
> > > good ad blocker like uBlock Origin will help a lot.
> >

> > How exactly do you think stretch users should run an adblocker when all
> > the xul-ext-* extensions are now broken?
>
> Ah, that's easy. Turns out that stretch is perfectly capable of
> running software that the Debian Project does not package, and I
> would argue that trying to keep a firefox-esr running is not the
> right thing to do. Firefox just isn't ready for the Debian
> definition of stable.
>
> The Debian volunteers working on Firefox would be better serving
> the community if they were only spending a few minutes packaging
> up each major-number release from Mozilla, and putting the rest
> of the time towards looking for security problems in it.
>
> There may well be a use for a "stable" web browser, but Firefox
> can't be that one.

I would understand your writing the last sentence with the word
"secure" (though I would wish to know which insecurities you're
troubled by), but not as written here with "stable". I'm finding
stretch's FF Quantum very stable so far. Is this because I don't
use a DE, perhaps?


Cheers,
David.

[Dan Ritter]

In the sense of "stable" as Debian "stable": for a period of
around 2-3 years, the software at the beginning is about the
same as the software at the end, modulo security fixes.

Firefox and Chrom[e|ium] are changing too rapidly for that to make
sense, in my opinion. Mozilla's own ESR program doesn't even
qualify, as they only maintain the release for "more than a
year".

-dsr-

[rhkr...@gmail.com]

Thanks for vocalizing (textalizing?) something that maybe should have been
obvious (to me) but wasn't!

[bw]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, David Wright wrote:

> <quote from myself, bw>

> > My point
> > was that is ff needs extensions to be "secure" or reliable, and if the
> > only place to get them is from outside the debian repo, then logically,
> > the pkg belongs in "contrib" or plain kicked out of the repo.
>
> It would surely be more to the point for you to indicate what it is
> you think I'm missing. I can tell you that Themes is default and
> Languages is English(GB). That's it. I don't count my doctored
> /etc/hosts as an add-on because it's not a software component.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>
>

Make sure you are not missing any of these?
https://pastebin.com/RpbAxgx5

[bw]

Bless your heart for going to all that trouble. I sure didn't need to
see all your firmware, dear. You remind me of my elderly Aunt who always
responds to every question with a 30 min story about feeding ducks.

L8r.

[bw]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, David Wright wrote:

> On Wed 10 Oct 2018 at 21:04:58 (-0400), bw wrote:
> > > > I agree with this opinion, and also what Dan Ritter replied. Firefox is
> > > > now unreliable on stretch and should be avoided. Security updates to a
> > > > browser that crashes with strange processes named "Web Content" aren't
> > > > really all that secure are they?
> > >
> > > Well, I hope the Debian team ignore your opinions, take note of any
> > > bug reports, and continue to support FF for all the happy Debian users
> > > who are using it to do important work.

Well packages in main should not rely on contrib or non-free? If you need
non-free or contrib to run firefox-esr on stretch to do your important
work, then that is my point. You hack it with a hosts file, okay that
doesn;t count as a pkg, but the default pkg is a piece of insecure
garbage,.

You posted your use of non-free pkgs to rebut this? wtf?

[John Crawley]

@bw what browser do you recommend for Debian Stretch?

--
John

[David Wright]

Are we discussing FF and its dependencies, or have we moved on to the
topic of firmware needed to support the hardware that I've inherited
for running Debian on?

But I can't really debate points with someone who writes bald
statements like "the default pkg is a piece of insecure garbage";
sorry.

Cheers,
David.

[David Wright]

On Sat 13 Oct 2018 at 21:43:58 (-0400), bw wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, David Wright wrote:
> > <quote from myself, bw>
> > > My point
> > > was that is ff needs extensions to be "secure" or reliable, and if the
> > > only place to get them is from outside the debian repo, then logically,
> > > the pkg belongs in "contrib" or plain kicked out of the repo.
> >
> > It would surely be more to the point for you to indicate what it is
> > you think I'm missing. I can tell you that Themes is default and
> > Languages is English(GB). That's it. I don't count my doctored
> > /etc/hosts as an add-on because it's not a software component.
>

> Make sure you are not missing any of these?
> https://pastebin.com/RpbAxgx5

Probably, but I've no idea why you want me picking over your prefs file.
(Actually, it would be useful to know how to print out the about:config
page so tht it can be perused at leisure.)

Cheers,
David.

[David Wright]

> Bless your heart for going to all that trouble.

Trouble? It's just two lines of shell, using apt-cache, dpkg-query,
grep, sed and sort; the kind of thing any sysadmin could rustle up in
a couple of minutes, and then stick in a bash function (as I did,
many moons ago).

> I sure didn't need to
> see all your firmware, dear. You remind me of my elderly Aunt who always
> responds to every question with a 30 min story about feeding ducks.
>
> L8r.

Firmware is just what happens to dominate the list which was generated
automatically (as mentioned above). I've installed one package of user
software from non-free, and its appearance there seems to be caused by
some details of its licence. I've installed one ancient (squeeze)
package, xtoolwait, and one more up-to-date (buster) version of the
youtube-dl package, without which I've found it impossible to download
a good proportion of internet videos.

I posted the list to demonstrate that I'm not being economical with
the truth about having no non-free/contrib packages supporting FF.
Thus there's no reason to move FF out of the "main" distribution.

However, the rude attitude you show here is indicative of problems
stretching far beyond technical discussions of Debian.

Cheers,
David.

[Felix Miata]

David Wright composed on 2018-10-16 17:07 (UTC-0500):

> (Actually, it would be useful to know how to print out the about:config
> page so tht it can be perused at leisure.)

prefs.js is a plain text file in the profile directory.
--
Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[David Wright]

On Tue 16 Oct 2018 at 18:42:19 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
> David Wright composed on 2018-10-16 17:07 (UTC-0500):
>
> > (Actually, it would be useful to know how to print out the about:config
> > page so tht it can be perused at leisure.)
>
> prefs.js is a plain text file in the profile directory.

Yes, but it only lists items that one has allegedly modified.
I estimate somewhere over 3600 options on the page (counting
PageDown keypresses), but only a couple of hundred or so in
that file.

Cheers,
David.

[Brian]

1. Shift+F2 opens a CLI at the bottom of the page.

2. Type "s". It should autocomplete to "screenshot".

3. Then TAB.

4. Type "--f". It should autocomplete to "--fullpage".

5. TAB again and give a filename.

The *.png can be printed. Gives the full page for a web page but only
what is visible on the screen for about:config.

--
Brian.

[David Wright]

I guess I didn't make myself clear: by print I meant print the
information text to the PDF queue, and not just a picture of the
information. The former means I can search/sort/filter it etc,
again at leisure.

BTW I think I'm a little ahead of you here. I press the single
keystroke AltL-F11 for a window/root screenshot (with scrot).
However, in view of the number of pages, it's easier to press
Shift-AltL-F12 to start a video capture and then scroll through
the pages. On replaying it, I can use Pause to read it. But it's
not the same.

Cheers,
David.

[Brian]

On Wed 17 Oct 2018 at 14:27:41 -0500, David Wright wrote:

> On Wed 17 Oct 2018 at 13:53:45 (+0100), Brian wrote:
> > On Tue 16 Oct 2018 at 18:26:46 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > > On Tue 16 Oct 2018 at 18:42:19 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
> > > > David Wright composed on 2018-10-16 17:07 (UTC-0500):
> > > >
> > > > > (Actually, it would be useful to know how to print out the about:config
> > > > > page so tht it can be perused at leisure.)
> > > >
> > > > prefs.js is a plain text file in the profile directory.
> > >
> > > Yes, but it only lists items that one has allegedly modified.
> > > I estimate somewhere over 3600 options on the page (counting
> > > PageDown keypresses), but only a couple of hundred or so in
> > > that file.
> >
> > 1. Shift+F2 opens a CLI at the bottom of the page.
> >
> > 2. Type "s". It should autocomplete to "screenshot".
> >
> > 3. Then TAB.
> >
> > 4. Type "--f". It should autocomplete to "--fullpage".
> >
> > 5. TAB again and give a filename.
> >
> > The *.png can be printed. Gives the full page for a web page but only
> > what is visible on the screen for about:config.
>
> I guess I didn't make myself clear: by print I meant print the
> information text to the PDF queue, and not just a picture of the

Which "pdf queue" is it you are talking about? There isn't one on
Debian.

> information. The former means I can search/sort/filter it etc,
> again at leisure.
>
> BTW I think I'm a little ahead of you here. I press the single
> keystroke AltL-F11 for a window/root screenshot (with scrot).
> However, in view of the number of pages, it's easier to press
> Shift-AltL-F12 to start a video capture and then scroll through
> the pages. On replaying it, I can use Pause to read it. But it's
> not the same.

Sort it out whichever way you want. If this fulfils your objective of
"..print out the about:config page so tht it can be perused at leisure."
then take it.

I have nothing more to contribute.

--
Brian.

[David Wright]

On Wed 17 Oct 2018 at 20:52:21 (+0100), Brian wrote:
> On Wed 17 Oct 2018 at 14:27:41 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > On Wed 17 Oct 2018 at 13:53:45 (+0100), Brian wrote:
> > > On Tue 16 Oct 2018 at 18:26:46 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > > > On Tue 16 Oct 2018 at 18:42:19 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
> > > > > David Wright composed on 2018-10-16 17:07 (UTC-0500):
> > > > >
> > > > > > (Actually, it would be useful to know how to print out the about:config
> > > > > > page so tht it can be perused at leisure.)
> > > > >
> > > > > prefs.js is a plain text file in the profile directory.
> > > >
> > > > Yes, but it only lists items that one has allegedly modified.
> > > > I estimate somewhere over 3600 options on the page (counting
> > > > PageDown keypresses), but only a couple of hundred or so in
> > > > that file.
> > >
> > > 1. Shift+F2 opens a CLI at the bottom of the page.
> > >
> > > 2. Type "s". It should autocomplete to "screenshot".
> > >
> > > 3. Then TAB.
> > >
> > > 4. Type "--f". It should autocomplete to "--fullpage".
> > >
> > > 5. TAB again and give a filename.
> > >
> > > The *.png can be printed. Gives the full page for a web page but only
> > > what is visible on the screen for about:config.
> >
> > I guess I didn't make myself clear: by print I meant print the
> > information text to the PDF queue, and not just a picture of the
>
> Which "pdf queue" is it you are talking about? There isn't one on
> Debian.

The one that's the target of
ii printer-driver-cups-pdf 2.6.1-22 amd64 printer driver for PDF writing via CUPS
99% of what I "print" on FF goes to PDF files rather than actually
applying any ink to paper.

> > information. The former means I can search/sort/filter it etc,
> > again at leisure.
> >
> > BTW I think I'm a little ahead of you here. I press the single
> > keystroke AltL-F11 for a window/root screenshot (with scrot).
> > However, in view of the number of pages, it's easier to press
> > Shift-AltL-F12 to start a video capture and then scroll through
> > the pages. On replaying it, I can use Pause to read it. But it's
> > not the same.
>
> Sort it out whichever way you want. If this fulfils your objective of
> "..print out the about:config page so tht it can be perused at leisure."
> then take it.

Not really, as I stated.

> I have nothing more to contribute.

Understood. Perhaps not one other person has ever wished to put the
contents of about:config into a text file, which may be why mozilla
make it near impossible to do. But if there is one other such person,
perhaps they know of a workaround. That person doesn't have to be you.

Cheers,
David.

[bw]

Was there anything about feeding ducks? please quote the relevant part,
dear.

[Marina & Steffen]

Hi all

My reply concerns this link:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2018/10/msg00392.html

I could solve the problem for me (debian & Firefox) as follow:

1. Firefox-Settings

1.1.
Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Performance
- Disable «Use recommended performance settings»
- Disable «Use hardware acceleration when available»
- Nevertheless, set «Content process limit» to 1

1.2. Additional settings regarding CPU performance in FF
about:config -> «webgl.disabled» to true
about:config -> «browser.tabs.remote.autostart» to false
about:config -> «browser.sessionstore.interval» ... 15000 (15") to
3000000 (50')
about:config -> «browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled» to false
about:config -> «browser.cache.disk.capacity» (KB) ... 1048576 (1 GB) to
65536 (64 MB)
about:config -> «browser.cache.cache_isolation» to true
about:config -> «browser.cache.disk.enable» to false

2. Intel package, in case of Intel processor
Install deb package «intel-microcode»

Could you please announce this info? But please don't announce my email.

Thanks, Steffen
--
Best regards / Mit besten Grüßen

Steffen

Email: in...@letter.zone