Firefox: not what it used to be

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:24 am

OK, I am not liking Firefox 3.

It used to be that I could run Firefox on my old Win XP computer with no problems whatsoever, but now it seems it crashes every 10-15 minutes on average. I really wish I were exaggerating there, but I'm not.

Is this a browser problem or a OS problem or a combination of the two? What should I do?

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:47 pm

For my old Win XP computer, Firefox ends up using a lot of system resources, so I can't constantly keep opening tabs and doing lots of different things at the same time. When I can tell that it's starting to slow, I have to exit Firefox and then return to it. Is it anything like that with you?

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:29 pm

Not exactly. There was not a problem with FF2 on my old Win XP computer. Then I went and got a new Vista computer and downloaded FF3. It is constantly crashing and stalling, particularly when watching videos online.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:14 pm

I'm running Firefox 3.0.4 on XP Pro and it's not only perfectly stable (well within the limits of 'perfect' one can expect from a Windows program) but it's resource requirements are perfectly benign (though I admit I rarely have more than a dozen tabs open).
Can't comment on Vista.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:36 am

There's a registry hack you can do to make FF crank down it's RAM usage on minimize, and just min/max it to free anything up if needed. And I have very few issues with mine, and haven't since I can remember.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 8:12 pm

The Cleric wrote:There's a registry hack you can do to make FF crank down it's RAM usage on minimize, and just min/max it to free anything up if needed. And I have very few issues with mine, and haven't since I can remember.

Ah, but how do I find out how to do it?

It seems this happens most often if I am watching videos online, so it may be the RAM.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:45 am

The Minx wrote:
The Cleric wrote:There's a registry hack you can do to make FF crank down it's RAM usage on minimize, and just min/max it to free anything up if needed. And I have very few issues with mine, and haven't since I can remember.
Ah, but how do I find out how to do it?

It seems this happens most often if I am watching videos online, so it may be the RAM.

If it's video-related, it sounds more like a plugin problem. Are your media and flash plugins up-to-date?

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:46 am

Bounty wrote:
The Minx wrote:
The Cleric wrote:There's a registry hack you can do to make FF crank down it's RAM usage on minimize, and just min/max it to free anything up if needed. And I have very few issues with mine, and haven't since I can remember.
Ah, but how do I find out how to do it?

It seems this happens most often if I am watching videos online, so it may be the RAM.
If it's video-related, it sounds more like a plugin problem. Are your media and flash plugins up-to-date?

I think so, the computer is brand new and my Flash player version is 10,0,12,36.

Hadrianvs · Post by **Hadrianvs** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:53 pm

I've heard bad things about version three of Firefox and decided not to upgrade. I am quite satisfied with it as is.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:09 pm

Hadrianvs wrote:I've heard bad things about version three of Firefox and decided not to upgrade. I am quite satisfied with it as is.

*shrug*

Your mileage may vary, apparently. I've used Firefox 3.x on Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.4, and Ubuntu linux with no issues whatsoever with plugins or the sort, except on the OSX version. There is an annoyance with certificates and addons with the OSX version, but I'll cite that as a "your mileage may vary" type of thing.

It runs on average about 2x the speed of Firefox 2, and has better addons available. The choice is yours.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:01 pm

Firefox has always been a memory hog. Let's see, let me check the processes...

Yep. Firefox.exe, memory usage: 307,552 K. It's rarely less than 198k, even with only one tab on initial start.

Oh, and the process doesn't end when I close Firefox; I have to manually kill it from the task manager, or it'll continue to sit there eating an inordinate chunk of the CPU. I forgot to do that when I started up a game yesterday (not even a new one; it was X-Wing: Alliance), and after awhile playing, my CPU usage jumped to 100%; it was so bad the command to end processes couldn't get through, and I had to do a hard restart. And the thing with the most memory usage was, surprise, Firefox.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:57 pm

63,600K, 0% CPU useage. Admittedly only one tab open. Of course, Windows software behaving inconsistent as hell on the very same hardware leave alone different PCs isn't exactly a recent development so that doesn't necessarily mean much but so far I have absolutely no complaints about Firefox 3.

Destructionator XV · Post by **Destructionator XV** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:56 pm

The Linux version is just as bad, if not worse; this isn't a Windows problem. The Firefox devs are just incompetent.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:54 am

I'm under 100k, with 2 pages and a dozen tabs open.

Charon · Post by **Charon** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:04 am

15 pages open, I was hovering at ~142,000.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:01 pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Oh, and the process doesn't end when I close Firefox; I have to manually kill it from the task manager, or it'll continue to sit there eating an inordinate chunk of the CPU. I forgot to do that when I started up a game yesterday (not even a new one; it was X-Wing: Alliance), and after awhile playing, my CPU usage jumped to 100%; it was so bad the command to end processes couldn't get through, and I had to do a hard restart. And the thing with the most memory usage was, surprise, Firefox.

That happens to me, too, if it gets up beyond a certain point (I haven't quite figured out how much). If I just open it for a little while and only have a tab or two open and then close, it ends, but if it's open too long or with too many tabs I have to kill it. I thought it was just my computer being old and clunky.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:26 am

After moving to my new computer (Intel-based iMac), I can report no weirdnesses with Firefox. Right now, it's using 128mb of memory with six tabs open, including Youtube and hulu.

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