Firefox CPU usage

[Carol Haynes]

Can people post here and give me some idea of the CPU usage they are getting with Firefox 1.5.0.2

I have had some problems with my system over the last 12 hours and FF now seems to be using up to 95% CPU when loading pages. It reverts to 0-2% when I am typing (like now) or idling as I read a page but clicking on a single web link sends the CPU rocketing upwards.

To give a fair comparison I am loading 9 tabs as my 'home page group' when I open Firefox and I have disabled all extensions.

Thanks.

[kimmchii]

try a new profile see if it goes away:
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile#new

95%cpu is not normal.

[Deozaan]

Sorry I can't help with the CPU usage problem, but Mark sent me this link the other day from LifeHacker showing you how you can reduce the RAM that Firefox uses up. It's pretty neat to see it go from 150MB down to 6-8MB just by minimizing it:

http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2006/03/26/this-may-help-your-firefox-memory-leak/

[noth(a)nk.you]

I haven't seen memory shrinkage on the scale Deozaan mentions, but trim_on_minimize routinely cuts my Firefox's usage in half.

On the CPU usage, I've noticed that embedded objects often skyrocket the CPU (e.g. flash animation banner ads).  Consider installing one (or all) of the following extensions to hide such objects:

Adblock Plus (blocks ads based on rules, see here for good rule list)
FlashBlock (blocks all Flash objects until you click on them)
NoScript (blocks anything embedded until you click, can be annoying)

These are common extensions among Firefox users--very worthwhile.

[Hirudin]

OK, I've been using FF 1.5.0.2 for the last 12 minutes. Process explorer's resource history shows the ram usage went up from 16mb to 30mb, the CPU usage never went much higher than 12%.

For the most part, I was browsing DC, using ~5 tabs at a time max.

[brotherS]

Sorry I can't help with the CPU usage problem, but Mark sent me this link the other day from LifeHacker showing you how you can reduce the RAM that Firefox uses up. It's pretty neat to see it go from 150MB down to 6-8MB just by minimizing it:

http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2006/03/26/this-may-help-your-firefox-memory-leak/

Sounds great, I will try that too!

[f0dder]

Sorry I can't help with the CPU usage problem, but Mark sent me this link the other day from LifeHacker showing you how you can reduce the RAM that Firefox uses up. It's pretty neat to see it go from 150MB down to 6-8MB just by minimizing it:

http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2006/03/26/this-may-help-your-firefox-memory-leak/

If you do that, watch Process Explorer closely. If it's a hack that pages out memory to disk, it's NOT worth it ("unused RAM is wasted RAM" + swap is slow). FFox does have insane memory usage compared to IE tho.

[brotherS]

FFox does have insane memory usage compared to IE tho.

"A lot more" is true regarding the possibilites of FF vs. IE though too!

[f0dder]

FFox does have insane memory usage compared to IE tho.

"A lot more" is true regarding the possibilites of FF vs. IE though too!

True... but you can get sorta all that functionality by using some other IE-based browser like Avant or Maxthon - I'm on the fox, though, because it's still not as targetted as IE (and no, I don't have any illusions that FF's code is much better than IE's). I'd be on Opera if it didn't have misc. rendering bugs and it had better adblocking + a few more things, it's faster and leaner and meaner than FF.

[noth(a)nk.you]

If it's a hack that pages out memory to disk....

It seems not to:

This preference determines whether to allow Windows to reclaim memory from a minimized Mozilla application.  (Source)

[Deozaan]

I think it does send it to the hard drive but I haven't noticed any slowdown when restoring the window and I often have 7+ tabs going.

I also like to multitask, so I use up a lot of RAM by having lots of processes open. Anything that can reduce the RAM usage (especially while I'm not using it) is good in my book.

[Carol Haynes]

I seem to generally have problems with browsers (both Firefox and Internet Explorer seem to be using large CPU counts).

I have jumped in and updated to Internet Explorer 7 beta as I thought this might sort out any IE installation issues. It works fine but it hasn't sorted the heavy CPU usage.

This is just when the apps are loading initally and displaying the home pages. Once they are working they are not SO bad but still higher than expected.

I have tried removing and reinstalling my network connections but that has made no difference.

I also tried creating a new Firefox profile. It was marginally better (but then I wasn't running with a lot of tabs and extensions) but not a huge improvement.

Anyone got any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

[kimmchii]

you dont wanna hear this:

reinstall xp. 

[Carol Haynes]

You're right on both counts ...

anyone got a spare week

[f0dder]

Btw, a thing that means high CPU usage in any web browser: flash. Flash is soooo badly programmed.

[Carol Haynes]

There is definitely something wrong at the core of my Windows installation ...

I stopped every running service it was possible/sensible to stop - including everything that allowed access to networking/internet etc. so there was an absolute minimum of services running, and exited all processes it was possible to kill off.

My system at idle still used about 4% of CPU which is not normal, and as soon as I do anything the CPU count jumps up quite high.

I think the only practical solution is to revert to a backup - trouble is I haven't done a full backup in a while (ahem ...)

[brotherS]

FFox does have insane memory usage compared to IE tho.

"A lot more" is true regarding the possibilites of FF vs. IE though too!

True... but you can get sorta all that functionality by using some other IE-based browser like Avant or Maxthon

No way. I used Avant Browser myself and had a look at Maxthon too, but Firefox is by FAR more customizable!