Firefox problems

[trendie]

am getting some severe firefox issues.

system slowing down, so had a look at Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del)

showed Firefox with over 1G memory used!! (thats 1,000,000 Kb)
this is incredibly unusual, and have AVG run ok every day, with no viruses, etc.
(actually, thousands of warnings, etc)

I have latest Firefox loaded, after checking "Updates" option.

Whats causing this, then?? Any clues?
Thing is, I tried opening each site in a different FF window, to see if I could narrow down which particular site was the prob, but the "Processes" tab just shows ONE instance of FF, so couldnt use this logic.

Is affecting machine performance.

Is best bet to simply reset my machine to Factory Settings, and start all over??

thanks

 

[trendie]

"Is affecting machine performance.

Is best bet to simply reset my machine to Factory Settings, and start all over??"

no ... thats a last resort Trendie

Could unistall browser - reinstall it

try just regular e browser - see if problem with both

have uninstalled and re-installed FF; am monitoring.

am using Opera as back-up browser.
but am concerned the surfing security isnt available on Opera (AVG marks sites as green-ticks or red-crosses dependent on potential threat, so I know to avoid, etc)

I have been told that performance suffers when registry gets screwed over time, and .exes left behind (eg, I have paltalk.exe running, when I know I have uninstalled it).
But saving salient sections to backup, and resetting is certainly drastic, but only my trading matters on this machine; everything else is expendable.

would like to know WHY I'm having this problem.

 

[Dommo]

"I tried opening each site in a different FF window, to see if I could narrow down which particular site was the prob, but the "Processes" tab just shows ONE instance of FF, so couldnt use this logic"

That is what I would try.

Do you start your separate FF windows from the start menu or do you open them as new windows from a prev opened instance?

IE will start new windows in the same process, but if you open IE from start menu you get a new process and can monitor memory that way. IE can also hog memory.

 

[trendie]

"I tried opening each site in a different FF window, to see if I could narrow down which particular site was the prob, but the "Processes" tab just shows ONE instance of FF, so couldnt use this logic"

That is what I would try.

Do you start your separate FF windows from the start menu or do you open them as new windows from a prev opened instance?

IE will start new windows in the same process, but if you open IE from start menu you get a new process and can monitor memory that way. IE can also hog memory.

was opening new windows from first FF tab.

have tried opening new FF window from desktop icon and from Start Menu.
Same situation. still shows just one instance of firefox.exe in Processes section.
currently at 181,160K. over 3 instances of FF.

tend to avoid IE: am told its riddled with bugs, and is unnecessarily resource-hungry.

 

[Dommo]

was opening new windows from first FF tab.

have tried opening new FF window from desktop icon and from Start Menu.
Same situation. still shows just one instance of firefox.exe in Processes section.
currently at 181,160K. over 3 instances of FF.

tend to avoid IE: am told its riddled with bugs, and is unnecessarily resource-hungry.

ok - I don't know what the start menu shortcut to FF is - it's possible it passes a parameter to FF.exe or begins with some other process which checks for an existing instance.
So, another possibility to get separate processes is to start it from the command line or to try double clicking the process itself from within Windows Explorer (prob under C:\Programs). But if that doesn't work I don't know what will.

Performance-wise, IE is a bit of a disappointment in Vista and I commonly see browser instances taking over half a GB.

 

[Mr. Charts]

FWIW, Firefox slows my machine down drastically so use Windows 8 and never had a problem with it.
Not very helpful I know, but you're not alone with FF slowing things down.
Happy Holidays,
Richard

 

[Trader333]

I use Firerfox with no issues at all but if you cannot get on with it then try Google Chrome which is pretty good.


Paul

 

[WinstonSmith]

FWIW I had problems with FF slowing down after installing the latest version of AVG (version 9 iirc). It didn't show up as a problem in task manager though. I was running AVG with Zona Alarm which AVG warned not to do. Disabling AVG solved the issue, and I'm now using Avira instead with no more speed issues.

 

[trendie]

re-installing FF seems to have fixed it for now. but then again, I dont have that many sites open.
currently, its using 500M for FF, and 138M for Opera. (FF seems to use up more memory; Opera memory fluctuates. Does FF store all downloaded data until session closes perhaps? I do use BBC Iplayer a lot during the day, and can easily get through 3-4 30-min radio plays a day)

no irritating "whirring" from my PC.
speed up to normal.
will monitor. and next option will be to try out Google Chrome.

EDIT: thanks for all advice and suggestions.

 

[trendie]

weird!

FF memory useage now at 701,000K. (701M)
Opera, at 74,000K. (74M)

Opera seems to be deciding not to use/store data.
FF seems to be increasing its useage, bit by bit, but without any extra load, ie, no new sites.

 

[Trader333]

Firefox showing 350K on my pc


Paul

 

[bluetipex]

I find the following very useful:

Systraymeter

http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/07/10/systraymeter/

and also Sweepram

http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/07/06/sweepram/

(I obtained both of these from this excellent link http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/...utfit-your-system-with-all-freeware-programs/)

Open some tabs in FF (with Windows Task Manager running). Then watch how Sweepram reclaims RAM that would otherwise stay in use AFTER you close one of the tabs. Very nice indeed.

Mobmeter
I also use http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/MobileMeter-Download-24748.html
to monitor my laptop temperature etc. Very useful also.