Firefox is Almost on My Last Nerve
Posted on April 12, 2007
11 Comments
OK look, here’s the deal: I’ve always been ambivalent about having a “favorite” browser as I spend a lot of time bouncing around between Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Opera. I like ‘em all for one reason or another.
At the end of the day, however, I always end up back with Firefox as the primary browser I use. It tends to work well, but most importantly: It has the best variety of extensions. That’s the key, right? Mold the browser to suit my needs.
Lately, however, it’s really starting to get on my nerves. No, not just the atrocious memory usage (here’s that tweak) but the CPU usage. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but after I’ve had the browser up for an hour or so, it starts to go nuts with CPU. Scroll a page, peg the CPU. Switch tabs, peg the CPU. Look at it cross-eyed and yep, CPU surge. And not just a little blip. Oh no, we’re talking 5 - 20 second grinders. Everything else stops while we scroll. ARGHHH! I close the browser, load it back up and all is well again for a while.
Yeah, it is probably related to an extension I’m running. But hell, that’s the whole reason I’m running Firefox in the first place. If it wasn’t for these extensions, I’d be over in Opera, FFS.
For grins, here are the extensions I’m currently running. Yes, I’ve already done some pruning. Anyone recognize any of these as notorious memory or CPU pigs?
- Firebug
- Web Developer
- ColorZilla (OK, maybe I could live without this, but it is so dang handy)
- del.icio.us Bookmarks
- Gmail Manager
- Google Notebook
- Google Toolbar for Firefox
- Live HTTP Headers
- StumbleUpon (sometimes it’s OK to just wander…)
- URLParams
Sure, that’s a lot, but geeze, they’re all useful almost daily between my work and home life. And like I said earlier, without ‘em I’m not sure I see a compelling reason to stick with Firefox.
Tags: browsers, CPU, firefox, IE7, memory, opera
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11 Responses to “Firefox is Almost on My Last Nerve”
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Hmm, I guess you’ll need to do some research work on this…
Make sure that you uninstall the plugins and then reinstall them one by one…I think that’s the only solution to this. I know it is a difficult task, but that’s what almost everyone will suggest you.
I’m not getting that kind of behavior and am running adblock and blog this. I know they didn’t make your list, but they should have.
My point is that I think it IS one of your plugins on the one hand, and that’s not the browser’s fault.
If you buy a car and love everything about it except it gets bad gas mileage because of the billboard you’ve attached to the roof to advertise your business it’s not the car’s fault, even though it put the roof right there for you to use.
Some extensions are just written badly, it’s why I quit greasemonkey, it has some bad extensions too.
So, Mr. Crankypants… you already know what to do, when are you going to let us know which extension it was?
Boy, tough crowd! And yes, you’re both right. The next step is to remove ‘em all.
The idea of testing one by one while waiting an hour or two to see if the problem comes back is not making me smile.
Rich, I find your analogy flawed.
And if I was more awake I’d take you to task for it. But since I overslept… *sigh* I’ll just ask you to verbally pummel yourself for a few minutes.
I almost added at the end that your mentioning “Straw men” or attacking my argument rather than addressing your own obviously flawed reasoning that it was firefox’s problem would prove Scott Adam’s theory about free will and it’s non-existence. I see now that I should have.
Rich, I say “bah” in your general direction.
I actually had a point to make in that post, but I just didn’t hit it hard enough.
Leave the extensions out of the equation for a minute. Without them, firefox seems just like any other “modern” browser. When I’m using IE7 or Opera, I’m most often going back to FF because of the extensions. Not because of how the browser itself works/acts. I dump all the extensions and I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use the dang thing.
Thus, my ill-worded or poorly phrased distress.
I have been having the same exact problem. I have pinpointed it to a plugin/add-on to some degree but I am not sure which one. Maybe if we listed ours (mine is a long friggin list) we can find a common denominator.
At first I thought it was an XUL plugin i had because I have been having problems with it lately, but after un-installing it I still have the problem.
I am not really a big fan of un-installing all of them cause i have so many, it would take me half a day to get back to normal on my FF.
Heyas rcmullins - glad to hear I’m not alone.
I thought it was Google’s notebook extension, but now I have doubts.
Of the list in the article, I’m down to just
* Firebug
* Web Developer
* del.icio.us Bookmarks
* Gmail Manager
Still maxing CPU for overly long periods of time after an hour or so of browsing. ugh.
Saw this post and thought of you.
http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/24939/How_to_reduce_the_memory_usage_on_Firefox
Thanks Rich, bookmarked it for a closer look soon. That last tip they give sure looks familiar.
I’m working on the same problem. Mozillazine has a list of problematic extenstions.