Firefox 62.0 slowing my system

[debodun]

I have Windows 7 - 64 bit OS with a 1.86 GHz processor and 3 GB RAM. I noticed this new Firefox is noticeably slowing down Web pages with hesitations and intermittent hangs and if In try to scroll down a page too fast, it take a few seconds to "catch up". Facebook is incredible slow to load and display a page. Any page that uses animations or Flash Player is affected. I already tried changing the browser setting to "Use hardware acceleration when available" and set the process limit to 4. I also changed the setting to "prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser". Doing this didn't help much. Anyone have any other east-to-do suggestions?

 

[Snick]

Hi debodun,

Here's few tweaks you can try:

About:Config Tweaks to Speed Up Firefox

To access about:config
Open Firefox Broswser
In the URL type about:config
Yes you’ll be careful

Limit browser history
In the new address bar, means in tab window in front of filter;
type browser.sessionhistory.max_entries
change value from 50 to 10. This will reduce the load to browser

Make Firefox load the pages faster
Now right click on white space below the address bar in tab, go to new >> Integer >> enter Preference name as nglayout.initialpaint.delay
Press OK and enter the value 0.
The page will show as soon as it gets downloaded.

Define Small Amount of Memory to Firefox
a. Similarly type: browser.cache.memory.enable in same address bar in tab.
And set the value to TRUE.(Most of the time it is False)
b.Now right click on white space below the address bar in tab, go to new >> Integer >> enter preference name as browser.cache.memory.capacity, press OK.
Now put the value according following table
RAM VALUE
128MB 2048
256MB 4096
512MB 8192
1GB+ 12288

Enable HTTP cache: Set the Cache Capacity
Generally the Firefox wants more RAM to work as well as for cache purpose, and we have to reduce this usage of extra memory for caching the data.
Type browser.cache.disk.capacity
You will notice that; the value: 102400 (or something like this)
Change it to 4096.

Regain Memory when Firefox is minimized
Why the memory is to be kept for the Firefox when it minimizes state. To avoid this overflow of memory for Firefox;
Right click on white space below the address bar in tab.
Go to new >> Boolean >> enter preference name as config.trim_on_minimize, press OK,
And set the value to TRUE.

Stop Prefetching
Now type network.prefetch-next.
You will see that its value is set to True.
Change this to FALSE (toggle by double clicking on it).

Close Firefox and open it

I'd also disable Flash Player and install add-ons:
Disconnect (install this before an other add-on for it to work properly)
Disable HTML5 Autoplay (checks on Disable Preloading and AutoPlay)
HTTPS Everywhere
uBlock Origin

Nic

 

[debodun]

WOW! Thanks. I just hope I don't mess up.


What changed between Firefox versions to cause this?

 

[Snick]

Those tweaks may help speed up your system a little.
Actually it's not difficult. If you copy and paste the info I said type it saves typos.
If you copy and paste and entry into the search and it doesn't appear, you will have to create it by right clicking in the white space.
Hover over new, you will be using Integer or Boolean depending on whether the value to be entered is an integer (number) or TRUE FALSE (Boollean) look after the Change it line for which one to choose. You won't be using String.

What changed, don't know exactly! I'll do a little research when I have a few minutes to devote to that.

You also can check to see if Multiprocess Windows is enabled.
Click three bars upper right corner of FF below red X> click Help> click Troubleshooting Information.
Under Basic Information in the blue area Multiprocess Windows enabled? disabled?

 

[debodun]

The multiprocess says 1/1 (Enabled by default)

I also want to add that today it worked fine until I went to a trivia quiz page (Fun Trivia Quizzes - World's Largest Trivia and Quiz Site). After that the browser got balky again. Closing Firefox and restarting (not the whole computer, just the browser) helped. I don't think that trivia page uses Flash.

 

[Snick]

You may wish to try disabling that to check for performance improvement.

To disable multiprocess go to about:config by typing it in your URL bar. Search for browser.tabs.remote.autostart using the search box on about:config. There may be multiple results. Set them all to false and restart the browser. My FF has only one entry. To change from True to False or vice versa, double click the entry, and that works because it is Boolean.

If you're still having issues, you can downgrade to a previous version of FF and then turn off FF Auto Update in Options.
Here's a link to FF older versions Directory Listing: /pub/firefox/releases/

Nic

 

[Rainner]

[FONT=&quot]Ola,

Thoughts pertaining to ease of mind while tweaking ff:

[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

WOW! Thanks. I just hope I don't mess up.

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I use multiple Profiles for testing; I make a second profile in FF and make my changes to that Profile; If my changes are successful, I transfer those to my main profile. If it doesn’t work, I still have my original profile in place and start again.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-Rainner
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

[debodun]

Thanks again.

 

[Snick]

Excellent advice Rainner,
Also, with the few straigh-forward tweaks I suggested, they are easy to undo if needed. If the tweaks don't seem to do much, it is perfectly OK to leave them.
Nic

 

[debodun]

Version 62.0.2 seems to have helped with the lag I was experiencing.

 

[ugatme53]

Hmmmmmm, anyone aware of this?



Firefox bug crashes your browser and sometimes your PC | ZDNet

 

[Snick]

Yep,
Already been patched!!
On Friday, September 21, Mozilla released Firefox 62.0.2, a new Firefox version that includes 13 bug fixes, one of which is an SSL-related security issue rated "moderate" in terms of severity.
Nic

 

[debodun]

I still have to close FF periodically since it still seems to get bogged down after about an hour of use, but better than when running FF62.0

 

[ugatme53]

Not sure where to ask this so I'll keep it here for now. When I open ff, IDM wants to download several files:
D:\Downloads\ocsp_digicert_default.html
D:\Downloads\rootr3
D:\Downloads\success.txt


If I remove the check in IDM for ff to capture downloads it stops. I realize it's something to do with certificates but why would this be happening?

 

[Snick]

Hi ugatme53,
You should start your own thread! If not sure where, General is a good place!
Why do you use Internet Download Manager?
I don't recommend using any Download Manager!
I would uninstall it! They cause more problems than they're worth, in my humble opinion!
Here's an article for you to peruse:
what is ocsp.digicert.com

Nic