I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
purpleiris
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Joined: February 27th, 2018, 2:05 pm

I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by purpleiris »

Ever since I upgraded to the new Firefox that we were PROMISED would be fast forever, I have had nothing but problems. First, how can Mozilla claim that their browser will be fast forever when it's requiring numerous instances of the .exe file to be run at the same time? Every time I open FF, it has at least 7 instances of the .exe file open and the total amount of memory they're taking up maxes out my computer's 4Gb -- meaning that it's affecting the performance of my entire computer, not just their browser.

I have spent the entire afternoon just trying to pay a few bills and I'm still not done because I have to keep using the Task Manager to close FF (when I eventually get to the Task Manager because FF is using 98% of my physical memory). I even went as far as doing a hard shut down of my PC to make sure RAM is completely clear. Yet, I open FF and immediately start having issues with it bogging down my computer -- and it's the only thing open right now (other than the Task Manager that I have at the ready).

Another issue I've been having since before upgrading, which has only worsened since upgrading, is that FF refuses to shut down properly and it taking forever and a day just to tell me with its popup. So, I either have to use the Task Manager to make it go away or wait forever and a day to get that dialog box so I can submit a report, which doesn't seem to serve any purpose since nothing ever gets fixed.

I am seriously thinking of uninstalling FF and either reinstalling an older version or just quitting using FF altogether. Unfortunately, I refuse to use Internet Explorer or Chrome and I'm not sure what other browser would be worth it. Although, Kim Komando has recommended one that I should look into (don't know the name of it since I didn't read the article).

I do business online, take care of personal finances online, play games and watch videos. Before upgrading to this new version, if I was having an issue, it was my own fault for expecting too much. Now, I can't even start fresh and have FF work in an acceptable manner. What's worse is that I recommended that my friends upgrade, too, because it WAS fast at first (but not for long) and now they're also experiencing the same issues. One said she no longer uses it and has resorted to using Chrome.

I want to know what Mozilla is doing to fix these issues. Do I need to look for another browser to use?
allande
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by allande »

If you choose you can reduce the number of processes (task manager exe), click the three lines / hamburger menu, then options, then under general scroll to performance. Uncheck "use recommended performance settings" and "content process limit" will become visible. You can set it to one and that should reduce the processes. Note that this is meant to make Firefox performance worse, but every computer can be different.

4gb is pretty low memory for a modern computer. If possible you should get it up to 8gb. More than 8 is not usually needed.

Firefox being slow, not shutting down - none of that is normal. If your profile is very simple, in other words if you aren't a big tweaker and only have one or two extensions installed, you can do a Firefox reset / refresh / wipeout - which destroys/moves most of your settings, but it does keep your bookmarks. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... d-settings

Official answers from Mozilla will not come from here, this is an unofficial forum unaffiliated with them.

Here is more about things to do if you see slowness: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/qu ... slows-down
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RobertJ
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by RobertJ »

purpleiris wrote:Ever since I upgraded to the new Firefox that we were PROMISED would be fast forever,.........
Mozillazine wrote:We folks are not part of Mozilla.
Established in 1998, MozillaZine is an independent Mozilla news, community and support site.
MozillaZine is not run by the Mozilla Foundation and is not an official part of the Mozilla project.
purpleiris wrote:I want to know what Mozilla is doing to fix these issues. Do I need to look for another browser to use?
This is a SUPPORT forum not the complaint department. We will try to help with problems; we DO NOT TAKE COMPLAINTS!


We really don't care if you use another browser.

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RobertJ
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by RobertJ »

purpleiris wrote:What's worse is that I recommended that my friends upgrade, too, because it WAS fast at first (but not for long) and now they're also experiencing the same issues. One said she no longer uses it and has resorted to using Chrome.
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Chrome

I've been doing this for a long time and for the significance of the change to Quantum I found the number of complaints/issues minimal.

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purpleiris
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by purpleiris »

Sorry, I thought this was Mozilla's site. Either way, I came here looking for help not just for myself, but also my friends because we PREFER to use Firefox. We hate IE and Chrome, but we certainly don't want a poorly performing Firefox either because we all do business online.

What if we were to revert back to an older version of Firefox? Would that help and, if so, which version do you recommend for a 4Gb PC?
allande
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by allande »

For my usage, with an adblocker (ublock origin), Firefox 58 works great even on some of my PCs that are 4GB. The new profile / profile reset should fix your problems, or if not it should be something simple like updating a graphics driver or turning off hardware acceleration, adding an adblocker, or changing antivirus manufacturer. In addition to the above "slow firefox" tutorial there is this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox

The only secure old version was Firefox ESR, but now it is only a few months before Firefox ESR will be updated to quantum. Old versions of Firefox are not secure. If you want another browser, find another forum to ask what you should use.
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DanRaisch
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by DanRaisch »

The first and simplest step in determining why you are seeing performance problems with Firefox is to try launching the program in Mozilla Safe Mode -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode
Tomatoshadow2
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by Tomatoshadow2 »

As Dan just suggested, if you don't see the issue in safe mode, it could be a problematic extension.
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dfoulkes
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by dfoulkes »

Just a little more talk on this. My laptop max allowed is 4gig.... can't increase it. I use the latest ESR version as I use lots of extensions and don't want to lose them.... when the ESR Quantum version comes out I'll either stay with the latest non-Quantum or make up my mind about all of this stuff. I'm very satisfied with this version and speed. I do have the portable version of the latest Firefox in here and I've played around with it a lot. In all cases I've never seen a slowdown where it bothered me.

Added to what Dan posted about Firefox safe-mode you might also want to restart your pc into safe-mode with Network active and then give Firefox a test. Remember... in that mode you have no security software protecting you... and it's just a test routine.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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mightyglydd
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by mightyglydd »

Big Quantum = Lowered expectations ?

This is a support forum not After Dark. Opinions are not support.

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Last edited by RobertJ on February 28th, 2018, 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Opinion not support help
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semigeek
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by semigeek »

purpleiris wrote:What if we were to revert back to an older version of Firefox? Would that help and, if so, which version do you recommend for a 4Gb PC?
You could consider, at least for a couple of years, reverting to FF 52 ESR, then turn upgrades off. That's my plan. All your extensions will still work. People will say "it's not secure" but you're not the Pentagon, so if you're careful (scripts blocked by default, reputable websites, etc) you're unlikely to have trouble. WinXP is no longer supported either, but I don't care. In 35 years of personal computing I've never had malware. Nothing has even triggered my firewall.
purpleiris
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by purpleiris »

semigeek wrote:
purpleiris wrote:What if we were to revert back to an older version of Firefox? Would that help and, if so, which version do you recommend for a 4Gb PC?
You could consider, at least for a couple of years, reverting to FF 52 ESR, then turn upgrades off. That's my plan. All your extensions will still work. People will say "it's not secure" but you're not the Pentagon, so if you're careful (scripts blocked by default, reputable websites, etc) you're unlikely to have trouble. WinXP is no longer supported either, but I don't care. In 35 years of personal computing I've never had malware. Nothing has even triggered my firewall.
I do have automatically updated security software that has always worked well. I've never had any problems either because I usually stick to known sites and anything unknown is typically a business site where there's less of a chance to experience issues. However, I can't speak for my friends who aren't as computer savvy. I also have the means to upgrade my RAM, but I'm not sure about my friends.

So, to them, I will suggest they remove all of their extensions and see how that works. I'm going to do the same, too, before reverting back to an older version. I'm also going to run CCleaner to see if that helps.

I do appreciate everyone's help. Like I said, we all prefer Firefox over all other browsers. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's making it difficult for us to take care of business when we weren't having issues prior to the update.
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RobertJ
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by RobertJ »

purpleiris wrote:I'm also going to run CCleaner to see if that helps.
CCleaner is known to cause many problems with Firefox and documented on this site in many threads. Firefox purges its own caches.

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purpleiris
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by purpleiris »

Just an update and question: The only three extensions I have are AdBlock Plus, GMail Notifier and Pinterest Save Button. Neither of those should be causing any issues with Firefox, should they?
RobertJ wrote:
purpleiris wrote:I'm also going to run CCleaner to see if that helps.
CCleaner is known to cause many problems with Firefox and documented on this site in many threads. Firefox purges its own caches.

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Hmmm...did not know that. I've never run it on my computer despite being encouraged to and that would be one of the reasons -- worrying that it will negatively affect what I do want on my computer.
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RobertJ
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Re: I'm Extremely Disappointed With the New Firefox

Post by RobertJ »

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uBlock Origin is much better than AdBlock Plus. Requires much less in resources and blocks everything while AdBlock Plus allows certain paid for sites by default.

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