Android FF app seems to run in the background when paused

Talk about Mozilla browsers for small devices such as PDAs and cellphones.
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Digdis
Posts: 6
Joined: June 30th, 2007, 1:51 am

Android FF app seems to run in the background when paused

Post by Digdis »

I run FF browser app on my LG G3 (Android 5.1.1 - CM 12.1). Problem is that I suspect it keeps running in the background even when paused. Here are the details:
Got 3 tabs constantly opened in FF, one of which is of a sport news site that keeps refreshing automatically. When I'm done using FF, I simply hit the home button, presumably pausing the app. However, when I reopen it (let's say after a few hours), I see that the site page is up to date (doesn't seem to take any time to get refreshed).
In addition, I started monitoring battery usage, as I was suspecting it got drained by some apps. Doing so, I constantly see that Firefox hogs the battery even when it's supposed to be paused. For instance, last night I left my device fully charged and unplugged before bedtime, just to see in the morning that 40% of the battery was consumed overnight, where the primary consumer was Firefox, when again it was supposed to be paused.

Now, the way I believe things should work in Android, hitting the home button should PAUSE the app. This means it should stop working and preserve its current state until the next run. If an app is still expected to run in the background after home pressing (apps like phone dialer, music player etc.), it should show an icon in the upper left corner. This FF behavior leaves me totally puzzled.
Of course I can totally unload the app by removing it from the recents, but that would be awkward.

So my questions are the following:
1. Does Firefox keep running in background even when paused?
2. If answer to (1) is yes, then is there a way to control this behavior, even in a site/page/tab resolution?

Cheers,
D.
kbrosnan
Posts: 520
Joined: October 23rd, 2003, 8:32 pm

Re: Android FF app seems to run in the background when pause

Post by kbrosnan »

1. Putting an app in the background on Android does not pause it. If another app in the foreground needs more resources than are currently available Android will 'pause' background apps.
2. depending on the specific site Firefox 47 has configuration change that disables a web feature called 'meta refresh' for background tabs or when Firefox is in the background
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