Firefox 56 is just plain awful

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cooljoebay
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Joined: January 13th, 2006, 11:38 am

Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by cooljoebay »

I was finally forced to update Firefox. I hate updates. You never know what you'll end up with. Now I have major problems with RAM usage and some pages struggling to load.

I have tried to trace this problem down the best I can. But Firefox now uses nearly 500,000K memory (task manager) just by having it open. This was never the case before. Additionally, pages are taking longer to load because of the slow "handshake". That also did not happen. The last version was snappy IMO. And I had numerous extensions running before. Now I have none installed.

If I go on Youtube and watch videos, the memory shoots up to 800,000K. At which point it will not go back down no matter what I try. I have tried using the Memory Minimization. Which to me is completely useless. Clearly Firefox is a memory hog out of the box. When I reach that point, everything I do on the computer is sluggish on and off until I close Firefox. Which is strange. Because I have 6 cores and 6GB of memory. The simple fact that I had no problems until I updated is enough to blame the browser. Firefox 56 comes with a sledgehammer.
Brummelchen
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by Brummelchen »

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RobertJ
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by RobertJ »

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Those memory use numbers are well within the range of normal.
cooljoebay wrote:pages are taking longer to load because of the slow "handshake"
I have no idea what you are talking about.

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Grumpus
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by Grumpus »

Probably referring to the TLS handshake which may or may not occur with some sites.
How the site connects using TLS is what dictates the speed not Firefox.
I have only run across a couple of sites which slow things down and it's usually less than a second for even those sites.
Doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong for a toaster to walk around the house and talk to you
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RobertJ
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by RobertJ »

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Grumpus thanks for that. FF56 is quite fast and 57b is even faster.

With regard to speed it is not all the browser. Time to load is ~ [web site response time] + [ad sites response times] + [Internet transit time] + [local access time] + [browser rendering time]

Ad blockers like iBlock Origin help cut it down somewhat.

I find that FF56 generally renders most sites in 3 sec or less from the time you "click" a link or bookmark; FF57 shaves that in half and seems to render the "whole page" at the same time giving the impression of speed.

In researching speed complaints of late I have noticed a sharp increase in the number of HTML errors when running a site's code through a validator. In many cases the number of errors exceed 200. That doesn't speak well for the webmasters.

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Vitesse
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by Vitesse »

Try disabling any extensions you have which are marked 'legacy'. They may be trying to use code which is no longer there. I removed a couple of extensions the other day and - apparently coincidentally - a slow loading problem I'd been seeing on Facebook stopped, as did a glitch which was scrolling every page on theguardian.com to the bottom as soon as it loaded.
cooljoebay
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by cooljoebay »

Thanks I am downloading the extended release to see what happens.

As of right this moment, my Firefox and computer in general are freezing up every 2 or 3 seconds. Last for 2 or 3 seconds more. Then released to normal. Then frozen again. Repeatedly. All because I played a few videos on Youtube. Or visited too many websites. Only solution so far is to close and reopen Firefox. Like I stated before, I have no extensions. Firefox out of the box. I know this browser cannot be completely configured the same as before the update. For one thing. I used to be able to click "Show Downloads" and it would show up as a new tab. Now it opens as a new window. And I cannot seem to find a way to change that. Thanks.
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8-bit
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by 8-bit »

cooljoebay wrote:Clearly Firefox is a memory hog out of the box. When I reach that point, everything I do on the computer is sluggish on and off until I close Firefox. Which is strange. Because I have 6 cores and 6GB of memory. The simple fact that I had no problems until I updated is enough to blame the browser. Firefox 56 comes with a sledgehammer.
This is not meant in a nasty way whatsoever, but 1) having 6 cores does not mean that Firefox is using all 6 of them 2) 6GB of memory is not a lot. Also, as RobertJ pointed out, 3) those memory usage numbers are indeed well within normal range. I've got 4 physical cores (8 logical cores with HT) and 16GB of RAM, and I really can't say I notice a slowdown of any type on 56.0.1. Even if it was a second or two, I just wait 2 seconds - not much time. All these browser speed tests make me laugh - "Look! browser X loaded a page 1/2 a second faster that browser Y!" - uhhhh, ok, so? (even Firefox is touting this with 57). Although, I do admit that speed will matter as web technologies progress - that's just the way it goes. Yes, with each new release I find myself disabling most every new feature, and I only use 4 extensions which are of MAJOR importance to me. I also have a ton of stuff disabled in about:config too. I hear good things about Firefox 57, and only one of my extensions is not yet a Webex, but is being ported and should be ready for 57. I run macOS, and there is no way in hell I am going to run Safari (i'm no fanboy) - it's horrific. Apple made a HUGE deal (and everyone ohh'ed and ahh'ed) about a new feature in Safari that stops auto-play of video content when you first load a webpage. Uh, I think that's like 10 years too late to be making like they invented it. Firefox has been headed in the direction of being a more "mainstream" browser - a path I don't particularly like, but it still has one over on the competition in many ways. Sometimes you just have to roll with it.

I am not being insensitive to your disappointments/dislikes, but your freezing problems etc. sound deeper than Firefox alone.
Brummelchen
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by Brummelchen »

if firefox freezes or crashes its a matter of system - very very few cases where firefox is causing this - and those are documented at bugzilla.mozilla.org
in special for TLS/SSL its a 3rd-party security software.

provide some informations
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/us ... ix-firefox

provide the firefox crash reports id
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mo ... sh-reports
when Firefox closes unexpectedly and lets you submit a crash report to developers
paulpinecone
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by paulpinecone »

I am having the identical problem as cooljoebay. Spinning freezes about every 10 seconds lasting a few seconds. I keep about 100 windows open. With firefox 55, this gave me a memory footprint of 2G. A lot, but I was OK with it. With firefox 56, the footprint is now >4G.

Macbook Pro, 10.11.6, 8G
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8-bit
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by 8-bit »

paulpinecone wrote:I am having the identical problem as cooljoebay. Spinning freezes about every 10 seconds lasting a few seconds. I keep about 100 windows open. With firefox 55, this gave me a memory footprint of 2G. A lot, but I was OK with it. With firefox 56, the footprint is now >4G.

Macbook Pro, 10.11.6, 8G
With 100 tabs open, I would expect such behaviour. Possibly pages reloading content (ads etc.), video, extensions doing their thing, other applications running, who knows? That's A LOT of tabs. Right now, my Firefox memory footprint is 0.5GB with total memory usage @ around 4.5GB (OS, Mail, etc.). With 100 tabs moving your RAM usage to greater than 4GB and the OS taking approximately the same as me, you are nearly maxing out your physical RAM. Not sure what year your MBP is, or the specs, but seeing you are running 10.11, I would guess your system is not able to run 10.12? - could be wrong.

I'm not knockin' ya, but why do you need 100 tabs open? It's perfectly legit to WANT to have 100 tabs open, but is it a necessity for you? You must admit that with 100 tabs open you should be expecting a slowdown. Period.
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therube
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by therube »

FF startup memory, Memory use is out of this world...?


500,000 K (I wouldn't expect on startup, but) isn't that much, Not Enough Storage Space Is Available To Process The Command.

And in that respect, what I've done so far is to disable Hardware Acceleration (layers.acceleration.disabled;true), restarted, & with that, I've been running a few days now (including sleep cycles), & ATM FF is (only) using 3.9 GB (having only hit that, from ~3 GB, over the last 24 hours). At ~3 GB, FF was running fine. Currently I'm noticing some slight slowness. (It is time for a restart, but I want to thrash it some more.)


2) 6GB of memory is not a lot.
He's also on 32-bit FF. 64-bit may... if he's able to use it.
(But if all he's using is ~1 GB or RAM, from a memory perspective, its immaterial.)


100 tabs. I'm sitting at 41 windows & 966 tabs, ATM.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
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8-bit
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by 8-bit »

therube wrote:He's also on 32-bit FF. 64-bit may... if he's able to use it.
(But if all he's using is ~1 GB or RAM, from a memory perspective, its immaterial.)
Point well taken...
100 tabs. I'm sitting at 41 windows & 966 tabs, ATM.
Are you just experimenting for some kind of reference point, or do you truly need 966 tabs?
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therube
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by therube »

Purposely wanting to thrash FF.
So I'll open, open, open, ... with no particular want to close.
And as I'm messing, testing, screwing around, well, things have just grown.

That said, I am a tab-a-holic, but for now, in FF, I'm just banging it to see where it breaks.
Even if I weren't banging, I can handle tabs.
What I can't handle are things that break my work-flow.
So OOM issues, crashes in general. Or extensions or otherwise that break things.

Stability is a good thing, Mozilla.


(And that said, as @B has said many times now, 56, & even before that, are nothing but dead ends, & in that respect why they were ever released is anyone's guess. Oh, that's right, they have a "timetable". And 57 isn't ready. API's aren't ready, or never will be ready. And if 57 were ready, you have extensions that aren't yet ready, or never will be, so that's essentially a dead-end too. It's really laughable. I have bugs I could file, but what, against 56. Pointless. Against 57, but a 57 without extensions is again pointless. So we're in a quagmire with nowhere to go.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
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paulpinecone
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Re: Firefox 56 is just plain awful

Post by paulpinecone »

8-bit wrote:
paulpinecone wrote:I am having the identical problem as cooljoebay. Spinning freezes about every 10 seconds lasting a few seconds. I keep about 100 windows open. With firefox 55, this gave me a memory footprint of 2G. A lot, but I was OK with it. With firefox 56, the footprint is now >4G.

Macbook Pro, 10.11.6, 8G
With 100 tabs open, I would expect such behaviour. Possibly pages reloading content (ads etc.), video, extensions doing their thing, other applications running, who knows?

I'm not knockin' ya, but why do you need 100 tabs open? It's perfectly legit to WANT to have 100 tabs open, but is it a necessity for you? You must admit that with 100 tabs open you should be expecting a slowdown. Period.
The point is that it wasn't happening under firefox 55 and it is happening under firefox 56. Nothing else changed. I have since changed over to the extended release and my usage has gone back to normal: <2G footprint and firefox doesn't go up to 90% CPU.

If think you have to consider this a firefox 56 bug.
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