# Firefox and CPU: stop that! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 8, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455 "2012-06-08T02:09:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/1 "2012-06-08T02:09:27Z")
Okay, so Firefox 12 is a lot better at memory and CPU usage a lot of the time. And okay, I probably have an excessive number of tabs open. But I’m sick and tired of its CPU usage commonly and suddenly flaring up to 170% (giving me that lovely beach ball), sometimes when all I do is switch windows/tabs! I should probably close quite a few of these tabs, but it’s really starting to annoy me, especially when sometimes the tabs I switch to have nothing on it (that I can tell) that’s memory-intensive! Okay, vent over. (As an aside, though, I hear that the new FF version has some annoying things to it; I think I may wait on upgrading…) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/2 "2012-06-08T03:06:33Z")
Why are you blaming Firefox for this? Have you any reason to believe that a different browser will handle the same demands any better? It seems to me that, instead of bitching about your browser, either you need to buy a more powerful computer or you need to stop asking your present computer to do quite so many things at once. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/3 "2012-06-08T03:07:19Z")
12 is the newest version, so whatever annoying things you’ve heard about, they’re there waiting for you already. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/4 "2012-06-08T03:16:24Z")
No way man I just got 13 today! ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/5 "2012-06-08T03:23:02Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > No way man I just got 13 today! Oh shit. I had upgraded to 12 earlier today and when I read your post I said “No way” also. So I go to Help and About and Check For Updates and what does the damn thing do? Start _downloading_ an update! Thanks for asking if I wanted to update, stupid bitch. I’m on version 13 now after less than a day of having 12. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/6 "2012-06-12T05:10:57Z")
Yeah, FireFox just recently moved to silent/forced upgrades similar to Chrome. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/7 "2012-06-16T12:52:52Z")
Are you actually seeing a CPU increase? Because that is odd. The more usual case is that you are just using too much memory, and Firefox is having to cache out the other tabs to disk. All browsers have to do this–Chrome is even worse due to its multiple process architecture. There’s a movement to allow tabs to be unloaded and reload them from the network, but that has its downsides, such as not being able to keep a previous version of a website, and, of course, the load times. And, really, it’s just far easier to deal with your tabs as you create them. You start noticing yourself creating a bunch of tabs, then go back and close some old ones. Firefox is working really hard on making the browser faster, but there are physical limits. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/8 "2012-06-16T15:11:13Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > Yeah, FireFox just recently moved to silent/forced upgrades similar to Chrome. No clue where it is in Windows machines, but I have the “Never check for updates” button under the Advanced tab turned on in the Mac version’s preferences. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/9 "2012-06-16T15:22:37Z")
AVG periodically tells me that Firefox is using “excessive” memory. I disengage and restart and everything seems to be okay. But it seemed okay before AVG warned me----I wish it would just leave me alone. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-and-cpu-stop-that/624455/10 "2012-06-16T17:16:32Z")
I often have Firefox hang up. I notice my computer running slow and my memory usage high. Task manager will show an extra process that I have to manually kill. Plug in Container is a real pain in the butt. That seems to keep firefox from closing correctly.