# I Pit certain Internet news sites that hog my computer **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 8, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690 "2017-03-08T14:19:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/1 "2017-03-08T14:19:50Z")
I’ve developed the habit of clicking on news links but not reading them right away. (For example, if I’m browsing SDMB, see a news link, but want to keep browsing SDMB before I read the story.) Just now my machine came to almost a complete halt. Even the mouse pointer moved _very_ sluggishly. I know from prior experience that it would take a minute or more just to load the Alt-Ctl-Delete Task Manager but I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping that Manager open. I saw that my memory utilization was 99%, other utilizations were very high, and one Google Chrome process was using 1400 MB of memory. :smack: I killed that process and things cleared up. Before killing it, I did a screen-grab (so I could see which Chrome tab disappeared), but must have pressed the window-grab key instead. (I’d have checked first by pasting into Paint, but the machine was so sluggish getting to Paint was an ordeal I gave up on.) Nevermind — Chrome shows a distinctive “Something went wrong” message for the tab with the killed process. Experimenting a little, I saw that pages from [nymag.com](http://nymag.com), [politico.com](http://politico.com), [washingtonexaminer.com](http://washingtonexaminer.com) and perhaps [edition.cnn.com](http://edition.cnn.com) were all causing trouble. Their pages are ridiculously large when they load, but that’s normal these days. _ **The problem is that they keep growing and growing, and consuming CPU time** _ even though I’ve not even accessed the page to read it. I guess the one that had grown to 1400 MB had just been sitting there the longest. Do others have this problem? Is it a symptom of a virus only loosely related to the sites that cause trouble? Now that I’m aware of it, and aware that this is one reason my machine sometimes becomes unusably slow, I’ll watch out for it. Good news: some of my favorite news sites, including [washingtonpost.com](http://washingtonpost.com) and [theatlantic.com](http://theatlantic.com), do not exhibit this problem. (I’m not sure about [nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com) — I don’t want to waste one of my ten free articles to test it! 🆒 ) ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/2 "2017-03-08T14:23:44Z")
Chrome is a memory hog. It has been for years and it has never gotten better. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/3 "2017-03-08T14:25:15Z")
I have a flash and popup blocker, etc. When I go to Politico or Real Clear Politics, I get a notification that “Firefox prevented this page from automatically reloading”. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/4 "2017-03-08T14:37:15Z")
One page seemed a trifle slow on IceCat \*, so I opened up the Ublock Origin sign for [5 Actors Who Have One Very Specific Achilles Heel | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-types-characters-that-great-actors-just-cant-pull-off/) and it enumerated 253 flags. _One page._ - Firefox derivative — if I have 30 odd tabs open in Chromium, it uses half my memory = 8 GB. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/5 "2017-03-08T14:45:29Z")
Damn, here I thought we were going to blast Firefox and playing video. Firefox absolutely fries my CPU with video - temps hit 90° C within minutes. IE or Chrome? Under 30° C, even if I have to say three Hail Marys every time I open IE. If I could just get Chrome to not automatically install to the C drive… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/6 "2017-03-08T14:51:52Z")
Adding up the memory shown by Task Manager I get about 1.6GB. (This is _now_, with the bad news tabs killed.) Task Manager displays 63% memory. But I have 4GB memory. (1.6/4.0 = 40%) What gives? > [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Chrome is a memory hog. It has been for years and it has never gotten better. Yes. And I have 16 Chrome tabs open right now, with 64% memory usage, most of which is Chrome. But all these tabs put together are using less memory than the one 1.4GB process from [washingtonexaminer.com](http://washingtonexaminer.com) or whatever it was. My 4GB laptop is sometimes slower than the 1GB laptop I had three years ago. Does Chrome expand, like a gas in a vacuum, to “take full advantage”? Forty-odd years ago I was given sole charge of a computer, to write an OS for it, etc. My boss apologized for its .00006GB (i.e. 64KB) memory — “Yes, that’s ridiculously big; don’t feel you have to use it all.” ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/7 "2017-03-08T15:33:53Z")
It’s kind of an “arms race”, isn’t it? Sites get more and more “hoggish”, so computers need more and more memory. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/8 "2017-03-08T17:19:00Z")
That Huffington thing brings my shit to a grinding halt. I’ll never click a link to it again. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/9 "2017-03-09T04:45:38Z")
Oh, I stopped clicking n Huffs ngton Post a few years ago for the same reason. It’s not just news sites either. I had trouble with the Staples site today! ---
**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:** [March 9, 2017, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/10 "2017-03-09T06:22:42Z")
With Firefox, I could recommend an addon that will unload the page, or even never completely load it until you click on the tab. With Chrome, I can just point out that such addons exist, and suggest you look into them. Just Google “chrome unload inactive tabs” and go through the options. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/11 "2017-03-09T06:43:56Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Adding up the memory shown by Task Manager I get about 1.6GB. (This is _now_, with the bad news tabs killed.) Task Manager displays 63% memory. But I have 4GB memory. (1.6/4.0 = 40%) What gives? > > Yes. And I have 16 Chrome tabs open right now, with 64% memory usage, most of which is Chrome. But all these tabs put together are using less memory than the one 1.4GB process from [washingtonexaminer.com](http://washingtonexaminer.com) or whatever it was. > > My 4GB laptop is sometimes slower than the 1GB laptop I had three years ago. Does Chrome expand, like a gas in a vacuum, to “take full advantage”? > > Forty-odd years ago I was given sole charge of a computer, to write an OS for it, etc. My boss apologized for its .00006GB (i.e. 64KB) memory — “Yes, that’s ridiculously big; don’t feel you have to use it all.” Recent versions of Windows don’t like to have “unused” memory. They reserve chunks of memory, just on the off chance that a program may need it. I don’t know all the technical details, but it’s supposed to let the computer run more efficiently. On my machine right now, I have 3.3GB of “available” memory, but of that number, only 284MB is “free.” ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/12 "2017-03-09T06:44:41Z")
Try Safari on an iPad! A lot of those pages never load the actual content I want to read at all, because the ads hang everything up. They all say that they have apps, but I don’t want 500 apps on this thing that I maybe use once in a month. I want to be able to find the ones I use all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/13 "2017-03-09T11:14:39Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > With Firefox, I could recommend an addon that will unload the page, or even never completely load it until you click on the tab. With Chrome, I can just point out that such addons exist, and suggest you look into them. Just Google “chrome unload inactive tabs” and go through the options. With Firefox — I’m not going to say how many tabs are up; but it’s 8 windows on 3 virtual desktops for tidiness — the problem is solved by ticking ‘_Don’t load tabs until open_’ in preferences. Poor stupid Chrome doesn’t have this ( believe me, I **looked** ) so I installed **Tabkeeper** ‘_Automatically closes inactive tabs and makes it easy to get them back_.’ However although it does indeed reserve the tabs from plain sight [I got it because poor stupid Chrome concertinaed the tabs in the top row instead of going past the boundaries], each tab process is still discretely there in memory… I remember when they introduced poor stupid Chrome, separate processes were touted as the best thing since sliced bread, since the visible browser memory was down — however there were now all these little processes running instead… > [@Flyer](#): > > Recent versions of Windows don’t like to have “unused” memory. They reserve chunks of memory, just on the off chance that a program may need it. > > I don’t know all the technical details, but it’s supposed to let the computer run more efficiently. The old. old lie… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/14 "2017-03-10T12:25:10Z")
It happened again, this time at [nature.com](http://nature.com). I [clicked a link from an SDMB post](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7475/full/nature12759.html), read the abstract but didn’t X-away the window. Perhaps I was thinking of rereading the abstract, perhaps I was thinking of asking how many Dopers paid $39 for the whole article. Anyway, it may be slovenly to leave such old tabs around but it’s not supposed to be damaging. I do housekeep the unused tabs whenever an unwieldy number accumulates. After an hour and half or so, my machine got sluggish, I saw a Chrome process with 1.4GB memory, killed it, and saw from the “Aw, snap! Something went wrong when displaying this webpage” that the culprit was the Nature article above. My guess is that this page (and other offenders) run a Javascript with a memory leak. My machine is infected with the [pwwysydh.com](http://pwwysydh.com) virus. I would like to know if it is the culprit before blaming [nature.com](http://nature.com), et al. Anyone masochistic enough to help me run this experiment? From Chrome, click the [Nature.com](http://Nature.com) link, glance at the page, let the tab sit for a half-hour or more and see if it’s consuming huge memory. (Suggestions of how to rid myself of [pwwysydh.com](http://pwwysydh.com) are also welcome. The standard free anti-malware packages are no help; is there a for-sale anti-malware that will do the job?) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/15 "2017-03-10T13:32:14Z")
I was having really serious memory problems with Firefox recently, and I was blaming YouTube for a while as it seemed to happen after watching a few videos. But it turned out to be AdBlock Plus. I have replaced it with uBlock and it’s been fine ever since. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/16 "2017-03-10T14:19:39Z")
And just now I experienced the problem with a page at [politifact.com](http://politifact.com). _**And I could see that the [pwwysydh.com](http://pwwysydh.com) virus had infected that page.**_ Was I just not paying much attention before, or has the [pwwysydh.com](http://pwwysydh.com) virus become more malignant? Perhaps I should Pit those eager to blame reputable websites when they’ve not bothered to rid their computers of known viruses. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/17 "2017-03-10T14:30:45Z")
> [@eulalia](#): > > Try Safari on an iPad! A lot of those pages never load the actual content I want to read at all, because the ads hang everything up. They all say that they have apps, but **I don’t want 500 apps on this thing** that I maybe use once in a month. I want to be able to find the ones I use all the time. Bold added for emphasis. I’ve never understood this push for individual apps. Every goddam web site has an app they want me to download! I get why THEY want me to, but why would I want to? In order to make their content usable? That’s what I expect from a browser - the ONE piece of software I should need to read a web page. While we’re on that, I’m currently fuming because my favored web browser has been ditched by its developer. And with the “arms race” of new features on web sites it’s just a matter of time before its unusable. Which sucks, because it has a combination of features unavailable in other browsers. I’ve tried about a dozen new ones lately and always run back to my terminal-case friend. I’ve said before in other threads, I see myself as the computer version of William F. Buckley - I stand athwart “progress” and shout STOP!!! ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/18 "2017-03-10T14:35:32Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > (Suggestions of how to rid myself of [pwwysydh.com](http://pwwysydh.com) are also welcome. The standard free anti-malware packages are no help; is there a for-sale anti-malware that will do the job?) Have you tried these? > **[How To Remove Pwwysydh.com Redirect (Virus Removal Guide)](https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-pwwysydh-com/)** > > This page contains instructions on how to remove Pwwysydh.com virus from Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. > **[Remove Pwwysydh.com Redirect (Chrome and Firefox)](https://virusresearch.org/remove-pwwysydh-com-redirect-chrome-firefox/)** > > This article contains instructions on Pwwysydh.com removal redirect. These will work on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Pwwysydh.com is a dangerous website. If it appears on your PC screen, that’s a red flag for danger.  Why are you stuck... In any case, I would recommend that you start using the free version of WinPatrol. It lets you know whenever a new program has been installed on your computer. [https://www.winpatrol.com/mydownloads/](https://www.winpatrol.com/mydownloads/) (Scroll down about halfway.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/19 "2017-03-10T20:56:49Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Have you tried these? > [https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-pwwysydh-com/](https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-pwwysydh-com/) > [Remove Pwwysydh.com Redirect (Chrome and Firefox)](http://www.virusresearch.org/remove-pwwysydh-com-redirect-chrome-firefox/) > > In any case, I would recommend that you start using the free version of WinPatrol. It lets you know whenever a new program has been installed on your computer. > [https://www.winpatrol.com/mydownloads/](https://www.winpatrol.com/mydownloads/) > (Scroll down about halfway.) Thank you. I’ve already downloaded the free versions of both Zemana and SpyHunter. One or both implied they would remove my virus if I upgraded to the paid version. Maybe I’d better stop being such a cheapskate! Your 2nd link supposedly gives manual removal instructions, but they are difficult or impossible to follow. (Trying to follow them is how, due to my own blunder, I lost my saved passwords, etc.) For example “Navigate to %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/host” I can find several folders with similar name, but no etc/host anywhere (unless it’s marked _hidden_). ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690/20 "2017-03-10T21:21:21Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Chrome is a memory hog. It has been for years and it has never gotten better. It’s gotten better, though. I used to never use Chrome because I use YouTube a lot, and every time I would bring up a new video, Chrome would hold onto the memory from the previous video. But it doesn’t do that any more. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-certain-internet-news-sites-that-hog-my-computer/781690.md?page=2)