Why is Firefox suddenly determined to drive my computer to an early grave?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s an issue that’s developed very suddenly: Firefox using 50% CPU constantly (as opposed to just spiking every couple of minutes or so like it used to), then going up to 100% CPU, again ALL THE TIME. It uses up so much CPU that the fans on this laptop have to turn on.

I tried closing tabs that were connected to social media, but the CPU usage didn’t go down after I did so. I have Adblock and Flash blockers. I had to quit and reopen Firefox to get it back to the background 10% CPU that it usually is. (And the above issue happened twice, after restarting each time.) This is especially frustrating because this is ON TOP OF having to restart the browser once every five days or so because of its CPU and memory usage over time.

This Macbook Pro is only four years old, and has 8 GB of RAM, so I don’t see why this should be happening. Anyone else had this happen to them? Anything else I could try?

2

Does it seem to happen just at certain web sites?

I am using an old old version of Linux with an old old version of Firefox, and I see behavior like this from time to time – but not usually.

It seems to happen quite predictably, though, whenever I go to HuffPo.

Note, I run my browser with JavaScript disabled except when I know I will need it. I don’t use any sort of ad-blockers or virus scanners. I don’t have Flash or any other sort of media player installed. So it’s not any of those things. I wonder what could possibly be in those web pages that cause this.

3

I’m not sure. I have a lot of tabs open, and like I said, I tried closing the social media ones first, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.

I tried quitting and opening (as opposed to just restarting), and things seem calm so far; we’ll see what happens. Still, CPU usage on Firefox is, like, my bane (perhaps because I almost never restart or turn off this laptop), so any tips would still be appreciated.

4

I had to specifically block s.huffpost.com in Adblock Plus for this reason. I don’t know what they were doing, but they fucked something up.

5

Pardon a display of ignorance that approaches idiocy, but I’ve got a 5ish-year-old MacBook Pro that has been showing the same signs for a short while, making me fear that it’s on its last legs. It gets hot, the fans go on (making a hell of a sick sound, leading me to expect a wee puff of smoke and a black screen every time), it gets sluggish after a certain amount of time as (I suppose) the memory gets full so I need to close and reopen Firefox, and things get temporarily better if I do that and especially if I restart the whole shebang. So my ignorant-approaching-idiotic question is: how does one see the CPU usage?

Boy, if the solution were as easy as avoiding HuffPo, that would take one worry off my list.

6

Activity Monitor. It’s in the Applications folder, or just search for it.

Anyway, some experimentation has led me to narrow it down to a particular social media site, and/or an accompanying add-on I recently downloaded. Now I just gotta figure out whether it’s worth it to turn Javascript on/off for that site or to do without the add-on’s functionality. It’s a toughie.

(Though it does raise the question of why, when the CPU usage was happening, why it didn’t go back down when I closed that particular tab. Maybe that points to the add-on, I don’t know.)

7

Firefox doesn’t close tabs appropriately, i.e. it doesn’t dump the accumulated memory.

Another poster explained it better in a similar thread. I am not sufficient enough with the search function to direct you to it.

My advice is to switch to Chrome.

Unless you’re a programmer you can find all the extensions and apps you currently have also in Chrome.

8

I used to have the exact same problem with Internet Explorer. I solved it by moving to Chrome.

9

I have a 4 year old MacBookPro and run Firefox. My %CPU is 6-10. Yesterday I opened NPR music and the CPU went to 100%. I closed it and it went back down. I emailed NPR on this.

10

My Firefox started to actually crash my computer so bad only a restart would fix it. Had to switch to Chrome.

11

This probably does you no good but we have four year old 17" MacBook Pro ( 8GB ) that seems to run fine using Safari/Chrome/Firefox. Miss DrumBum has the same laptop and routinely has Firefox, Chrome, iTunes, Skype, Libre Office, and FinalCut Pro simultaneously and reports no problems. She had a friend of hers mentioned something about “swap space” but that sort of thing is over my head.

12

Another thing is to remove all the toolbars and such you’re not using. I don’t like any of them and half of them are spyware.

Don’t just remove them from Firefox. Go to the program manager and uninstall them there. My MIL is constantly installing these things until her computer runs slower than molasses.

13

A lot of mentions of Chrome… Is it really that much better with CPU and memory? I figure I can transfer bookmarks if I switch, but what about saved passwords? Is it as easy as Firefox to back up my profile and everything of that nature?

I don’t have any toolbars. Good to know about the tab closure thing, though. If anyone knows anything about this “swap space” thing, please advise; I’m investigating all that I can.

14

I’ve tracked the majority of my current CPU problems to the add-on I mentioned earlier. But given these and similar issues with just average use, I’m still musing on switching to Chrome.

Is Chrome really that much better at general CPU and memory usage? Further, the useful but offending add-on also exists for Chrome. What are the chances that it’ll cause the same CPU usage problem on THAT browser?

15

Same thing happened to me. Must be a common problem because Firefox itself suggested I go to Tools/Restore Firefox. That took care of the problem.

16

This is happening to me as well, on Windows XP. Firefox has decided it doesn’t like sharing anymore and I think it needs a timeout.

I may go to Chrome.

17

I had to dump Firefox a while ago, for similar reasons. Chrome is not nearly as full-featured, but it is fast and slick, so that is my go-to browser now.

18

I would suspect tabs that have Flash content first. If you really want to clean your browser up, install the following:

Adblock
Flashblock
Ghostery

That will keep almost all ad and flash content from loading, which speeds up your browser.

19

We’re really not going to be able to tell you much unless you actually tell us what the addon is.

But, in general, Chrome is better with CPU, but worse with memory–unless your Firefox has a bunch of addons. Usually Chrome addons aren’t as bad, but they also aren’t as fully featured.

If your Firefox does have a bunch of addons making it a memory hog, a great extension is Suspend Tab. It will automatically unload tabs that aren’t in use. Just be sure to add sites that take a long time to load to the exceptions list.

And definitely do what control-z said.