Friday, May 28, 2010

Is it just me or is Firefox a resource hog?

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CNET Reviews
May 28, 2010
Is it just me or is Firefox a resource hog?

Dear CNET members,

Happy Friday! As always, there was no shortage of great suggestions from our members this week to Jim's question about Firefox hogging up his system resources. And the question at hand is what could possibly be the cause of it, and is it really just him who is experiencing it? Well, Jim, the good news is that you're not alone; others in the discussion have reported the same issue. However, because there are so many factors that can directly or indirectly cause Firefox to hog up your memory resources or CPU usage--there was a variety of advice on the way you can troubleshoot it. Just to give you a few possible culprits that our members mentioned are add-ons or extensions, visiting certain sites that are Flash intensive or have poorly written JavaScript, memory leaks, and much more. After you read the possibilities and advice from our members, you may even come to realize that Firefox may not even to be the blame at all.

As mentioned before, our generous members have provided a lot of great advice and insight to this issue. And if you read through the suggestions, I'm certain that one or more of them will help you get a better surfing experience with Firefox. If not, just be glad that there are other Web browser choices. I have listed a few answers in the Q&A section to get you started. Good luck, and if you have more to add to this discussion, be my guest. Thanks, everyone and have a great weekend!

Cheers!
- Lee


Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com

Lee Koo
Lee Koo
CNET Community manager
Last week's question
Is it just me or is Firefox a resource hog?
QuestionOn the widely discussed 100 percent CPU usage problem on Windows OS, I have the same problem and it seems to be caused by the use of Firefox. When everything slows down to crawl, I check the Windows task manager and it shows Firefox's use of the CPU is at a very high rate-180K-220K, so I do an "end process" on Firefox and it knocks me off the Internet, and everything returns to back to normal. I tried uninstalling Firefox and reinstalling it, but no changes at all. I've contacted Firefox for help, but no response from them. Is this the way Firefox is? Any ideas on how I can correct this? Or is Firefox simply a resource hog and there's nothing I can do about it on my end? Thanks.

-- Submitted by: Jim L.

AnswerFeatured member solutions
for last week's question:

 "Firefox is a hog "
-- Submitted by: caskater4

 "Memory hog fix "
-- Submitted by: Newbeak60

 "Firefox CPU problem "
-- Submitted by: pkv197

 "Firefox is a RAM hog, not a CPU hog "
-- Submitted by: JonathansToolBar&Grill

 "It depend on what is displayed "
-- Submitted by: Alain Martel1

 Read all member contributions

 Thanks to all who contributed!

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Next week's questionI have a problem that is bothering me to no end. I guess not seeing it in front of you or being able to connect with my PC I would think it might be a challenge. But at this point maybe you can give me a few suggestions. I am running a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro. I have 3GB of RAM and I have 2 hard drives on my system. Every once in a while if I let my PC sit inactive and come back to do something, with it at the desktop or with a browser open, I will have to click my mouse three or four times and then my system comes to a complete halt and freezes--forcing me to turn the power off and restart my system. It goes through the process of loading Windows and asks me if or how I want to start my system, I always choose normally and not in safe mode. My question or problem is when and why my PC will freeze? What can I do, where can I look? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have checked my device manager and everything is OK and no yellow warning marks. Maybe throw it out to the members/readers and maybe I'll get something or maybe you'll have an idea or two. I certainly would appreciate any help I can get.

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