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I'm currently using Firefox 28.0 on a windows 7 system on a SSD. Sometimes, when I do some research, I open about 180+ tabs on my machine. This makes firefox super slow, without using the SSD or CPU to much. The memory usage is about 2-3 GB. Is it the RAM's fault, or what is the bottleneck? What can I do to make it fast again?
Ice
Posted 2014-04-12T07:47:18.103
Reputation: 31
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There are so many things wrong with this picture... For starters, that's a lot of tabs. Firefox is probably having trouble managing all that. I am guessing that you have quite a bit more than 2 to 3 gigs of RAM in your machine, but since you are on Windows, Firefox is a 32-bit application. This means it has some restrictions, one of them being that it cannot access any more than about 3 gigs of RAM. Also having that many tabs is probably bogging down your processor a bit... If you can, close some tabs, but if you can't really do that, you could give Waterfox a shot. It is a 64-bit version of Firefox for Widows, so it should be able to access more RAM, which should, in theory, make Firefox faster when dealing with a ton of tabs. Also check your CPU usage to make sure that it's not too high.
Colton DRG
Posted 2014-04-12T07:47:18.103
Reputation: 21
@Ice I just re-read your post and noted that you mentioned that your CPU usage was not high. So theoretically, using Waterfox should definitely help as long as your system has lots of RAM. – Colton DRG – 2014-04-12T08:13:14.083
Thanks! Okey, but is there any offical 64-bit firefox? PS: The CPU is not that affected. I rather think that it's the RAM restriction that you mentioned. – Ice – 2014-04-12T08:14:32.413
@Ice There is no official 64-bit Firefox for Windows to my knowledge (besides nightly, but those are unstable). The Mac OS X version is actually 64-bit by default, unless you tell OS X to start it in 32-bit mode. The builds in most Linux distros' repositories are 64-bit as well (assuming you're on a 64-bit system), but for Windows, there is none. Waterfox should do you just fine though because close to nothing is actually different aside from the architecture. In fact, I think it might even use the same profile directory. – Colton DRG – 2014-04-12T08:28:45.903
Can you use firefox addons on Waterfox without risk for bugs? – Ice – 2014-04-12T09:11:15.910
@Ice - Have you tried? Considering I have several hundred tabs and don't experience the problems you have. I am guessing the number of tabs you have open are simply to much for your hardware to handle. In a case like this it would be the CPU and memory, the SSD would only come into play, when writing to the cache. – Ramhound – 2014-04-12T09:16:26.967
@Ice You should be able to... Some addons have issues with 64-bit in general, but most should work just fine! – Colton DRG – 2014-04-13T10:03:04.193
@Ramhound Are you using Windows? The problems wouldn't happen on Mac or Linux because those are 64-bit by default. – Colton DRG – 2014-04-13T10:04:52.617
@ColtonDRG - Does not matter what I am using. – Ramhound – 2014-04-13T16:54:45.203
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I'm running Chrome right now, but Chrome is also a memory-hog, especially on older machines without much RAM. And I have a habit of leaving tabs open in the background for weeks, things I need to read when I get around to having time.
Two suggestions: One is, I have an extension called the Great Suspender which unloads the pages of tabs I haven't looked at in a while, but leaves the tab open. This way the memory is freed up for pages I haven't looked at in, say, 10 minutes. I imagine a similar extension exists for Firefox. A quick Google search found this one.
The other suggestion is a repeat of what a commenter said, and that's modify your workflow if you have 180+ tabs open. I have no idea how you keep all that organized, but there are good tools out there to help you with web research. At the very least, you could get a "read it later" bookmarking service like Pocket or Instapaper to keep track of what you've opened that you haven't gotten around to reading. diigo is a full-service bookmarking app complete with "read it later", tagging, notes, highlighting, and if you pay for it, archiving. Or you could use an online notebook like Evernote or OneNote. I encourage you to check these out if you haven't considered them already.
ash
Posted 2014-04-12T07:47:18.103
Reputation: 141
@SamiLaine Why should it matter how many tabs are open? Tabs that aren't being used at the moment should be written to disk and not occupy memory or CPU at all. – endolith – 2016-12-19T02:48:03.227
I'm prone to ask why would you have 180+ tabs open? What I mean is not to belittle your problem/question, but this just sounds like an overkill and most likely is solvable by redefining your workflow in such a way that you could do with a smaller number of tabs. – Sami Laine – 2014-04-12T08:27:49.203