[ubuntu-uk] Firefox hogging the processor

[Anthony Harrington]

On 02/02/14 15:41, Colin Law wrote:
> On 2 February 2014 13:55, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2 February 2014 13:04, Anthony Harrington
>> <Untaintableangel at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 02/02/14 12:25, Colin Law wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2 February 2014 12:10, J Fernyhough <j.fernyhough at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2 February 2014 11:55, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> HI
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> I can't find anything on launchpad.  Any suggestions anyone?
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Colin
>>>
>>> Which version of Firefox are you running? You might try the beta or aurora
>>> channels; I've seen a fair few issues with FF26, for example, that I haven't
>>> seen in 27a or 28a.
>>>
>>> I should have said, it is the standard version from the 13.10 repo.
>>> 26.0+build2-0ubuntu0.13.10.2
>>> I might give the beta a go if I can work out how to install it.
>>>
>>> Having said that, I've occasionally had high CPU with Gmail. I wonder if it
>>> sometimes gets stuck in an AJAX loop (or some other race condition).
>>>
>>> Possible.  Though if it were a loop in javascript then I would expect
>>> that FF should still be able to be closed down ok.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Colin
>>>
>>> I'd recommend adding the Mozilla daily ppa and upgrading your installation
>>> that way. It's usually updated everyday of the year, give or take the odd
>>> week around holidays (for obvious reasons!) but i've yet to have problems
>>> with it in all the years i've been using it. It really is a great resource.
>>>
>>> to add it, do:
>>> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa
>>> then
>>> sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get remove firefox && sudo apt-get install
>>> firefox-trunk
>> I will give that a go.  Thanks Anthony.
> Well that went ok, it even copied across my profile.  Just have to
> wait now to see if the problem shows itself again.
>
> Colin
>
>>> you'll get the very latest version everytime you update, from now on.
>>> (Currently 29 alpha) (Underlined part is optional if you want to take out
>>> mainline firefox )
>>>
>>> Any problems and you can always put firefox back. (I think you can have them
>>> both installed at the same time, but i'd err on caution and only keep the
>>> one you're going to use incase there's any profile clashing? Shouldn't be
>>> because they're stored in separate folders, but your call, i'm sure you'll
>>> be happy with the results of this.)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Launchpad translator and linux chemist ^_^
>>> https://launchpad.net/~untaintableangel
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>>>
Actually, since there could be others reading this that want some tips,
there are further steps you can do to minimise firefox usage.

There are memory tweaks and other stuff you can fiddle with in
about:config that might reduce your cpu usage e.g. if you cache more or
in situations, allow more to be stored in memory before sending for more
data. But a good quick area to focus on is flash.

On my setup, i've got the greasemonkey addon along with a script for it
called 'viewtube'

Viewtube is very effective at forcing youtube/dailymotion etc flash
videos to work in whatever player you choose in the list on the video
and i set mine to highest definition available in html5. There's a very
small learning curve for what it does - like it gives you a 'get' option
to download the video, and you can set it to 'html5' or 'vlc' or 'xine' 
(xine is good if nothing else will work but 99% of the time html5 works
great and no adverts and loads very quickly but more importantly,
without flash, the cpu usage stays much lower.)

The only thing i ever actually need the flash plugin for now is if i
want to watch a video posted on facebook and i can't copy the youtube
link and open it in a new tab in html5. While flash does once in a blue
moon end up crashing the browser because of a facebook video, it never
happens unexpectedly or often at all, so i went to about:config and made
*dom.ipc.plugins.enabled* false. (Search for 'dom.ipc' in about:config
and set the top three booleans to false.)
This controls the 'plugin container' a separate process running with
firefox that contains plugins (as the name implies!) so that if they
crash, they don't take firefox with it. Without the process however, the
cpu usage does drop a fair bit. Much less than in previous
versions/previous years, but i live perfectly happily without it, maybe
you might be too?

Might be worth testing for yourself because it certainly made my life
easier. It doesn't make sense to have it if you can circumvent your
flash usage because its purely a safety net.


In response to using the firefox tarballs from their site and running
like that, i have done this before and you're right it is VERY simple
and contained and the update packages are smaller, but i feel like it's
much less integrated with the desktop unless you physically install it
from a ppa or build it from source. (Although it /is /easy to make a
launcher for it on the old gnome-shell desktop via alacarte, never done
this for unity!)

Best of luck!

-- 
Launchpad translator and linux chemist ^_^
https://launchpad.net/~untaintableangel

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