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0 pointsmistermann10y ago0 comments

I have 12GB of RAM and probably ~120 tabs open at any given time. This used to be fine, but it seems Firefox is just getting worse over time, the main problem is the frequent 5 to 30 second pauses while it is doing....something.

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Morgawr10y ago

>the main problem is the frequent 5 to 30 second pauses while it is doing....something.

Oh god I thought I was alone on this. I've been talking to various Firefox users and nobody was able to relate with me. I usually keep Firefox open 24/7 with around 20-30 tabs open (~6 or so pinned). Every time I am typing (like in a hangout popup window or in a HN comment) Firefox is micro-stuttering and freezing and it eats away some of the words I am typing and it becomes very frustrating. I ended up typing comments in vim and then copypasting because it was faster. It feels like typing in an SSH connection with high-latency.

Also when scrolling long pages (like reddit threads) the "view" takes a while to update so I end up scrolling down to a totally grey page which then updates with content over and over again. And don't make me talk about twitter taking ages and setting my CPU to 100% (one core) with loud as hell fan every time I click on "show 50 new tweets"...

I have 16GB of RAM and a 2-years old top-of-the-line (back then) i7 CPU on a laptop, I shouldn't be having these issues...

trycatch10y ago

Yes, I have the same problems. Last time I looked into these pauses, those were mostly GC pauses. At first you feel like moving on a bumpy road with micro-freezes and frame drops - that's incremental GC, and then you meet a concrete wall - that's non-incremental GC kicks-in, sometimes in multi-second territory. It got better in the last few releases, to be fair, but still far away from other browsers.

mistermannOP10y ago

Man I dunno, that seems like something else entirely. Maybe try installing NoScript?

simula6710y ago

> 120 tabs open at any given time

Are you exaggerating ? If not, may I suggest an alternative way to browse the web ?

I use multiple virtual desktops. Each desktop logically caters to one task. Each browser window is logically grouped under one activity.

For example my desktop may look like this :

Virtual Desktop 1 ( Communications ):

* Outlook

* Lync

* Flowdock etc

Virtual Desktop 2 ( Development ):

* ConEmu/ Command prompt

* Intellij

* Browser Window with multiple tabs for referring stuff

Virtual Desktop 3 ( Procrastination ):

Browser Window 1:

* Various pages opened from HN

Browser Window 2:

* Various pages concerning World War 2

* Various pages investigating different investment strategies.

The advantage of this approach is that once you are done you can close browser windows and tabs. Done with researching World War 2 ? Close that window, all associated tabs close automatically. If you accidentally close a tab, you can always bring it back with Ctrl + Shift + T. If you want to refer to a previously opened window, you can always do a simple search in browser history.

Keeps your system responsive and makes it easy to find things.

ksec10y ago

He is not, it is not rare to have 120 tabs, in fact some extreme even have 400+ Tabs openned. Today is rather lightweight for me and has 70 Tabs. Of coz these wont be all loaded, Once you close and reopen those tabs will be unloaded. They are more like a list of things to read and do.

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burfog10y ago

On a different system, I had pretty much that. I've moved to Chromium, which is also slow but at least doesn't hang as often or as badly. I would do this:

8 or 16 gigabytes of RAM (got an upgrade)

8 virtual desktops, about 5 occupied with browser windows

1 to 20 windows per desktop

1 to 20 tabs per window

That is likely 100 to 300 tabs total. No, I really don't want to close them. I want more open, but performance is a problem. I like to keep going back to tabs that have been open for months. It hurts to close tabs because then I lose track of what I am working on; the scroll bar position matters and the page might even be gone from the web. Sometimes I write a comment on a web site like this one, then let it sit for days if I am unsure I want to post it.

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