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As someone who has used Firefox as my default browser since it was called Phoenix, I can tell you that Quantum was a big step backward in terms of memory consum

As someone who has used Firefox as my default browser since it was called Phoenix, I can tell you that Quantum was a big step backward in terms of memory consumption and CPU utilization for Firefox. On a Lenovo T450s sitting idle with 14 tabs across 4 windows, FF is now using 25-100% of the CPU and over 4GB of RAM. When I resume from Hibernation (on Windows) it can take up to 10 minutes for FF to settle down and for the system mouse to respond. If that's an improvement from Chrome, then OMG you poor bastards who use Chrome as your daily. FF seems to be fine on more powerful systems but on my lower spec'd laptops it's just a battery sucking lap warmer.

Certhas 9y ago
If you experience a bug like that, report it! People's mental model (Chrome fast, lean; Firefox slow, bloated) seem to really not update quickly. When Chrome hangs it's "That's weird, something must be broken, the website sucks" when it's Firefox "Well further proof the Firefox is terrible". For the record, my 2012 MBA, which is probably weaker than your Lenovo, has no issues with Firefox at all.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  I generally do report it and the bugs are generally addressed in followup releases of Firefox. My remarks were not strikes against Firefox's performance, it's stellar, just that since Quantum it has become a resource hog to achieve that high performance.
blacksmith_tb 9y ago
Ouch, when I have experienced problems like that in FF it tends to have been something I've done to myself, fiddling with prefs in about:config. Do you see the same behavior if you spin up a fresh profile?
- cptskippy 9y ago
  That's entirely possible though I would say the profile on my work machine is only a couple months old. Is it possible that Firefox sync brought in settings from another machine that's possibly borking it?
ksec 9y ago
The Lenovo here is running on Boardwell, that is the 14nm version of Haswell. I am running on a 32nm SandyBridge, which is even older then the 2012 MBA, 22nm Ivy Bridge mentioned in the MBA post below. And due to some thermal issues, It is now capped to running at Max 2.2Ghz. I am still trying to clean up my tabs, which is on a moderately high level of 299. Slightly lower then last weeks 380. Not all of them are active, may be only 40 tabs or so. And needless to say, for lots of Heavy Tabs users, Firefox now runs circle around Chrome. And right now, it is using 15 - 40% CPU when "idle", but mostly hover around ~25%. And I have Ad Block and Privacy option turned on. So that helps a lot too. These days website uses insane amount of Javascript from track everything including your mouse movement to quietly mining Bitcoins. For most people, Firefox is now very fast. You should try resetting profile and visit the same website to see if problem persist. You should file a bug. But may be you would have try all this and know already, since you have been using it since Phoenix. I can not help. Have a nice Day User since Netscape era.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  That's impressive. How do you manage hundreds of tabs? I tend to have Azure dashboards open which are quite active and resource intensive so I'm not doing myself any favors however I typically only have 6 of 12 tabs active. I've never used Chrome as my primary browser so I can't really compare it to Firefox in terms of performance, I just know what Firefox has been like over the years. They've always had a cadence to their releases and I know it'll get better, at the moment however it is a CPU and memory hog compared to past releases. That being said I am kind of astonished that in it's current state people are saying it's astonishingly better than Chrome. I guess it just speaks to how bad Chrome is presently? I don't think I use Chrome enough to comment but I've not had issues with it. I typically only have Chrome running ~5 tabs with 1 active.
michaelmrose 9y ago
Your resume performance has to do with windows not Firefox and it seems that something might be buggy about your experience I suggest that others are not experiencing the same issues.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  The resume performance is directly related to Firefox running. I've closed Firefox prior to hibernation and not experienced the slowness at resume. I've also started the resource monitor and hibernated with Firefox running. The resource monitor reports 100% CPU utilization on all cores with Firefox processes being the primary consumers.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    Is this so with a fresh profile and no addons enabled? Is this so without the 2-3 different antivirus a lot of windows people seem to run for no reason? Note that as firefox isn't capable of suspending or resuming a computer I'm going to continue to assume that your OS is partially related to bad resume performance.
    - cptskippy 9y ago
      > Note that as firefox isn't capable of suspending or resuming a computer I think you misunderstood what I said. Firefox isn't suspending or resuming the computer. I put the computer into hibernation explicitly and it hibernates which means the computer is consuming no power and is shut down. I can remove the battery and unplug it with no harm. Upon powering the laptop back up, Firefox starts consuming 100% CPU utilization for 5-10 minutes consuming so much CPU time that the mouse stutters. If I end task Firefox then the system becomes immediately responsive.

Certhas 9y ago

If you experience a bug like that, report it! People's mental model (Chrome fast, lean; Firefox slow, bloated) seem to really not update quickly. When Chrome hangs it's "That's weird, something must be broken, the website sucks" when it's Firefox "Well further proof the Firefox is terrible". For the record, my 2012 MBA, which is probably weaker than your Lenovo, has no issues with Firefox at all.

cptskippy 9y ago
I generally do report it and the bugs are generally addressed in followup releases of Firefox. My remarks were not strikes against Firefox's performance, it's stellar, just that since Quantum it has become a resource hog to achieve that high performance.

blacksmith_tb 9y ago

Ouch, when I have experienced problems like that in FF it tends to have been something I've done to myself, fiddling with prefs in about:config. Do you see the same behavior if you spin up a fresh profile?

cptskippy 9y ago
That's entirely possible though I would say the profile on my work machine is only a couple months old. Is it possible that Firefox sync brought in settings from another machine that's possibly borking it?

ksec 9y ago

The Lenovo here is running on Boardwell, that is the 14nm version of Haswell. I am running on a 32nm SandyBridge, which is even older then the 2012 MBA, 22nm Ivy Bridge mentioned in the MBA post below. And due to some thermal issues, It is now capped to running at Max 2.2Ghz. I am still trying to clean up my tabs, which is on a moderately high level of 299. Slightly lower then last weeks 380. Not all of them are active, may be only 40 tabs or so. And needless to say, for lots of Heavy Tabs users, Firefox now runs circle around Chrome. And right now, it is using 15 - 40% CPU when "idle", but mostly hover around ~25%. And I have Ad Block and Privacy option turned on. So that helps a lot too. These days website uses insane amount of Javascript from track everything including your mouse movement to quietly mining Bitcoins. For most people, Firefox is now very fast. You should try resetting profile and visit the same website to see if problem persist. You should file a bug. But may be you would have try all this and know already, since you have been using it since Phoenix. I can not help. Have a nice Day User since Netscape era.

cptskippy 9y ago
That's impressive. How do you manage hundreds of tabs? I tend to have Azure dashboards open which are quite active and resource intensive so I'm not doing myself any favors however I typically only have 6 of 12 tabs active. I've never used Chrome as my primary browser so I can't really compare it to Firefox in terms of performance, I just know what Firefox has been like over the years. They've always had a cadence to their releases and I know it'll get better, at the moment however it is a CPU and memory hog compared to past releases. That being said I am kind of astonished that in it's current state people are saying it's astonishingly better than Chrome. I guess it just speaks to how bad Chrome is presently? I don't think I use Chrome enough to comment but I've not had issues with it. I typically only have Chrome running ~5 tabs with 1 active.

michaelmrose 9y ago

Your resume performance has to do with windows not Firefox and it seems that something might be buggy about your experience I suggest that others are not experiencing the same issues.

cptskippy 9y ago
The resume performance is directly related to Firefox running. I've closed Firefox prior to hibernation and not experienced the slowness at resume. I've also started the resource monitor and hibernated with Firefox running. The resource monitor reports 100% CPU utilization on all cores with Firefox processes being the primary consumers.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  Is this so with a fresh profile and no addons enabled? Is this so without the 2-3 different antivirus a lot of windows people seem to run for no reason? Note that as firefox isn't capable of suspending or resuming a computer I'm going to continue to assume that your OS is partially related to bad resume performance.
  - cptskippy 9y ago
    > Note that as firefox isn't capable of suspending or resuming a computer I think you misunderstood what I said. Firefox isn't suspending or resuming the computer. I put the computer into hibernation explicitly and it hibernates which means the computer is consuming no power and is shut down. I can remove the battery and unplug it with no harm. Upon powering the laptop back up, Firefox starts consuming 100% CPU utilization for 5-10 minutes consuming so much CPU time that the mouse stutters. If I end task Firefox then the system becomes immediately responsive.