5 ms·

Here's one personal irritation on this subject: Programs which appear to be fully loaded, but don't allow you to do anything for a while. I'm solely a Linux use

Here's one personal irritation on this subject: Programs which appear to be fully loaded, but don't allow you to do anything for a while. I'm solely a Linux user now, but I recall that Windows would do this before I stopped using Windows entirely in the late 2000s. Firefox does this pretty bad now. I typically wait a few minutes after opening Firefox before doing anything. After roughly a minute Firefox has autocomplete in the URL bar, but no websites will load until I wait another minute or so.

ChrisSD 7y ago
That sounds odd to me. Do you have a lot of tabs or addons?
- btrettel 7y ago
  I don't save tabs and have about 10 addons. I'll try to see if any of them are the cause. Edit: I should note that Firefox is only slow on the first opening after a cold boot. Firefox is fine after that. Might be some caching issue. Edit 2: After a cold boot, Firefox loads quickly in safe mode. Disabling ABP did not seem to eliminate the problem. Disable NoScript seemed to help a bit. I might switch to uMatrix instead of those two and see if that helps.
  - NemosDemos 7y ago
    If you do manage to find a solution, I'd love for you to share - I have this exact same issue. For reference, re-installing FF doesn't seem to fix it, and I have neither NoScript nor uMatrix installed (although do have uBlock Origin). (I've been meaning to troubleshoot it for a while, and if I manage to track down the issue, will let you know).
    - temp123123123 7y ago
      While my experience is on Windows, and with Chrome, I have also had a similar issue. I ended up tracking it down to the fact that on start-up, over time a lot of junk got added into the applications/services that run on start-up. To the point that it would slow down Chrome when I tried to open it right away. So a potential solution to your problem is to check out what else is running at start-up that might cause FF to run slow, but only at start-up.
- IIAOPSW 7y ago
  I have the same issue and my only active addons are procrastination guard and adblock. It happens at startup when there are no tabs, but I frequently have between 10 and 20 tabs.
wycy 7y ago
This happens with Firefox on my work machine too. I use Firefox at home but Chrome at work for this reason. I just assumed something was glitching out due to some corporate group policy failure. But yeah, similar behavior: the Firefox window opens but is completely unresponsive for a minute.
swiley 7y ago
That sounds like demand paging to me, try running from a RAM disk and see if it goes away.
- btrettel 7y ago
  I actually used to run Firefox from a RAM disk back in 2009 or so. I'll give it a shot again, thanks for the suggestion.
saghm 7y ago
> Firefox does this pretty bad now. I typically wait a few minutes after opening Firefox before doing anything. After roughly a minute Firefox has autocomplete in the URL bar, but no websites will load until I wait another minute or so. Wow! I have maybe a dozen extensions installed, but even on my work laptop (which is not very high spec), I can use Firefox easily within 10 seconds of opening it. Do you have tons of tabs open and have it set to reopen the previous session? I'm kind of shocked to hear that it could take this long
- o-__-o 7y ago
  Also the configuration matters. Core 2 Duo with 4gb RAM running Windows 10 will suffer a swapping fate that not even I would wish on my enemies
  - boring_twenties 7y ago
    That sounds like just literal self-punishment. If you want to use Core 2 you need some super lightweight DE like Xfce or LXDE. Windows 10? Come on. You will simply have to get some newer hardware to do anything with that.
  - rasz 7y ago
    Its a self inflicted problem, nowadays you can get perfectly fine 5-7 year old computers for ~free at the recycling center.
    - ta999999171 7y ago
      Where is this recycling center?
      - o-__-o 7y ago
        Go look at ewaste companies and find out how they discard computers. Those 200 lot computer sales on eBay come from these companies and they buy old hardware for pennies on the dollar. If you get them before they make it to eBay or other distribution channels you can usually get another 20-50% off (I got a sun fire v20 this way for $200 back in the day)
jpindar 7y ago
And of course they have to steal focus, sometimes several times, so you can't do something else while you wait.
- honestoHeminway 7y ago
  Any decent OS should monitor beginn of user interaction with a programm and prevent focus stealing in the loading time frame..
rasz 7y ago
Someone needs a $50 SSD.
- btrettel 7y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. My laptop only has enough space for one drive, and I assumed that SSDs wouldn't have enough space for my needs. Glad to see that's not true at all, in fact, I can upgrade the space considerably. I'll go this route even if it doesn't fix Firefox.
tomc1985 7y ago
Good lord, what have you done to your browser?
Xelbair 7y ago
gmail is like that now. It either loads in matter of minutes, or it displays last seen cached view... and loads in matter of minutes.
- ignoranceprior 7y ago
  Fast, basic Gmail interface: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/?f=1 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/?f=1
  - Xelbair 7y ago
    it only misses hangouts messaging, if it had that it would be perfect. Still - the latest update to gmail was basically a downgrade from user perspective. It is slower, and looks the same and offers no new functionality.

ChrisSD 7y ago

That sounds odd to me. Do you have a lot of tabs or addons?

btrettel 7y ago
I don't save tabs and have about 10 addons. I'll try to see if any of them are the cause. Edit: I should note that Firefox is only slow on the first opening after a cold boot. Firefox is fine after that. Might be some caching issue. Edit 2: After a cold boot, Firefox loads quickly in safe mode. Disabling ABP did not seem to eliminate the problem. Disable NoScript seemed to help a bit. I might switch to uMatrix instead of those two and see if that helps.
- NemosDemos 7y ago
  If you do manage to find a solution, I'd love for you to share - I have this exact same issue. For reference, re-installing FF doesn't seem to fix it, and I have neither NoScript nor uMatrix installed (although do have uBlock Origin). (I've been meaning to troubleshoot it for a while, and if I manage to track down the issue, will let you know).
  - temp123123123 7y ago
    While my experience is on Windows, and with Chrome, I have also had a similar issue. I ended up tracking it down to the fact that on start-up, over time a lot of junk got added into the applications/services that run on start-up. To the point that it would slow down Chrome when I tried to open it right away. So a potential solution to your problem is to check out what else is running at start-up that might cause FF to run slow, but only at start-up.
IIAOPSW 7y ago
I have the same issue and my only active addons are procrastination guard and adblock. It happens at startup when there are no tabs, but I frequently have between 10 and 20 tabs.

wycy 7y ago

This happens with Firefox on my work machine too. I use Firefox at home but Chrome at work for this reason. I just assumed something was glitching out due to some corporate group policy failure. But yeah, similar behavior: the Firefox window opens but is completely unresponsive for a minute.

swiley 7y ago

That sounds like demand paging to me, try running from a RAM disk and see if it goes away.

btrettel 7y ago
I actually used to run Firefox from a RAM disk back in 2009 or so. I'll give it a shot again, thanks for the suggestion.

saghm 7y ago

> Firefox does this pretty bad now. I typically wait a few minutes after opening Firefox before doing anything. After roughly a minute Firefox has autocomplete in the URL bar, but no websites will load until I wait another minute or so. Wow! I have maybe a dozen extensions installed, but even on my work laptop (which is not very high spec), I can use Firefox easily within 10 seconds of opening it. Do you have tons of tabs open and have it set to reopen the previous session? I'm kind of shocked to hear that it could take this long

o-__-o 7y ago
Also the configuration matters. Core 2 Duo with 4gb RAM running Windows 10 will suffer a swapping fate that not even I would wish on my enemies
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  That sounds like just literal self-punishment. If you want to use Core 2 you need some super lightweight DE like Xfce or LXDE. Windows 10? Come on. You will simply have to get some newer hardware to do anything with that.
- rasz 7y ago
  Its a self inflicted problem, nowadays you can get perfectly fine 5-7 year old computers for ~free at the recycling center.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    Where is this recycling center?
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      Go look at ewaste companies and find out how they discard computers. Those 200 lot computer sales on eBay come from these companies and they buy old hardware for pennies on the dollar. If you get them before they make it to eBay or other distribution channels you can usually get another 20-50% off (I got a sun fire v20 this way for $200 back in the day)

jpindar 7y ago

And of course they have to steal focus, sometimes several times, so you can't do something else while you wait.

honestoHeminway 7y ago
Any decent OS should monitor beginn of user interaction with a programm and prevent focus stealing in the loading time frame..

rasz 7y ago

Someone needs a $50 SSD.

btrettel 7y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. My laptop only has enough space for one drive, and I assumed that SSDs wouldn't have enough space for my needs. Glad to see that's not true at all, in fact, I can upgrade the space considerably. I'll go this route even if it doesn't fix Firefox.

tomc1985 7y ago

Good lord, what have you done to your browser?

Xelbair 7y ago

gmail is like that now. It either loads in matter of minutes, or it displays last seen cached view... and loads in matter of minutes.

ignoranceprior 7y ago
Fast, basic Gmail interface: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/?f=1 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/?f=1
- Xelbair 7y ago
  it only misses hangouts messaging, if it had that it would be perfect. Still - the latest update to gmail was basically a downgrade from user perspective. It is slower, and looks the same and offers no new functionality.