Easy Tip: Reduce CPU usage of Firefox

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Firefox is the best browser around right now, with a large open-source community to boot. Firefox maybe the best in terms of features and flexibility, but all this comes at a price. Firefox, as we all know, is a resource hog. It can take up 100+ MB of RAM when multiple tabs are open. Also, CPU usage shoots up. Occasionally, CPU usage hit 100% and the system hangs.

Memory hogging is caused by the caching of pages and images for faster browsing, as explained in this post by Mozillazine. Stupidly enough, Mozilla says that it is a feature, but I cannot see any reason why they would want to keep a ‘feature’ that even the most hardcore Firefox user hates. Now, Mozilla is working on fixing this memory hog especially since they are entering mobile browser market, and mobile phones’ RAM is limited. Hopefully, Firefox 4 would have better memory management ;)

There are many reasons for this hanging. Plugins and extensions, which are not part of the default Firefox install may cause this. Poorly optimized sites which load several images and ads may cause this. These are inevitable.

There are some things that we can do to reduce Firefox CPU usage, like:

  1. Disable the Java plugin, by going to Tools>Options>Content tab> uncheck Enable Java. Most sites do not use Java. So, you end up wasting CPU resources for a plugin(yes, it is sorta plugin) that you do not use.
  2. Disable Images by going to Tools>Options>Content tab> uncheck Load Images automatically. It may sound stupid, but many designers go overboard and add several image backgrounds, coupled with post images. Taking out those darn images out of the equation can work, especially on older PCs. Note that this is a last ditch effort, and you should try other methods mentioned here before trying this one.
  3. Open fewer tabs. By this, I mean that you should not open more than ~10 tabs. The more tabs you have, the more memory Firefox consumes. Experiment with the number and come up with an optimal number for your PC.
  4. Cut down on the number of extensions used. More specifically, try to remove those extensions which access internet to update information for each site(Alexa toolbar, PR tools, StumbleUpon toolbar etc.).

Granted, disabling images and opening fewer tabs may sound absurd, when seeing vivacious images and browsing several sites simultaneously are important to most. The fact is, these little things can be the difference between a crashing browser and a perfectly-working one. Also, in optimization, every bit counts.

November 7th, 2007 Leave a comment

9 Comments

  1. Shankar Ganesh said on November 7th, 2007

    Good tips. I usually check the Addons box and uninstall less used extensions.

  2. Post authorSumesh said on November 7th, 2007

    @Shankar: Thanks. And yes, avoiding less used extensions is good, but I recommend removing those which access the web for info, like PR tools/Alexa toolbar.

  3. Alfred said on November 8th, 2007

    Sry but removing the java plugin and images… its just not worth surfing like that..
    but cutting down on the extensions would definately help

  4. Post authorSumesh said on November 8th, 2007

    @Alfred: Java plugin is not used enough to justify the resource consumption, so I disable it. Again, its upto you - I personally like everything light and responsive rather than heavy and feature-ladden. Also, it all depends on the PC config you have. Besides, I said it about disabling images when you have 20+ tabs each with 15+ images, which adds up to quite a handful.

  5. Deepak said on November 14th, 2007

    I back Alfred. I feel it’s just not worth surfing without images and java plugin, if you surf sites other than news and feeds, in which case the content is all that matters.

    Opera doesn’t have the multiple tab hog like Firefox does. Funnily enough, Mozilla says the resource hogging is a “feature”. :D

  6. Post authorSumesh said on November 15th, 2007

    @Deepak: I agree with the images thing. It should be done only if you’re on a slow system (remember, there are plenty of users still stuck on P4 computers). As for Java, I still recommend it, because Java is not used very frequently now.

    Opera is built to be light weight, and FF was so until v1.6. Mozilla claims so because it caches most pages and images previously visited (link). I’ve updated the post to reflect this info.

  7. Mozilla, please give us a better browser in Firefox 4 said on November 25th, 2007

    [...] you are on Firefox, you might want to go over these tips to reduce Firefox’s CPU and memory usage. Stumble this [...]

  8. Chris in NYC said on January 15th, 2008

    I agree. And I have NO extensions installed and am still having the 100% CPU usage issue with 3 tabs open (news, blogs, nothing exotic), even after adding a gig of RAM.

    I’m going back to IE until this gets addressed.

  9. enigma said on April 10th, 2008

    I suggest people look for enigma browser and download it from http://store.democratz.org

    You can find the link just above the products and you can download it for free.

    Engima runs faster than Firefox and you can easily run 32 tabs and not slow down the machine.

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