Looking for forums discussing browser optimization for Win-7

[Nomen]

Is there a forum anywhere on the net where the topic is either browser choices and advanced config / optimizations for Win-7, or perhaps more specifically a Firefox forum focused on using older versions of FF?

I'd like to keep using FF 5x on Win-7/32 and I want add-ons like RIP / Nuke This / No Script (etc)  to work properly.  I also want to be able to keep 25 to 50 tabs open without the browser kacking every few days because it's got a memory leak or something causing it to consume 500 to 800 mb of ram.

 

 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

16 minutes ago, Nomen said:

I also want to be able to keep 25 to 50 tabs open without the browser kacking every few days because it's got a memory leak or something causing it to consume 500 to 800 mb of ram.

Not another one of "those people"...  But I digress...

I suspect you are better off finding out WHICH ONE of those 25 to 50 tabs is causing your problem and tweak that page's javascript.

Or, perhaps better yet, find a way to "live with" NOT keeping that problematic page open 24/7.

Not sure how much help that really is, but at least it is "something" until others come along  

[Nomen]

Is there an add-on or something that will tell me / show me the memory usage of individual tabs? 

And / or browser settings that limit or stop page caching or other junk like that?

 

 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

I will have to wait for others "like you" to chime in, I'm afraid.

I personally do not condone the practice / habit of the (so-called) "need" for 25 to 50 tabs being open 24/7.

I could direct you to link after link and article after article on "why" I don't condone the practice - but in reality, we all have different "needs" for our computer and "to each their own", as the saying goes.

I parallel keeping so many tabs open is like going to sleep at night with the front door unlocked - but again, "to each their own".

In the world of "social media", all 25 to 50 of those tabs are very likely "sharing" ONE cookie and every tab knows what the other tab is doing - I'm exaggerating slightly, but it's called Cross Site Request Forgery and it relies solely on session-cookies.

I'm no security expert, not pretending to be, nor a conspiracy theorist, but keeping that many "sessions" open all at the same time is not something I would recommend.

 

[Mr.Scienceman2000]

13 hours ago, Nomen said:

I'd like to keep using FF 5x on Win-7/32 and I want add-ons like RIP / Nuke This / No Script (etc)  to work properly.  I also want to be able to keep 25 to 50 tabs open without the browser kacking every few days because it's got a memory leak or something causing it to consume 500 to 800 mb of ram.

First of all how much ram do you got? And for me 800mb of ram wont sound that bad for 50 tabs, you average out better than I do on same amount. Then why do you need keep 50 tabs open all the times instead of using bookmarks? Also what sites you got open

11 hours ago, ArcticFoxie said:

 

I'm no security expert, not pretending to be, nor a conspiracy theorist, but keeping that many "sessions" open all at the same time is not something I would recommend.

Well sites can read your clipboard using javascript so would not recommend having lot of sites (read any sites) open when handling private information on clipboard like passwords. For example one of your sites is running javascript doing it and you copy password or other to clipboard to paste it on field site can capture it. I always clear clipboard before using web after had something private there.

[Nomen]

Right now I have FF ESR 52.9.0 with 24 tabs, Seamonkey 2.53.7.1 with maybe 18 tabs.  I was using I think FF 39 but a few things really didn't work correctly (like entering posts on this site but reading was ok).

Dell Latitude 6420 with core i-7 and 4 gb ram, win-7 ultimate with 4 gb ram.

Memory useage - Seamonkey and FF are both creeping up as I watch task manager window, Seamonkey is 636 mb, FF is 738 mb.  

Seamonkey has 16 tabs, one is streaming audio from a website (local EMS/fire scanner) but the other tabs are mostly ebay items.

Thunderbird is 195 mb (static) and dwm.exe is 61 mb.  

56 total processes, CPU usage 5 to 12%, physical memory 85%.

Looking again at FF memory usage is now 793 mb. (I left the computer running for an hour, get back and see it's under 700 mb).

At some point some graphics elements in FF web pages starts to become black boxes or graphics are distorted and that's when I know I have to shut-down FF and restart it.  That seems to happen if I have 40 to 50 tabs.  FF can be stable with that many tabs but if I do an address-map lookup in google and open the map view that will usually tip FF over and it will become unstable soon after.

FF tabs are (4) web forums, (3) google search results, (5) financial charts or info (2 static, 3 real time charts), the rest are to web sites with static info of some sort that I want to keep open / quickly available until I'm done with them (but some I will not look at for maybe weeks at a time).  If I find a reason to open a page because it contains something interesting or useful for the moment I tend not to close it until I'm absolutely sure I won't need to hunt for it again.  I will occasionally bookmark all open pages but I rarely call up bookmarked pages because I find the FF bookmark interface inefficient or clumsey to use.

When I kill FF (sometimes I have to use task manager) and open it again I will select last browser session (which was the last session when FF was closed while it was stable) and all tabs at that time are re-loaded.

I'd like to know more about cross-site info "stealing" and if there are settings to prevent that - how.  I do use noscript and de-activate MANY sites (double-click, amazon, fecebook, various google-ad things, etc).   Very large HOSTS file also in use.

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Nomen

[NotHereToPlayGames]

Truthfully, you have to experiment and find the mix that is right for you.

I use MVPS's HOSTS file but tend to only update it once a year.

The tabs you don't look at for weeks at a time - STOP KEEPING THEM OPEN.

Not to go ALL CAPS on you, but that solution seems far FAR too obvious and you really do need to "let go" and close those tabs  

If you don't like bookmarks, then use a "speed dial" addon or something of the like.

Or just copy-paste the URL into a .txt file - but why bury yourself with the performance-cripple of keeping them open for weeks at a time?

Some difficulties in life we simply bring upon ourselves - that, my friend, I suggest is one of them  

Don't like pasting the URL from a .txt file?  Then use a 3rd Party program like TyperTask and assign a keyboard shortcut.

 

I personally never open any of my financial sites, be they banking or investing, during a "browse session" and I clear cache and history at every browser-close.

And for any real time charts, I keep those running in a separate browser altogether - I use BNavigator for that type of stuff, don't care if the rest of BNavigator doesn't fit the rest of my needs, it fits for that so I use it for that.

 

You really are better off getting rid of the "Page Parking" obsession (a real term) and learn to truly multi-task.

"Parking" on a page for weeks?  Then complaining that your browser "leaks"?  Really?

 

But anywhoo...

[Nomen]

What is the fundamental flaw in browser technology that makes "page parking" such a performance / memory hit for browsers?   What on earth is going on in the background that is causing browsers to eat up memory for pages that I think are not really doing anything and that I'm not even looking at?

 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

To be as polite as possible, I cite an excerpt  --  Although shocking that a single application on your machine can consume so many of your system resources, the complaint is relatively misguided, born in part by rose-tinted visions of the way the internet used to work in the olden days and by a fundamental misunderstanding of the way RAM is distributed and used within a computer.

 

https://www.poweradmin.com/blog/why-your-internet-browser-is-such-a-ram-hog/

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r7xnc/eli5_why_do_browsers_take_up_so_much_ram/

https://www.howtogeek.com/334594/stop-complaining-that-your-browser-uses-lots-of-ram-its-a-good-thing/

 

Divide those tabs among two or three browsers, use one during the day for real-time market news, close it at the end of the business day, bookmark or speed-dial the tabs you don't even look at for weeks, et cetera.

If you can't take the advice of closing unused tabs and stop "Page Parking", I really got nothing more for you.

 

I feel that this discusson has "gone full circle" so best of luck to you, I got nothing more.

[vinifera]

seriously with that little RAM, you should be running XP not 7 (or vista)
considering you need 2 GB to run system smoothly, you are left with even less than 2 (i'd guess 1.5 GB coz youre on 32bit OS)

your quick fix might be turn on Page file

best one would be add more RAM, but i'd guess your laptop can't have more ... ?
also some browsers have in options/settings, to only cache active tab, so others dont chew so much memory, look it up

but i'd say you're basically shizzle out of luck...
so much tabs with so little memory will always take toll on system (especially on more recent/modern browsers)

 

[UCyborg]

I don't remember the last time Firefox (up to 52.x versions) or its derivatives, namely Moonchild Productions' offerings (not aware of anything I'd consider better), haven't actually leaked memory, regardless of OS or hardware acceleration on/off.

Good luck with "optimizing" and let us about the positive results, I think the failure has the high probability unless you're better than all the programmers that came before.

[mshultz]

I went to Waterfox Classic when I moved from Windows XP x64 to Windows 7 x64.  It has a number of advantages for my purposes, such as being able to set my location exactly (With CenturyLink DSL, it otherwise gets reported as somewhere in northwestern Ohio, which prevents me from using Locast Cleveland).

 

[SC7601]

If you want to learn which tab takes how much amount of memory, take a look at this: https://www.nextofwindows.com/detailed-firefox-memory-usage-and-how-to-reduce-memory-use-without-restarting