I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.

I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.
--
Please reply in this newsgroup. I never post my true
email address to prevent spam. Thank you.

Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
had this additional appended to the end:

Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
worry about?

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!

John

On 10/29/2023 10:46 AM, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>
> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.

--
Please reply in this newsgroup. I never post my true
email address to prevent spam. Thank you.

On 10/29/23 02:22 PM, this is what nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have had this additional appended to the end:
>
> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The computer is responding normally, so is it something
> I just shouldn't worry about?
>
> Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!
>
> John
>
> On 10/29/2023 10:46 AM, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
>> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that
>> as soon as I start Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is using over 350MB of memory.
>> If I open a couple of frequently used webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>>
>> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running ads, but what really concerns me is the
>> resources being used when Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.
>
I'm running the 115 version and I have not had it crash once since the upgrade.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

<nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:

> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
> had this additional appended to the end:
>
> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
> computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
> worry about?

Thunderbird's current release is 115. From your post here, you are back
on 102. Best place to ask about Thunderbird is its newsgroup over at:

alt.comp.software.thunderbird

For now before you head there, disable all the add-ons you installed in
Thunderbird, exit, and reload Thunderbird to retest. If that doesn't
help, create a new profile to use in Thunderbird which not only gets rid
of add-ons (in that new profile, not in the old one you could switch
back to) but also any tweaks you did in the advanced config editor.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles

<nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:

> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>
> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.

Tabs are isolated. Each add-on you've installed is isolated. As I
recall, but would have to recheck, you'll get 3 or 4 instances of
firefox.exe when you load it (to a blank page without all the garbage of
pre-connecting to some list of recent or favorite web sites), and
another process for each add-on though I'm not sure each add-on gets its
own isolated process.

At one time, you could reduce the number of multiple concurrent
processes by going to about:preferences -> Performance, disabling the
recommended setting which made appear a couple of extra customizable
options, like the number of Content processes. It was also where you
disabled GPU acceleration (using the GPU for math intensive functions),
but could be incompatible with the video driver, so you disabled it to
make Firefox stable. Mozilla took away the Content process tweak
leaving only the "Use hardware acceleration" (using the GPU via video
driver to your video hardware).

New page:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings

Old page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20190929164613/https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings

Here's a forum posting where the user shows the difference in the old
and new settings available:

https://www.tenforums.com/browsers-email/187508-firefox-content-process-limit-option-missing.html

Notice the "Content process limit" option shown in the old page
disappeared in the new page. The default was 4, but you could set from
1 to 8. Setting to 1 meant you got about 3 or 4 multiple concurrent
firefox.exe processes. Looks like the Content Process Limit option
disappeared around Nov 2021. Perhaps now it is an about:config tweak,
like dom.ipc.processCount (which mine is set to 8).

Seems disabling auto-start for fission.autostart also affects number of
concurrent firefox.exe processes. This is about site isolation, not
program/add-on isolation.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Project_Fission
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/05/18/introducing-site-isolation-in-firefox/
https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/gone-fission-and-you-should-too/

Maybe they figured reducing processes contradicted the purpose of having
them to isolate processes for security, and stability (if one add-on
crashed, it didn't take down the main processes, too), and users were
interfering with the sandboxing feature in Firefox by setting a lower
content process count.

https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/dom/ipc/process_model.html

When compared to Chrome, Firefox spawns far fewer concurrent processes.
Well, it did back when I used to have Chrome on my computer. After
Microsoft dumped their EdgeHTML rendering engine and Jscript interpreter
to use Chromium's Blink engine and V8 script interpreter but keep their
own chrome (small "c") to brand it and differentiate from Chrome (big
"C"), I didn't need Chrome anymore for site compatibility, especially
with some Google sites that only work fully with Chrome. So, I haven't
had Chrome for a couple years to know if it still spawns more chrome.exe
processes than Firefox spawns for firefox.exe processes.

If you're running short on RAM because you've got Firefox loading dozens
or hundreds of tabs connecting to web sites, learn to control your
behavior. You aren't visiting all those tabs, so close them. If you
need to revisit, go back there using a bookmark or history. Firefox has
its Tab Unload feature to reduce its memory footprint. That doesn't
mean memory is returned immediately when you're away from a tab. Tab
unloading happens when system memory is running low. That tab remains,
but its content gets flushed, so you can click on the tab to return to
that site which then reloads. You can see which tabs got unloaded by
going to about:unloads. Clicking the Unload button unloads all tabs.
Chrome and Edge-C have the same feature.

https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/browser/tabunloader/
https://www.popsci.com/diy/tab-snoozing-guide/

I don't keep many tabs concurrently open, because I obviously cannot be
visiting them all at the same time. I only need a few open as a bounce
between the tabs, like researching for this reply about Firefox
concurrent processes, settings, auto-unloading tabs, etc. Also, I don't
leave Firefox running 24x7. When I done with it, I exit it, and it
loads to about:blank instead of the default tab page with a recent list
that ends up making connections to web sites that I may not be
revisiting in that instance of Firefox.

To reduce how many background connections for Firefox, read:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections

I wouldn't worry too much about the number of concurrent firefox.exe
processes. If Firefox is getting slowed because of running out of RAM,
stop leaving open so many tabs, reduce the number of startup programs
you load when you log into your Windows account or when Windows starts,
or get more RAM. However, remember that unused RAM is wasted RAM. Many
pre-builts come with enough RAM to accomodate most users. I build my
own desktops. My current build has 64 GB of RAM, so it would be very
tough to run out of RAM although it's possible. Unlike any suggestions
where you read to disable paged memory (to the drive), always have some.
Some programs will preload data into paged memory rather than have to do
it raw when needed, like games that load objects and textures into paged
memory to eliminate stalling to retrieve them later when needed.

Most users expect just 1 process when they load a program. Many
programs have evolved into using multiple processes to increase
performance, security, and stability. For some programs, like the
ancient newsreader I use here, multi-processing doesn't make much sense.
Most of its function is to compose and submit messages, and it doesn't
take much to run a text editor to compose a message at a time.

On 29/10/2023 at 18:48, VanguardLH wrote:
> <nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:
>
>> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
>> had this additional appended to the end:
>>
>> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
>> computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
>> worry about?
>
> Thunderbird's current release is 115. From your post here, you are back
> on 102. Best place to ask about Thunderbird is its newsgroup over at:
>
> alt.comp.software.thunderbird
>
> For now before you head there, disable all the add-ons you installed in
> Thunderbird, exit, and reload Thunderbird to retest. If that doesn't
> help, create a new profile to use in Thunderbird which not only gets rid
> of add-ons (in that new profile, not in the old one you could switch
> back to) but also any tweaks you did in the advanced config editor.
>
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles

The OP is talking about Firefox resources, not Thunderbird.

--
Wilf

On 29/10/2023 at 18:22, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
> had this additional appended to the end:
>
> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
> computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
> worry about?
>
> Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!
>
> John
>
> On 10/29/2023 10:46 AM, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
>> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
>> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
>> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
>> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
>> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>>
>> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
>> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
>> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.
>

Hi, I'm running FF 119 and just like previous versions it tends to use
around 500MB when it starts and rarely goes much below that. It has
currently got 14 processes and is using 850MB with only two tabs open.
It doesn't ever fall over, though, and everything seems to work well.
You could try to disable all your add-ons and see if that helps. I have
11 add-ons enabled.

--
Wilf

Wilf <wilf21@is.invalid> wrote:

> On 29/10/2023 at 18:48, VanguardLH wrote:
>> <nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
>>> had this additional appended to the end:
>>>
>>> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
>>> computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
>>> worry about?
>>
>> Thunderbird's current release is 115. From your post here, you are back
>> on 102. Best place to ask about Thunderbird is its newsgroup over at:
>>
>> alt.comp.software.thunderbird
>>
>> For now before you head there, disable all the add-ons you installed in
>> Thunderbird, exit, and reload Thunderbird to retest. If that doesn't
>> help, create a new profile to use in Thunderbird which not only gets rid
>> of add-ons (in that new profile, not in the old one you could switch
>> back to) but also any tweaks you did in the advanced config editor.
>>
>> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles
>
> The OP is talking about Firefox resources, not Thunderbird.

He mixed Firefox with Thunderbird. In this subthread, not the OP said
Thunderbird crashed (and why he couldn't complete his message). So, I
address his Thunderbird crashing. I dealt with Firefox in a different
subthread.

On 29/10/2023 at 20:36, VanguardLH wrote:
> Wilf <wilf21@is.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 29/10/2023 at 18:48, VanguardLH wrote:
>>> <nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thunderbird crashed the first time I sent this message. It should have
>>>> had this additional appended to the end:
>>>>
>>>> Is this behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to abate it? The
>>>> computer is responding normally, so is it something I just shouldn't
>>>> worry about?
>>>
>>> Thunderbird's current release is 115. From your post here, you are back
>>> on 102. Best place to ask about Thunderbird is its newsgroup over at:
>>>
>>> alt.comp.software.thunderbird
>>>
>>> For now before you head there, disable all the add-ons you installed in
>>> Thunderbird, exit, and reload Thunderbird to retest. If that doesn't
>>> help, create a new profile to use in Thunderbird which not only gets rid
>>> of add-ons (in that new profile, not in the old one you could switch
>>> back to) but also any tweaks you did in the advanced config editor.
>>>
>>> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles
>>
>> The OP is talking about Firefox resources, not Thunderbird.
>
> He mixed Firefox with Thunderbird. In this subthread, not the OP said
> Thunderbird crashed (and why he couldn't complete his message). So, I
> address his Thunderbird crashing. I dealt with Firefox in a different
> subthread.

Cheers.

--
Wilf

nobody@nonospam.org wrote:

> as soon as I start Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon
> increases to ~11 and is using over 350MB of memory.

That's pretty normal nowadays, I've just disabled all add-ons, closed
all tabs, except a single "about:mozilla" page and restarted firefox, it
has 9 processes and 345 MB of memory used.

It goes up from there as soon as you enable a couple of add-ons and open
a handful of tabs.

On 29.10.23 16:46, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>
> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.

Nothing new. TB and FF use a lot of RAM after start for many many years.
With a couple of tabs and running for a couple of hours it can easily
reach 1GB.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

On 29.10.23 16:46, nobody@nonospam.org wrote:
> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>
> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.

Nothing new. TB and FF use a lot of RAM after start for many many years.
With a couple of tabs and running for a couple of hours it can easily
reach 1GB.

--
Gutta cavat lapidem (Ovid)

Thank you for the detailed reply. Very much appreciated!

On 10/29/2023 2:30 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> <nobody@nonospam.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm running Firefox 119.0 on a Windows 10 Pro v22H2 system with all
>> updates installed. Using Task Manager, I see that as soon as I start
>> Firefox it is running ~8 processes which soon increases to ~11 and is
>> using over 350MB of memory. If I open a couple of frequently used
>> webpages that increases to ~18 processes with 875MB of memory.
>>
>> I know that part of this increase is because the webpages are running
>> ads, but what really concerns me is the resources being used when
>> Firefox is first started with only a blank tab open.
>
> Tabs are isolated. Each add-on you've installed is isolated. As I
> recall, but would have to recheck, you'll get 3 or 4 instances of
> firefox.exe when you load it (to a blank page without all the garbage of
> pre-connecting to some list of recent or favorite web sites), and
> another process for each add-on though I'm not sure each add-on gets its
> own isolated process.
>
> At one time, you could reduce the number of multiple concurrent
> processes by going to about:preferences -> Performance, disabling the
> recommended setting which made appear a couple of extra customizable
> options, like the number of Content processes. It was also where you
> disabled GPU acceleration (using the GPU for math intensive functions),
> but could be incompatible with the video driver, so you disabled it to
> make Firefox stable. Mozilla took away the Content process tweak
> leaving only the "Use hardware acceleration" (using the GPU via video
> driver to your video hardware).
>
> New page:
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings
>
> Old page:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20190929164613/https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings
>
> Here's a forum posting where the user shows the difference in the old
> and new settings available:
>
> https://www.tenforums.com/browsers-email/187508-firefox-content-process-limit-option-missing.html
>
> Notice the "Content process limit" option shown in the old page
> disappeared in the new page. The default was 4, but you could set from
> 1 to 8. Setting to 1 meant you got about 3 or 4 multiple concurrent
> firefox.exe processes. Looks like the Content Process Limit option
> disappeared around Nov 2021. Perhaps now it is an about:config tweak,
> like dom.ipc.processCount (which mine is set to 8).
>
> Seems disabling auto-start for fission.autostart also affects number of
> concurrent firefox.exe processes. This is about site isolation, not
> program/add-on isolation.
>
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Project_Fission
> https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/05/18/introducing-site-isolation-in-firefox/
> https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/gone-fission-and-you-should-too/
>
> Maybe they figured reducing processes contradicted the purpose of having
> them to isolate processes for security, and stability (if one add-on
> crashed, it didn't take down the main processes, too), and users were
> interfering with the sandboxing feature in Firefox by setting a lower
> content process count.
>
> https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/dom/ipc/process_model.html
>
> When compared to Chrome, Firefox spawns far fewer concurrent processes.
> Well, it did back when I used to have Chrome on my computer. After
> Microsoft dumped their EdgeHTML rendering engine and Jscript interpreter
> to use Chromium's Blink engine and V8 script interpreter but keep their
> own chrome (small "c") to brand it and differentiate from Chrome (big
> "C"), I didn't need Chrome anymore for site compatibility, especially
> with some Google sites that only work fully with Chrome. So, I haven't
> had Chrome for a couple years to know if it still spawns more chrome.exe
> processes than Firefox spawns for firefox.exe processes.
>
> If you're running short on RAM because you've got Firefox loading dozens
> or hundreds of tabs connecting to web sites, learn to control your
> behavior. You aren't visiting all those tabs, so close them. If you
> need to revisit, go back there using a bookmark or history. Firefox has
> its Tab Unload feature to reduce its memory footprint. That doesn't
> mean memory is returned immediately when you're away from a tab. Tab
> unloading happens when system memory is running low. That tab remains,
> but its content gets flushed, so you can click on the tab to return to
> that site which then reloads. You can see which tabs got unloaded by
> going to about:unloads. Clicking the Unload button unloads all tabs.
> Chrome and Edge-C have the same feature.
>
> https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/browser/tabunloader/
> https://www.popsci.com/diy/tab-snoozing-guide/
>
> I don't keep many tabs concurrently open, because I obviously cannot be
> visiting them all at the same time. I only need a few open as a bounce
> between the tabs, like researching for this reply about Firefox
> concurrent processes, settings, auto-unloading tabs, etc. Also, I don't
> leave Firefox running 24x7. When I done with it, I exit it, and it
> loads to about:blank instead of the default tab page with a recent list
> that ends up making connections to web sites that I may not be
> revisiting in that instance of Firefox.
>
> To reduce how many background connections for Firefox, read:
>
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections
>
> I wouldn't worry too much about the number of concurrent firefox.exe
> processes. If Firefox is getting slowed because of running out of RAM,
> stop leaving open so many tabs, reduce the number of startup programs
> you load when you log into your Windows account or when Windows starts,
> or get more RAM. However, remember that unused RAM is wasted RAM. Many
> pre-builts come with enough RAM to accomodate most users. I build my
> own desktops. My current build has 64 GB of RAM, so it would be very
> tough to run out of RAM although it's possible. Unlike any suggestions
> where you read to disable paged memory (to the drive), always have some.
> Some programs will preload data into paged memory rather than have to do
> it raw when needed, like games that load objects and textures into paged
> memory to eliminate stalling to retrieve them later when needed.
>
> Most users expect just 1 process when they load a program. Many
> programs have evolved into using multiple processes to increase
> performance, security, and stability. For some programs, like the
> ancient newsreader I use here, multi-processing doesn't make much sense.
> Most of its function is to compose and submit messages, and it doesn't
> take much to run a text editor to compose a message at a time.

--
Please reply in this newsgroup. I never post my true
email address to prevent spam. Thank you.