Firefox Trouble

Silver-Midnight · Mar 11, 2012

I seem to be having trouble with Firefox, especially on my desktop. What happens with it is that it does the "not responding" thing for a bit, usually when I first open it up. It's really bad on my desktop. Most of the time I have to open up another browser in order to get on the internet. This does happen with other browsers, but it happens with Firefox a lot. I've only recently had this problem. I don't know what's going on with it. I would think it's the whole program, but, and this is referring to my desktop, it only happens really under my profile.

Could I have too many browsers on both computers? On the desktop, I have Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. On my laptop, I have Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

I thought it would be the drivers again, but they all seem up to date, along with everything else. I've run virus scans, but not malware. Could I need to run one? Does anyone know where I could run a good one for free, or get a good program for free?

Blackfire · Mar 11, 2012

First, make sure your Firefox isn't using a large amount of memory for your computer. If you have a pretty beefy computer with lots of RAM, then you don't really need to worry about that. But if you have whole buckets of addons for Firefox, you could be looking at a 50k - 100k memory usage file, which will make it crawl at a snail's pace.

If this only happens under your profile, you could try moving all your files onto a new profile? Because that would [hopefully] make it better. You should REALLY avoid having more than one browser. They can cause conflicts with one another on rare occasions, particularly if you try to run them simultaneously. Personally, I would stick with Firefox and nix the others.

If you don't have avast! already, you could download it. It's free and it keeps me safe, even if it does go DING DING DING every time it detects a malicious file. >_> It's kept me safe from droppers, worms, trojans, and mal and spyware. All of those are really bad, by the way. xD

So my advice: Run a full scan with whatever scanner you have; make sure you're not using too much memory on your computer with them and; TRY to use only one browser. Particularly Opera and Safari, because they aren't as stable as Firefox and Chrome. IE is just...No. >_>

Silver-Midnight · Mar 11, 2012

Blackfire said:
First, make sure your Firefox isn't using a large amount of memory for your computer. If you have a pretty beefy computer with lots of RAM, then you don't really need to worry about that. But if you have whole buckets of addons for Firefox, you could be looking at a 50k - 100k memory usage file, which will make it crawl at a snail's pace.

If this only happens under your profile, you could try moving all your files onto a new profile? Because that would [hopefully] make it better. You should REALLY avoid having more than one browser. They can cause conflicts with one another on rare occasions, particularly if you try to run them simultaneously. Personally, I would stick with Firefox and nix the others.

If you don't have avast! already, you could download it. It's free and it keeps me safe, even if it does go DING DING DING every time it detects a malicious file. >_> It's kept me safe from droppers, worms, trojans, and mal and spyware. All of those are really bad, by the way. xD

So my advice: Run a full scan with whatever scanner you have; make sure you're not using too much memory on your computer with them and; TRY to use only one browser. Particularly Opera and Safari, because they aren't as stable as Firefox and Chrome. IE is just...No. >_>

Could you give a link to avast!, and are you saying I should use Firefox or shouldn't. I'm confused by you're last statement. Well, IE, I don't know how to remove from my computers. I probably would if I could, but I can't. So, I just leave it.

I don't know how much memory I'm using. I don't have a bunch add-ons or anything like that. The only time I get a message is if I have a bunch of multiple tabs open, and those tend to get closed quickly.

If I have to choose between the stable the browsers, I choose Firefox. I'm kind of wary of Chrome. I do believe that it's fast and stable, but I've heard a lot of stuff about Google. So, yeah...

Maryn · Mar 12, 2012

Simply having a lot of browsers installed is not an issue. Having them all running at one time can slow things down, but I bet you don't do that routinely.

It sounds to me as if you might have a lot of processes running in the background when you open Firefox which are eating into your available RAM. In my experience, having instant messaging programs load automatically (at the time I had Yahoo Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger activate on opening Firefox) slowed me down so much I often thought I had a freeze. But disabling both fixed the problem.

You can press Ctrl-Alt-Delete all at the same time to see what's happening when you open Firefox. Click on Processes, then on Mem Usage to put them in order of how much RAM they're using to run. (This is for Windows XP, but I'm sure newer versions are similar.)

Avast free software is available at avast.com, BTW.

Maryn, hoping this helps a little

Blackfire · Mar 12, 2012

^That.

And I was saying that you should use Firefox, for more than one reason. Another way to tell if you're using a lot of programs at once is if you look on your taskbar [the thing in the very bottom right of your screen with all the tiny icons] and press the arrow to show your hidden icons, it should show all the background applications that are running.

If your computer is fairly new, it's probably running windows 7. If you're on windows xp, then chances are it's older. This is important because it generally gives an idea about how much RAM you have.

To remove programs,

1. Press the start menu key, or press the button in the bottom left of your screen. [With the windows logo on it]

2. Click "Control panel"

3. For windows xp, you'll see a button called "Add or remove programs". From there you can uninstall things.

3(b). If you're on windows 7, when in the control panel, look for "Uninstall a program" [if memory serves. I run XP because it uses less memory.]

4. Remove all the programs and browsers you don't use. This will probably take a while.

5. Restart your computer if needed.

And I could go on to tell you a billion and one ways to speed up your firefox, but I will leave that for now.

danrupe · Mar 12, 2012

I know almost every time firefox boots up on my system it checks for updates and junk. If you use add-ons and save your tabs, then you might want to check "Don't load tabs until selected" under "Options | General" and uncheck "Add-ons" under "Options | Advanced | Update | Automatically check for updates to:". It might help the delay you are seeing.

Charles Farley · Mar 12, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
Well, IE, I don't know how to remove from my computers. I probably would if I could, but I can't. So, I just leave it. ...

Do NOT remove IE from your computer. It is embedded into the operating system and does much more than you think. You would have to change too many file associations to get into here.

If you get the delays and not responding message only when you start up your desktop that is normal. Wait a few minutes before trying to connect to the internet so all components of FF can load properly.

DragonHeart · Mar 12, 2012

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox? It could also be a corrupted file or something. I've had to reinstall a few times myself, usually after an update inadvertently breaks something. And it can use up a lot of memory so if you have a lot of background programs running that could do it too, especially automatic updaters.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 12, 2012

@Maryn : Even though I do have YIM, I don't run it through Firefox, it's run through YIM. Sometimes I do have YIM and Firefox up at the same time, but not all of the time.

@Blackfire: I'll have to try checking what you said again. I don't really know. I don't know what all I have going on in the background honestly. However, whenever I shut down a program, it says that it usually just has to close my computer's Help Desk/Advisor before shutting down.

@Charles Farley: Okay, I won't remove it. Thanks for telling me.

@DragonHeart: I've thought about uninstalling and re-installing it. However, I want to try to wait before I do that simply because I have some bookmarks/favorites on Firefox that I really want to try to keep if I can.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 12, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
@DragonHeart: I've thought about uninstalling and re-installing it. However, I want to try to wait before I do that simply because I have some bookmarks/favorites on Firefox that I really want to try to keep if I can.

You can export your bookmarks from all Web browsers.

Export them, then mail them to yourself as a backup.

How much disk space available ?

How much RAM and what OS are you running?

Have you checked current Processes as Maryn suggests in this post? You might have some background task that's running amock, and consuming resources unfairly.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 12, 2012

Medievalist said:
You can export your bookmarks from all Web browsers.

Export them, then mail them to yourself as a backup.

How much disk space available ?

How much RAM and what OS are you running?

Have you checked current Processes as Maryn suggests in this post? You might have some background task that's running amock, and consuming resources unfairly.

Should I delete and re-install all of my browsers or just Firefox?

backslashbaby · Mar 12, 2012

I apologize if I have you mixed up with someone else, but if you were the one who mentioned having a browser-hijack problem, my bet is that's really what's wrong

I really like the products (great free ones even!) from a company called Greatis software. Their programmers are crazy skilled. Also, they do not have the name recognition for 'hackers' to target specific files in their products, like you see with Norton, etc.

Greatis software: unhackme and regrun. There should be a free package download there somewhere if you google their site.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 13, 2012

Is that actual anit-virus stuff, meaning I'll have to remove Norton, or does that just do malware protetion? Also how good is the free version of their program? I know that it will obviously lack some the features a paid version would have, but would it at least prevent viruses and malware and remove them as well.

backslashbaby · Mar 14, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
Is that actual anit-virus stuff, meaning I'll have to remove Norton, or does that just do malware protetion? Also how good is the free version of their program? I know that it will obviously lack some the features a paid version would have, but would it at least prevent viruses and malware and remove them as well.

I'd go on and remove Norton, yeah. This software actually works well alongside of many antivirus programs, unlike most, but Norton won't give you any benefit with this on.

It does a great job of catching everything but the more commercial type of spyware, because it's not designed for spyware. I use Spybot to go through all of the spyware that has collected on my system (and I use NoScript in Firefox to avoid lots of things being put there in the first place).

So, an easy mix is: Greatis' Unhackme + Regrun (one download, usually) and then run Spybot sometimes. I run Microsoft's own program separately sometimes too just to make sure, and because it's on my system with updates, etc.

Just make sure to set up Greatis' software. The defaults aren't nearly as safe as when you go through and check the boxes to turn things on, so to speak.

The free version is amazingly good. I was very surprised. I stumbled on them to fix a very nasty rootkit problem, and they were the only ones to catch it, after trying everything recommended. That still just my own experience, keep in mind

Just a review!

Silver-Midnight · Mar 16, 2012

I might try that. I'll have to see. Right now, I'm running Malwarebytes on the computer I'm talking about. So, I'm hoping that will fix it.

I'm really trying to avoid removing Norton if I can. Mostly because I just bought it, and I paid a lot for it. I know that may be a bad reason, but it's the truth.

backslashbaby · Mar 16, 2012

Ah! In case you are interested in running any of it, then I'd just keep the unhackme monitor part turned off and let Norton be your always-running antivirus, but still use Regrun's boot scan for its anti-rootkit capabilities. But that's all your decision, of course

Matera the Mad · Mar 17, 2012

Maryn is getting very tech-wise

Fact is, Blackfire, running more than one browser is the only way you can have a flame war with your own sock-puppet (no, I've never done that, but I have done other interesting things). Avoiding other browsers altogether would mean being stuck with IE, what a

thought. Many years ago I did have a "browser war" that knocked my computer off the Internet, but -- heh -- that one had a 486 processor, less than 400MB hard drive, and 32MB of RAM. Nowadays I keep a large collection of browsers for site testing and for specialized uses (don't ask!).

Browsers don't always clean up after themselves thoroughly enough. Using a separate clean-up program like Ccleaner (with all browsers shut down) is more certain.

*Sigh* Norton is not as good an investment as it claims to be. Just because it milks millions for money to pay for a good name doesn't mean it always does a good job. Software that doesn't come in a fancy package is (IMO&E) as good or better than advertised products.

As others have mentioned, one of the first things to look at is background processes. Norton can be one of the worst of those :tongue

Silver-Midnight · Mar 17, 2012

I might try that. It seems to do a little better since I've deleted my cookies and done a few other things with my browsers. However, it does sometimes still act funky. On my laptop, it redirects or sometimes not responds, and on my desktop, it just sometimes not responds.

Firefox Trouble

Silver-Midnight

Blackfire

Ghost amidst the caligraphy.

Silver-Midnight

Maryn

Baaa!

Blackfire

Ghost amidst the caligraphy.

danrupe

Think think think...

Charles Farley

Bango Skank

DragonHeart

Oerba Yun Fang

Silver-Midnight

Deleted member 42

Silver-Midnight

backslashbaby

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Silver-Midnight

backslashbaby

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Silver-Midnight

backslashbaby

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Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Silver-Midnight

Firefox Trouble

Ghost amidst the caligraphy.

Baaa!

Ghost amidst the caligraphy.

Think think think...

Bango Skank

Oerba Yun Fang

Deleted member 42

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Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

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