How to Fix Firefox & CPU Leaks

Identify the software components that consume excessive resources.

On some computers, the Mozilla Firefox Web browser can consume increasing amounts of memory or an increasing fraction of the cycles from the computer's processor. This happened with older versions of Firefox because of memory leaks and bugs still present in the code of Firefox itself. However, with newer versions, those problems are typically due to some extension installed by the user on top of the stock Firefox. Extension code is audited much less rigorously than Firefox's. You can identify the misbehaving extension and, by disabling or updating it, bring Firefox's resource consumption back under control.

Instructions

1. Launch Firefox, then click on "Tools" and select "Add-ons." Firefox will open its Add-on Manager on a new tab. The Manager will list all extensions currently installed.

2. Select an extension which you suspect to be the cause of the excessive consumption of memory or processor cycles. The exact way of making this choice depends on the extensions you have installed. Do some online research to see which one(s) are having problems. Ad-blocker extensions, such as AdBlock Plus, are a common culprit.

3. Click the "Disable" button next to the extension's name on the Manager tab. Firefox will ask you if you want to restart the browser for the modification to take effect. Click "Restart."

4. Use Firefox as you normally do. If it does not become sluggish, you have identified the problem extension. If it starts to become sluggish, right-click on the Windows taskbar and select "Start Task Manager." Click on the "Processes" tab and search for the "Firefox" entry. If it lists more than 70 percent CPU cycles or more than 500 MB of memory as being used, repeat Step 2 through Step 4 until you identify and disable the problem extension.

References

• Microsoft Windows: Open Task Manager