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Firefox constantly locks up on media-rich news pages

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by FredMcD

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I read Mail Online every morning and sometimes on my PC

In the morning I read on an old Google Nexus One - and everything is smooth and fine.

Mail Online on Firefox on my PC is crushingly slow and often just locks up completely. I have a Pentium 2.7GHz with 4GB ram so it's not the most up to date, but all I'm wanting to do is read the news - not play Call of Duty.

I love Firefox, but this is now a clean install and it continually eats RAM and just slows to a crawl - sometimes I am typing a response and the keyboard lag is such that it is displaying one character every 2 seconds when I'm typing at 80 words a minute!!!

Internet Explorer I hate because of old security problems, Chrome started off well then became incredibly slow - so Firefox was always my favourite... but I am at my wits end!

Is there any plan for making it a bit faster without having to splash out on a core i7 and 8GB ram to read the flipping Daily Mail online?

Matt Wilkes

I read Mail Online every morning and sometimes on my PC In the morning I read on an old Google Nexus One - and everything is smooth and fine. Mail Online on Firefox on my PC is crushingly slow and often just locks up completely. I have a Pentium 2.7GHz with 4GB ram so it's not the most up to date, but all I'm wanting to do is read the news - not play Call of Duty. I love Firefox, but this is now a clean install and it continually eats RAM and just slows to a crawl - sometimes I am typing a response and the keyboard lag is such that it is displaying one character every 2 seconds when I'm typing at 80 words a minute!!! Internet Explorer I hate because of old security problems, Chrome started off well then became incredibly slow - so Firefox was always my favourite... but I am at my wits end! Is there any plan for making it a bit faster without having to splash out on a core i7 and 8GB ram to read the flipping Daily Mail online? Matt Wilkes

All Replies (2)

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Hi milkmon123,

I've run Firefox on pc's with specs far worse than what than what you have quoted! So rest assured Firefox can be fine!


The first thing I would like to do is point you towards the knowledgebase article for a slow firefox. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

If your firefox is up to date (~ version 50.1) then the first suggestion there is to refresh firefox - which will will revert firefox to a "clean" state: removing addons, but saving bookmarks, passwords etc. You can read about the effects of refreshing here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

In my experience when firefox is slow, it's generally due to an extension of some sort - having a clean up on that front probably isn't a bad move.

There is also a knowledge base article to help with the specific situation of firefox using too much memory. This has some different suggestions which might also be of interest to you: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-ram

I hope something there ends up helping! If not please get back to me.

Thanks, Dave

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That is a good first step.

What is the web address of the problem page? Do you have the problem elsewhere?

Are there players, gifs, lots of pics . . . . .

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web Link} by holding down the <Shift>
(Mac=Options)
key, and then starting Firefox. A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh).

Is the problem still there?


https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding