Which addons slow Firefox the most on current Linux distros ?

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by accessgranted, Jul 15, 2016.

  1. accessgranted

    accessgranted Registered Member

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    Hi, I recently realized that Firefox is becoming more and more prone to slowness, often to the point of freezing the browser (47.0, or 47.0.1), whichever distro I use it on.
    Any clue as to which addons (mine or yours) can cause such a slowdown on recent FF versions?
    Thanks
     

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  2. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Switch to Google Chrome or Opera altogether. FF does not need any addon to be slow. Itself is becoming heavier and heavier with each new version. Not to mention, it's the only major browser without a sandbox nowadays. It's getting ridiculous in year 2016.
     
  3. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    Thats a unfair generalisation of the firefox browser.May be slow for you but not for others.
    Personally i found firefox ran just fine on my linux system,However i use palemoon nowadays.
    I see nothing in chrome or opera which would make me want to switch.
    I dont believe sandboxing and separate tab processes is entirely needed.If malware is getting on your system then that is the fault of your chosen security program and browsers are not anti-malware security software.
     
  4. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    Maybe it is a good idea to start disabling some of the addons and see if the slowdown still happens. Or try it without the addons first and add them one by one until you find the culprit.
     
  5. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    You do realize you are in a UNIX/LINUX forum, correct? Your chosen security program? Hello, I don't think most Linux users use any security program on Linux. And on Linux, browser is the most likely entry point for malware.
    FF is slow on all 5 of my computers, as compared to Chrome. The difference is obvious. I know because I have both Chrome and FF on the same machines. Do you have Chrome on your machines? If not, how do you know FF is not slower on your machine?
     
  6. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    And did you not know that this thread is about firefox and not google chrome.?.so why did you bring chrome into the conversation.
    If chrome is running better for you than firefox then i see no validity in your input.
     
  7. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Since when you are the judge of what other members could say in this forum? The op is asking for solution for a better browsing experience, and Chrome is a very nice browser. How is this not related to op's topic?
    And, I was replying to the op's post. what made you think you have the right to judge other's reply to the op? You are not the op and obviously you have little knowledge on Linux.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2016
  8. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    Which addons slow Firefox the most on current Linux distros ?
    This is the title of this thread.
    google chrome has nothing to do with this.
     
  9. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Been using Firefox exclusively for 8 years now, never had a slowdown. I guess it depends on what you do with it.
    And of course, the hardware specs.

    Chrome definitely is snappier, but this doesn't mean it's faster. It consumes way more RAM, and after some 20 Tabs are opened you can really start to feel it's weight if you have little RAM or a slow processor.

    About the Sandbox: I don't think it's an issue, specially with Linux's security on 4.6 and onwards. Even though sometimes exploits get really smart and may make the browser do fake-real calls for files upload and this could go unnoticed by the user, a ton of Linux users have addons such as NoScript on their browser which prevents such exploits from running. Firejail is a nice tool and IMO it's better than what Chrome has to offer.

    My grading for Firefox is:

    Speed: 9.5/10;
    Addons: 10/10, unbeatable either on regular addons or themes;
    Security: 8.5/10
    Privacy: 7/10

    My grading for Chrome is:

    Speed: 8.5/10;
    Addons: 7/10;
    Security: 9/10;
    Privacy: 3/10;
     
  10. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    If everyone had exactly the same system set up as you then those "gradings" may mean something,but we live in a world of varying configs and internet speeds and we can only produce a rough mean in terms of speed etc.

    As for which add ons slow down firefox.How on earth are we supposed to know this unless every single add on is tested and then of course we have the varying configurations problem again.
    Its impossible to come up with a true and representative answer to this query as there are far too many variables to consider.
     
  11. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    But that's the thing, that is my grading ;) It's only my experience with it. Obviously it means nothing to most people out there hehehehe
     
  12. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    You have demonstrated precisely the problem we face in terms of speed testing etc.Incidentally i feel we are straying a bit off topic here as i see no mention of sandboxing or chrome in the initial posting.

    It may be your grading and your experience but at least its a singular input and gives some impression of overall speed.
     
  13. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Agreed.

    @accessgranted, I think you could use either uBlock Origin or uMatrix. Some people like uMatrix better, so if you like that then you can disable uBlock because they're similar in operation, and having both working at the same time will use unnecessary CPU cycles.

    The Addon "Fire Gestures" got my attention. You could try disabling that.

    I also don't know how secret agent works, but I presume most of the calculations for the new useragent are done elsewhere and not on your computer.

    I also don't know Tab Control. I'd try disabling that and Secret Agent and see how FF performs.

    EDIT: Or try how @Nebulus said.
     
  14. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Not really. uMatrix doesn't support ABP-compatible filterlists but only hosts-like lists, so they complement each other (the latter should be disabled in uB0 when using both extensions together) . On the other hand uMatrix allows for a much more ganular control than Dynamic Filtering in uB0.
     
  15. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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  16. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    My experience shows that TMP and VideoDownloader tend to have the biggest perceptible impact.
    In fact, it's the session manager in TMP that takes the brunt, so having an external session manager can mitigate some of the TMP slowness.
    Mrk
     
  17. inka

    inka Registered Member

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    Although I haven't tested each of the addons shown in OP screenshot, none of 'em jump out as being likely to introduce slowness.

    Would subscription to too many blocklists (uBlock origin) introduce noticeable lag?
    I don't recall the mechanism. If auto-update is enabled, does uBlock callout to the site hosting each of the subscribed lists each time the browser is launched? If so, that could introduce noticeable startup lag.

    (not on OP list, but s/he asked "mine or yours")
    I've bogged the browser by having too many AdblockPlus (AdblockEdge, actually) blocklist subscriptions. Wheeeee, "more is gooder", eh? When I dug into things, I found a significant amount of overlap/redundancy across blocklists. Vladimir (adblockPlus author) had created a helpful js-driven "redundancy checker" page which enabled pasting content from a pair of blocklists into 2 textarea inputs; it reported the overlapping (moot,redundant) patterns, displaying "matchpattern '(abc|def)' obviates pattern 'abc'" or similar explanation. Hooboy! Couldn't make use of that page b/c the blocklists were so large that pasting them choked/stalled the browser... so I created a php-based redundancy checker utility. On a weekly basis, feeding the lists through the utility to achieve streamlining was too much of a chore. I considered automating the de-duplication util via cURL and cronjob... but wound up just dropping ALL blocklist subscriptions (didn't trash my tiny personal blocklist though), in favor of adopting a default deny policy via RequestPolicy addon. (along with uMatrix, uMama, uBlock... useful to inject "surrogate" assets, but beyond the scope of this discussion)

    Does Scriptish still work under ff45-ESR? (No, it does not.) How about GreaseMonkey?
    In the past, I've significantly bogged the browser by introducing a variety of non-optimized userscripts.

    Glancing at "about:addons", I see 60+ addons are installed (38 are enabled). This isn't my daily driver, it's a (longterm) test install of ff45-ESR. Anyhow, I've found no objectionable lag, even though I've introduced some non-optimal addons (e.g. a modded version of the disk-intensive "HTTP Request Logger" addon) and have re-introduced the potential for blocklist(s) redundancy, by installing (AdblockEdge: FanboySocialBlockingList), (uBlockOrigin: assortment of subscriptions).
    With that in mind, I suspect that the OP's issue may stem from PREFS and/or use of inbuilt optional features.
    If OP currently has "safebrowsing" enabled, consider testing performance while that is disabled.
    Might "reader mode" (if not disabled via prefs) affect every pageload? Idunno, I never enable it.
    Wildcard: does OP have "experiments.enabled=true" in prefs? If so, mozilla may be using OP as a guinea pig, eh.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2016
  18. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    uMatrix is slowing down - ofc its more granular filtering than uBlockO but uBo is enough for the common people. i dropped its usage.

    secret agent may cause it too - wrong browser version can lead servers to deliver wrong content or scripts - some scripts are made for ie and wont run correctly on firefox.

    you can check out the performance with
    Code:
    about:performance
    - Firegestures is here also on top 3.
    about:healthreport show you startup
    about:memory can tell you which site or addon is draining memory.

    have you tested a profile reset? or safe-mode to verify that extensions are involved?
     
  19. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    What makes you say this? Please provide some evidence for your statement.

    @amarildojr certainly doesn't belong to common people - don't you, amarildojr? :D:D:D
     
  20. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    look about: performance and dont bother again.
    or use the inspector console for runtime analysis or network inspection.

    i fact ANY website filter needs performance, also stylish, ublock, adblocker in general.
     
  21. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Hehehehehe. Well, I don't know. People say I don't, so I'm going with that too :thumb: :argh:
     
  22. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    I did. I disabled "Display only the latest 10s" and opened a lot of sites with a lot of (blocked) content. This is what about: performance says about uBlock0:

    And this for uMatrix:

    Not much difference. As a matter of fact, CPU usage was much lower for uMatrix.

    So look in about: performance yourself ... and don't bother again :ouch:
     
  23. zakazak

    zakazak Registered Member

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    Generally speaking, try to use as few addons as possible.

    I use noscript, https-everywhere, videodownloadhelper, user-agent-switcher, ublock, flags.

    And in terms of chrome vs firefox:
    Tried both for a long time... I am someone who often has 50-150 tabs opened and I can tell you...at 50 tabs chrome starts to lag and at 100 tabs it starts to crash. Firefox will handle 150+ tabs without performance loss or crashes.
     
  24. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    Did you test them together, at the same time?
     
  25. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Yes, I did.
     
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