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firefox uses way too much CPU and hard drive

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I have been using firefox for many years but recently I ran into this issue which has forced me to switch to chrome. I often stream a video in one window while working in another. The other window has several tabs (email, news, ebay, amazon). Often when I switch from one tab to another, there is a 30-second delay while my hard drive activity goes up and the streaming video freezes. Sometimes it even cuts out and I have to reload it. I loaded system manager and it shows firefox using all the hard drive and/or cpu cycles. I switched to chrome and the problem went away. I have an Intel I7 cpu with an SSD and 16g of ram.

separate issue on another machine: On my work computer I dont stream video so I don't have this issue. However, I got notification about a month ago that there is a new version of firefox. Despite downloading and installing it 3 times, that notification still pops up several times a day.

I have been using firefox for many years but recently I ran into this issue which has forced me to switch to chrome. I often stream a video in one window while working in another. The other window has several tabs (email, news, ebay, amazon). Often when I switch from one tab to another, there is a 30-second delay while my hard drive activity goes up and the streaming video freezes. Sometimes it even cuts out and I have to reload it. I loaded system manager and it shows firefox using all the hard drive and/or cpu cycles. I switched to chrome and the problem went away. I have an Intel I7 cpu with an SSD and 16g of ram. separate issue on another machine: On my work computer I dont stream video so I don't have this issue. However, I got notification about a month ago that there is a new version of firefox. Despite downloading and installing it 3 times, that notification still pops up several times a day.

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Try to run Firefox in safe mode or also run Windows if that is the O/S in Safe mode with Networking and see if the problem of opening Firefox is happening in safe mode. And if not then that would mean Firefox has become corrupted and that would involve uninstall it completely and removing the folder and reinstall a clean Firefox and see if the problem goes away. But before uninstalling Firefox make sure you properly backup bookmarks/data/profile so if need be can restore them back.

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