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switching to tab with images is slow

steadycookie
steadycookie
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I have many tabs opened with a lot of images loaded, when I switch to a tab with a lot of images, it seems firefox reload the images, making the switching to that tab very slow.

I think reloading the images on the opened tab is necessary, and I find that in Chrome, when I switch to the tab with the same link is fast, and images are shown immediately and no reloading happens.

BTW, I have stop Firefox from reloading inactive tabs when I switch to them by using the method below: Type about:config in Address bar search accessibility.blockautorefresh and change the value to "True"

But the problem I described still happens.

Any way to fix it? Thanks!

I have many tabs opened with a lot of images loaded, when I switch to a tab with a lot of images, it seems firefox reload the images, making the switching to that tab very slow. I think reloading the images on the opened tab is necessary, and I find that in Chrome, when I switch to the tab with the same link is fast, and images are shown immediately and no reloading happens. BTW, I have stop Firefox from reloading inactive tabs when I switch to them by using the method below: Type about:config in Address bar search accessibility.blockautorefresh and change the value to "True" But the problem I described still happens. Any way to fix it? Thanks!

All Replies (3)

Pamela
Pamela
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HI

Here is an article on tabs from the knowledge base article.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-preferences-and-settings

Check if the settings for "Don't load tabs until selected" is enable.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Firefox may have freed memory and in this case may have to reload the DOM and possible decode (expand) compressed images that are out of view and currently not visible.

steadycookie
steadycookie Question owner
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Thanks!

I tried pamdiv's suggestion, and this solved my another problem, and now tab switching is faster generally, since I do not need to wait it loading after switching to another tab. However, it did not solve the problem in this thread.

I think cor-el's explanation should be the reason for my problem. When I minimize firefox, the memory is freed, and then when I switch back to the tab with lots of images (taking a lot of memory), the images have to be reloaded.

Now we know the reason. Then the question is how to prevent firefox free the memory used by the tabs currently opened? Or is there a time limit setting after how long inactivity firefox will free memory?

Thanks!