Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Browser utilizing way too much memory, prescribed fixes dont work

  • 1 reply
  • 0 have this problem
  • 31 views
  • Last reply by ixian

Peter P
Peter P
more options

First off, heres my device info:

Device name: HP Spectre Convertible Model 15-ch011dx

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz 1.99 GHz

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)

Device ID F3EDBCEE-137F-4854-B06C-912570DD1DB5

Product ID 00325-81213-26880-AAOEM

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch Pen and touch support with 10 touch points

Every time i use firefox with even one tab open i end up with extremely high CPU usage-50% or more on average. It causes the exact type of issues that one would expect, and after spending a hours and hours over the last month looking for solutions and implementing anything promising, it hasnt improved. Ive done config edits, countless cache clears, memory snapshots via devtools, and many many other things that have been recommended to me and nothing has helped. running the browser in troubleshoot confirms the problem isnt related to extensions/add-ons or anything like that, because cpu numbers are identical to those seen normally. increasingly i am convinced that this has to be an issue on the mozilla side. reddit confirms i am not alone in struggling with this, not by a long shot.....pls help!

First off, heres my device info: '''Device name: HP Spectre Convertible Model 15-ch011dx Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz 1.99 GHz Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable) Device ID F3EDBCEE-137F-4854-B06C-912570DD1DB5 Product ID 00325-81213-26880-AAOEM System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch Pen and touch support with 10 touch points ''' Every time i use firefox with even one tab open i end up with extremely high CPU usage-50% or more on average. It causes the exact type of issues that one would expect, and after spending a hours and hours over the last month looking for solutions and implementing anything promising, it hasnt improved. Ive done config edits, countless cache clears, memory snapshots via devtools, and many many other things that have been recommended to me and nothing has helped. running the browser in troubleshoot confirms the problem isnt related to extensions/add-ons or anything like that, because cpu numbers are identical to those seen normally. increasingly i am convinced that this has to be an issue on the mozilla side. reddit confirms i am not alone in struggling with this, not by a long shot.....pls help!

All Replies (1)

ixian
ixian
more options

When Firefox launches there will be a spike in CPU usage. Unlike other browser, say MS Edge, the browser components are not already in memory. Post the launch is the CPU usage still high, say 50% of CPU usage or higher?

Further there are anti - virus products which also may lead to high CPU usage as they scan every stream that comes and goes out of the laptop when you are using Firefox. Especially the free ones.

Finally in the Task manager what is the CPU speed that you see when the CPU utilization touches 50% or more? Since you are have i7-8550U which can go upto 4GHz are you seeing a corresponding increase in CPU Speed too? Also if you are running a high resolution, say 2K or 4K with a high refresh rate then also you might face high CPU usage. Have a look at the Firefox's performance settings KB article too. For a more in depth article please refer to the Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL