Hi, you can try reducing the number of processes: Go to the 3-bar menu > Options (General) - Performance, then deselect 'Use recommended performance settings' and change 'Content process limit' to 1 or 2. See - Firefox's performance settings, and Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings.

Whilst in the 3-bar menu, you can also go to Options (Privacy & Security) - Permissions, and tick/check 'Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser' then restart Firefox. More - What is the Accessibility Service Indicator?

This shouldn't be necessary unless you have very limited RAM, but if you wish, you can try turning off Multiprocess altogether: Type about:config into the address bar, press Enter, accept the warning, scroll down the alphabetical list to browser.tabs.remote.autostart and browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 then double click on each to change 'Value' from True to False and restart Firefox.

If you need help with crashes, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

The crash report is several pages of data. We need the report numbers to see the whole report.

1. Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A Submitted Crash Reports list will appear, similar to the one shown below.
2. Copy the 5 most recent Report IDs that start with bp- and then go back to your forum question and paste those IDs into the "Post a Reply" box.

Note: If a recent Report ID does not start with bp- click on it to submit the report.

(Please don't take a screenshot of your crashes, just copy and paste the IDs. The below image is just an example of what your Firefox screen should look like.)

More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

If your question is resolved by this or another answer, please take a minute to let us know. Thank you!

see this answer https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1223605#answer-1127524

It is quite normal to see three or more Firefox processes running.

• one process for the main Firefox thread (user interface)
• one or more content processes set via dom.ipc.processCount
  Options/Preferences -> General -> Performance
  remove checkmark: [ ] "Use recommended performance settings"
• one process for the compositor thread (Windows;graphics)

You can find the current multi-process state on the Troubleshooting Information (about:support) page.

• "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" -> "Application Basics":
  Multiprocess Windows
  Web Content Processes

thanks for your replies, I since changed the settings in about:config for both browser.tabs.remote.autostart and browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 , I set them both to false and now I see only one instance of firefox.exe in task manager. Also now I haven't had any crashes since :) so for now the problem is solved

Regards

Mike

I have this never-ending dilemma, too. I'm running 'Firefox Quantum' on a Toshiba Laptop with an 'i7 3630QM @ 2.40GHz processor and 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz'.

As I am entering comments in a textbox (Email, FB, or this comment box) a new instance of Firefox browser starts on some page I may have visited 3 years ago and hijacks the focus from my current page stopping my text input. It is quite maddening! Usually, it is only 2 or 3 instances, but sometimes 8 or 10.

I do not fiddle with the Firefox settings so I don't believe that is the problem. Of course, in today's world God only knows what virus or malware does what to your settings!

Why must Firefox need a workaround to fix this "Phantom?"