Firefox slowed down my Win7x64

paddyrg

Just posting this in case it is useful to anyone here.

Brand new Win7 64-bit lappy - i7 processor, 4GB RAM, enough grunt to laugh in the face of a browser and couple of spreadsheets. However, typing on the keyboard it was taking several seconds for the keystrokes to appear on the screen. And we're talking a couple of weeks old, 4-figure cost lappy.

I disabled pretty much all the OEM-ware and all the tosh in the startup folder and services, made negligible difference. I would quite often get an 'unresponsive script' warning which would then dismiss itself.

As I have a far less powerful machine able to run FF etc just fine, I was wondering what the difference was - turns out it was on one box I have FF automatically clear the cache, delete all history etc, the other I didn't.

So I cleared the cache, deleted history, and let the browser delete all session cookies on close. MASSIVE instant difference, the problem never returned, and FF wipes itself down at the end of every session. No point allowing it to cache stuff with the speed of websites these days anyway. I have no idea what bad script it had cached, where it found it, or how it kept on getting snarled up in it - but very simple cure.

Poolie

I have a Win7 64bit PC and am using a program called Nightly. It is basically firefox for 64bit which isnt released and only the development release.

It works a lot better than the standard 32bit firefox

santer_2

Palemoon has a x64 version, maybe install it without any add ons to see if it is faster, then install add ons until it slows down. Palemoon will run most firefox add ons

http://www.palemoon.org/

paddyrg

Cheers guys.

FF 32 bit runs just great now, but I was stunned (and speaking as someone actually pretty competent and IT savvy) just how badly something dud in the browser cache could wipe out the performance across all 4 (well, 8, kinda) cores of a machine. The difference from flushing the cache was so huge it really is a case of going from several seconds to echo a character to the screen (even in Office with FF open) to the kind of performance you would expect from a processor of this spec. That cache makes a HUGE difference it seems sometimes. If anyone else is suffering from computer slowdown, try deleting everything your browser(s) have cached and you may be pleasantly surprised.

silkcutblue

CC Cleaner is your friend for flushing rubbish out.