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Is Firefox causing laptops to overheat through CPU overuse?
Those of you that are fortunate enough to primarily surf the web on a desktop machine, you probably won't notice just how much of a resource hog web browsers can be. But if you use a laptop -- or any kind of portable really -- you have probably experienced the full 100%-CPU-ow-ow-my-thighs-are-burning-and-my-fingertips-are-sweating experience. It turns out that the issue is so pronounced in some cases -- generally ultra-lights/netbooks with less heat dissipation -- that laptops are overheating and shutting down!For whatever reason, web browsers and portable computers just don't go well together. Whether it's the constant hard-disk swapping or the heavy use of Flash, something causes laptop CPU usage to spike -- a lot.
Fortunately, there's a neat support page on the Mozilla site that details a few ways to reduce CPU usage, if you're one of the few that has an overheating laptop.
Over on CNET they're suggesting that Firefox suffers more than other browsers. Whether that's true or not might be anecdotal, but a support bod at Mozilla did say that 'Safari is possibly better at optmizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox.'
And I'll pipe in and say that I get CPU spikes using every browser on my laptop. But I'd love to know if Firefox actually munches up more resources than other browsers, or if it's simply a matter of configuring your browser correctly. Perhaps we can expect to see a 'performance version' of Firefox that looks uncomfortably like Safari...?
Comments
22
Subscribe to commentsr3loadedNov 24th 2009 3:57AM
Meh, my CPU usage never spikes above 20%, even on a Flash-heavy site using Google Chrome. Since when does Flash cause 100% usage?
cookiebitsNov 24th 2009 4:15AM
I've seen it use >120% on my Macbook with Flash, on the very rare occasion.
Joshua MeadowsNov 24th 2009 4:06AM
Firefox's last update (not the last-last one, but the update right before that which introduced the security exploit that the last patch fixed) caused this problem for me in OSX; prior to that I never really noticed it but immediately after updating the browser began using 100% of the CPU with only one or two tabs open, causing the MacBook Pro's fan to shoot up to 4000 RPM 24/7. I didn't understand why the computer suddenly became sluggish and constantly hot and quickly narrowed the problem down to Firefox. Googling around showed that this is a pretty consistent issue.
Thankfully installing FlashBlock helped with the issue considerably but I still can't leave a lot of tabs open for an extended period of time. It's a shame because I really like Firefox, but it's seemed to get worse with each release. Unfortunately I dislike the other browsers even more. :\
cookiebitsNov 24th 2009 4:15AM
Firefox is great and all (especially for web development and testing), but it's stuff like this that makes me glad I primarily use Safari (& clicktoflash).
DamianNov 24th 2009 5:21AM
Adblock Plus or for the more technically aware NoScript. I would never use a laptop without them, what should I waste my battery life to view your crappy made advert?
EatmoldNov 24th 2009 5:48AM
I have seen Firefox do this many times on my laptops. One fo the main reasons I swapped to using Chrome as my main browser.
topoDec 21st 2009 4:08AM
The overheating was the reason to swap to Google Chrome. Is to fast in generally and is going much better than Firefox.
the pl4gueNov 24th 2009 7:05AM
If you leave Firefox on for too long, the computer becomes unrespondable.
ESPECIALLY if you leave it on for a few hours with a flash page (like Kitco, one of my dad's favorite websites). I don't know if it's a Flash bug or Firefox, but it sucks. I should do a test to see if it responds the same way on a non-flash page.
Hell, sometimes if I have a browser open for a bit and go to Facebook typing anything in the status bar (What is your mood? thing) it's tough as hell.
Sebastian AnthonyNov 24th 2009 7:27AM
Same for me -- I actually can't watch a Flash video for more than a minute or two before my laptop locks up and I have to wait a few minutes for the 'buffer' to clear or something.
Could be the issue raised in the other Download Squad article that I linked though. I must investigate further!
Bryan PriceNov 24th 2009 8:29AM
I'm constantly pegging my CPU at 25% (Quad core) for stuff that I don't think shouldn't be that intensive. It might help me if it were thread enabled (but do I^H we really want to deal with that complexity right now?), and yeah, I've probably got a few extensions loaded that I really shouldn't. Text Resize and Move was one that I found was thoroughly trashing my Gmail (and Gwave) experience. Getting rid of that, and Gmail works smooth. I kept wondering why my betas always worked so much better. They never had that extension loaded! :/
xryunNov 24th 2009 8:45AM
All after all I just load all my browsers with same 3 web-pages(yahoo,facebook,cnet).
check cpu and memory usage.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_vyfhTj3PCn8/SwvjFBBHsZI/AAAAAAAACXo/JsLgyNf1Tco/s512/browsmem.JPG
CrazylinkNov 24th 2009 9:14AM
I've never had any problems with Firefox, but then again my laptop is quite a monster of a workstation,
kojo87Nov 24th 2009 8:06PM
i've never had any problem and my laptop is just a run of the mill netbook. needless to say i have no problems on my quad-core desktop.
HugoNov 24th 2009 9:19AM
I heard and read about this...
This is already burning Firefox...
Mozilla, it is up to you to fight the fire and be on top of the game again...
ArnieNov 24th 2009 9:40AM
There was actually an article in which Anandtech investigated the battery life of various browsers on laptops. FF without Adblock Plus came in last and IE was the best. (All testing was done under Windows). It just tells us how much more optimized IE is for windows than the other browsers. I think FF is great and it is my primary browser but honestly its a resource hog. I think FF should really consider stopping all feature development and work solely on optimizing their code and then doing it again.
Sebastian AnthonyNov 24th 2009 1:07PM
Now that's a proper test! Curious... were the battery lives significantly disparate? Or are we talking a few seconds/minutes?
ArnieNov 24th 2009 1:26PM
Although not a huge difference in terms of pure numbers we can see quite a few differences. However, FF+AdBlock plus put it nearly at the top with IE8.
URL for article:
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3636&p=1
iuqiddisNov 24th 2009 7:15PM
FF w/o Adblock actually didn't come last. It was behind IE, but several browsers had lower times.
Jeremy DixonNov 24th 2009 11:24AM
I was having all around heat problems on my macbook, so I did some searching and found smcFanControl (http://www.eidac.de/) It allows you to control the RPMs of the fan to control the tempratures...
EvenioNov 24th 2009 11:59AM
Most aptly-named browser. EVER.