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Firefox slows down when opening a site with animated gifs

  • 4 replies
  • 65 have this problem
  • 146 views
  • Last reply by dabayl

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After updating to FF4, I find that whenever I try to open a page that has multiple animated gifs on it, firefox slows down tremendously. CPU usage goes up to 50-75% and all animated gifs are moving really slow.

It's not only large animated gifs, but it also occurs on forums that have animated smilies. I never had this problem in FF 3.6 nor any other browser (IE, Chrome, Safari). If I start FF4.0 without any add-ons or plugins it does the same thing. Even with a fresh install. Does anyone have a solution to his problem? Since I can't use some of my favorite sites now with FF, without my pc slowing everything down.

After updating to FF4, I find that whenever I try to open a page that has multiple animated gifs on it, firefox slows down tremendously. CPU usage goes up to 50-75% and all animated gifs are moving really slow. It's not only large animated gifs, but it also occurs on forums that have animated smilies. I never had this problem in FF 3.6 nor any other browser (IE, Chrome, Safari). If I start FF4.0 without any add-ons or plugins it does the same thing. Even with a fresh install. Does anyone have a solution to his problem? Since I can't use some of my favorite sites now with FF, without my pc slowing everything down.

Chosen solution

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the add-ons is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).

  • Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.

In Firefox 4 Safe mode disables extensions and disables hardware acceleration.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
Read this answer in context 👍 9

All Replies (4)

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Chosen Solution

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the add-ons is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).

  • Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.

In Firefox 4 Safe mode disables extensions and disables hardware acceleration.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
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Thank you so much. Disabling the hardware acceleration did the trick.

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This helps to get lower processor load, but still high. 20% for 20 forum icons ((

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Disabling the hardware acceleration worked for me!