I use a laptop that's estimated to be around 5 years old now, it still has good performance and rarely shuts down/crashes. The only performance issues it has are with Fir… (read more)
I use a laptop that's estimated to be around 5 years old now, it still has good performance and rarely shuts down/crashes. The only performance issues it has are with Firefox, as it eats the most CPU and memory of anything else I use.
Twice or so now, the following has happened within the past month:
- Firefox notifies me that a new version is available and asks to update to it
- I decline to do because I have tabs on there with unsaved/algorithmic work I'm in the middle of dealing with, and the browser update would mean losing all of it (or I just don't care)
- At some point later, be it a few days or hours later, Firefox suddenly seizes up and forces me to close the application, after which it updates to the newest version.
While it's always frustrating to have this happen, it's generally pretty quick and I can get back to whatever I was doing (as my tabs reload).
But today was different. Very different.
So, imagine. You're slacking off, watching some random videos online, and your screen (and eventually audio, too) freeze up. You get Windows to shut it down as it detects the application has gone cold, and it goes and tries to "report the issue", except that little loading screen doesn't seem to come to a stop.
"Okay..."
So, you click "X", and it goes away after a few tries, but the Firefox icon is still on your taskbar like it's still active. You click it, it doesn't do anything.
You click on your other open applications, they also don't do anything.
Suddenly, your entire desktop freaks out! You can't ALT+F4 (none of your keys work in fact), the screen is randomly turning black for fractions of a second. Only when you hold down the power button for what feels like a whole minute as a last ditch effort do you get your potato of a computer to go lights out.
You press down on the power button again, it boots back up fine. Firefox reopens, and it gives you a little popup about pinning it to your taskbar.
Did Firefox literally crash my computer... to tell me I can use a free (and probably useless) VPN now?...
IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, YOU LITTLE VULPINE BASTARD??!?!?!
I don't why it's acting like some immature incinerated furry spawn of internet Satan because I simply "decline" to update the browser, but it's really getting on my nerves. I have NEVER HAD an application, let alone a memory-munching browser like this, cause my entire PC to freeze to a severity I have not seen in a long time if ever in the history of using it. What is making it wreak havoc on my computer all for a stupid update that adds garbage I never use?
How do I make it stop? Why has it been such an ass with me recently???
I can't let this keep happening, man. It's already caused me to lose some important stuff before, and now apparently it may be able to screw me over on other applications as well. Something could go seriously wrong on my end, and then boom, I move back to Chrome because despite everything, it treated me with more decency when it came to performance.
Do better.
