Excessive battery usage on Android phone
I left a review and was asked to post this here so here goes. Firefox on android is currently the highest user of power on my Google Pixel 8 android phone. From the battery usage data (since last full charge) Firefox has used: Screen time: 2hrs 33mins Background: 5hrs 46mins Totalling 19% battery usage. Even though I turned OFF allow app to run in background!! Before I turned this off, the battery usage was similar. In comparison: WhatsApp -the next highest- is: Screen time: 1hr 42mins Background: 17hrs 52mins Totalling 14% battery usage. With allow app to run in background ON.
The only thing I can think of causing this is the annoying (in my opinion) way that Firefox does not close down all open tabs when I close the app (by hitting the square control button and hitting clear all open apps button) are they still keeping Firefox running in the background as they refresh?
PLEASE add a setting to close all tabs when closing the app. When I close Firefox on my PC and then open it again, I don't get my old tabs, so it must be possible to do on android.
All Replies (5)
Hello,
From the battery usage data (since last full charge) Firefox has used: Screen time: 2hrs 33mins Background: 5hrs 46mins Totalling 19% battery usage. Even though I turned OFF allow app to run in background!! Before I turned this off, the battery usage was similar. In comparison: WhatsApp -the next highest- is: Screen time: 1hr 42mins Background: 17hrs 52mins Totalling 14% battery usage. With allow app to run in background ON.
As far as I can see, with 47% more screen time Firefox uses only 35% more battery, which is not bad.
The only thing I can think of causing this is the annoying (in my opinion) way that Firefox does not close down all open tabs when I close the app (by hitting the square control button and hitting clear all open apps button) are they still keeping Firefox running in the background as they refresh?
Firefox shouldn't keep any tabs in background after closure. Not sure why you get "background" time, maybe the reason is the way it is measured.
PLEASE add a setting to close all tabs when closing the app. When I close Firefox on my PC and then open it again, I don't get my old tabs, so it must be possible to do on android.
Please see How do I quit Firefox for Android?
Thanks for the reply, however:
First, if I have stopped Firefox from running in the background, there should not be any background time as it's theoretically not running.
Second: when I posted my rating in Google play store, the reply mentioned Firefox for android causing high battery use.
Third: when you say tabs should not be kept in the background, do you mean that tabs should close when I close Firefox? As currently when I close and then reopen Firefox, all the tabs open from the previous session are still there - even after the phone has been turned off.
How do I stop the incessant tabs opening to tabs I didn't even have open and don't want open? This needs to be STOPPED. I'm now frustrated and angry. I did not ask for this function, I don't want this function and I don't need this function - there should be a way to stop Google and Firefox from constantly forcing me to manually shut these stupid tabs.
ktgiles said
How do I stop the incessant tabs opening to tabs I didn't even have open and don't want open? This needs to be STOPPED. I'm now frustrated and angry. I did not ask for this function, I don't want this function and I don't need this function - there should be a way to stop Google and Firefox from constantly forcing me to manually shut these stupid tabs.
Hi,
Firefox shouldn't open tabs without your consent. Can you please ask a new question for our community to be able to help?
Last night my firefox instance with only uBlock Origin installed decided it was time to kill the battery on my Pixel 10 Pro, and i have 5 normal tabs opened and one private tab with no website loaded(just the home page), i turned off background processes after this and if it happens again i will come back to report. If i could send logs for this behaviour i would(idk how). One small detail, i have recenty changed the default browser from firefox to chrome because it severely underperforms when battery saver is turned on(less than 60 frames/s) whereas chrome doesn't have this behaviour.