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what does the number after Firefox in Task Manager mean? e.g. Firefox (8)

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  • Last reply by kburns1949

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In Task Manager, Firefox is listed with a number after it. e,g. Firefox (8). What does the number mean??

In Task Manager, Firefox is listed with a number after it. e,g. Firefox (8). What does the number mean??

Chosen solution

A window would have its own thumbnail when you hover over the Firefox icon on the Windows taskbar.

My Processes tab separates the 11 Firefox processes between 6 "Apps" (one for each window) and 5 "Background processes". I don't know if that's the normal setup or I did that at some point. For a single tab, I would expect 3 total processes instead of 5, but if you previously had more tabs and you closed the others, Firefox may keep those processes going in anticipation of you opening more tabs. Firefox may also create a process for Flash, which I have not used today.

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Hi kburns1949,

In Task Manager, Firefox is listed with a number after it. e,g. Firefox (8). What does the number mean??

Probably that means you have 8 separate Firefox windows open. If you click the little > in the left, you can see more information about the processes (I have 6 separate Firefox windows open):

Firefox is a multiprocess application where it is common to see 3-11 instances of Firefox.exe in Task Manager. Different tabs are run in different content processes and you can use the Options page to manage the number (although even if you only have 1 content process, there may be 2 other processes). See: Firefox's performance settings.

If you need to know more about what each process is for, you can use the Task Manager's Details tab. Right-click the rows of column heading and choose Select Columns. Then add the Command Line column.

Now when you look at the rows with firefox.exe and scroll over to the command line, you can see much more information about which process is for what, i.e., web content processes vs. the main browser process.

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What constitutes a Firefox "window" ? I have one instance of Firefox running with one tab open but Task Manager shows Firefox (5).

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Chosen Solution

A window would have its own thumbnail when you hover over the Firefox icon on the Windows taskbar.

My Processes tab separates the 11 Firefox processes between 6 "Apps" (one for each window) and 5 "Background processes". I don't know if that's the normal setup or I did that at some point. For a single tab, I would expect 3 total processes instead of 5, but if you previously had more tabs and you closed the others, Firefox may keep those processes going in anticipation of you opening more tabs. Firefox may also create a process for Flash, which I have not used today.

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Thanks, jscher2000.