And what is it you want to shut down?

Anything not related directly to displaying browser pages as quickly as possible. Firefox "hello" program comes to mind, but there are a ton of other "features" that get foisted on us.

I've been through the config page, as well as the about:config page, and many of these features are either not listed or else listed but may have an unreadable code rather than the English name of the feature.

Bloat of any kind should be an addon selected and installed by the user. Optionally, FF could offer 2 versions call it FF "diet" and FF "needs a diet", or whatever you want. Another option: FF without all of the BS to everyone, and have a couple of addons that add several of the most used bloatware for people that want an easy upgrade to FF "I need to order a salad, but I'm going for the whole chicken with extra large sides instead" That way packing on the poundage is a personal choice.

Notice how I give the versions catchy names instead of numbers, because it is - oh, so trendy?

As far as I know, features like Pocket and Hello don't waste any cycles when you're not using them, but:

• Disable or re-enable Pocket for Firefox
• Support for Hello discontinued in Firefox 49

If you think the problem is excessive bandwidth, CPU, or memory use, see:

• How to stop Firefox from making automatic connections
• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix
• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix

If your Firefox is slow accessing the disk cache, you can make it smaller than the default size:

• Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox

And just generally:

• Quick fixes if your Firefox slows down
• Try an ad blocker like: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

Takes forever to start.

Crashes all the time.

slow accessing web pages.

I'm assuming that whether it uses a feature or not it initializes everything on startup. -- slow to start

The more unnecessary BS that is loaded the more places in which to have a problem and cause crashes. -- crashes all the time.

Slow browsing the web -- who knows, but a bunch of bloatware does not help anything.

If you happen to run Linux then try this browser. Unfortunately, it does not do flash and other common web multimedia/active content well... otherwise it would still be my go to browser for everything.

http://www.dillo.org/

Starts up in about 1 second... loads pages blazing fast. Of course, it is written in C, and it doesn't load in 10 tons of libraries on startup either.

-- just sayin'... how many people actually use the debug console or the hello program on a daily basis? What if I don't want to contact google for anything except when I decide to do it myself? No doubt, part of the slow page loading is nearly every website in the world now using google adwords, flash, or the browser checking a blacklist for each domain it loads.

Some addons I actually use such as adblockers, and I can add those myself if I use them, but others are just clogging up the system with no way to turn them off or remove them... it reminds my of Microsoft adding on all of their BS with no option to remove it or turn it off.

BTW, thanks for the suggestions. I will certainly try them.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web Link} by holding down the <Shift>
(Mac=Options) key, and then starting Firefox. A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh).

Is the problem still there?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/websites-look-wrong-or-appear-differently

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firefox+is+already+running+but+is+not+responding

Does it improve at all if you disable all your plugins at least temporarily? And you mention crashes, are these plugin crashes or Firefox itself ? Do you have some recent Crash IDs they start bp- and are listed if you navigate to about:crashes by keying that in to the address bar and pressing the Enter Key.

See

• Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly)
• Send plugin crash reports to help Mozilla improve Firefox

Hi John,

thanks for the reply. I haven't tried with the add-ons disabled yet. I will try that tonight when I have some free time.

All crashes have the bp prefix. Here is the list:

Report ID Date Submitted bp-4e5cef33-4c7e-4794-8d0b-6b9a82160302 03/02/2016 04:26 PM bp-01e4d65a-56a7-4e3c-9e1d-839592160302 03/02/2016 03:17 AM bp-a9b3da5c-4842-446c-90c5-691602160302 03/02/2016 03:16 AM bp-ab2674d7-451f-44c9-b261-41b892160302 03/02/2016 12:16 AM bp-83a59fda-9fba-454b-89b5-a55922160301 03/01/2016 03:20 AM bp-3f3cbe6e-0fab-40f8-9de6-fce592160301 03/01/2016 02:35 AM bp-094b3cde-6229-4a51-8783-65add2160301 02/29/2016 09:59 PM bp-b8dfbb48-18f5-4a54-ae7a-306892160229 02/29/2016 04:18 AM bp-fc92b247-5f38-4a3c-b7fa-1e2c22160229 02/29/2016 04:02 AM bp-3718ddf6-c40e-42fb-8dbc-251402160229 02/29/2016 02:19 AM bp-906febaf-2fb4-4170-8d6c-5ceb92160229 02/29/2016 12:54 AM bp-0bee26df-35f1-41d5-92df-fa4ec2160229 02/29/2016 12:30 AM bp-81e6250e-6295-4006-a1ce-c5cc52160229 02/29/2016 12:28 AM bp-d3a895b9-b153-43d5-a7d8-9e5962160229 02/28/2016 08:47 PM bp-02b30ac9-4d80-4658-a455-1829b2160228 02/28/2016 10:10 AM bp-d13b2964-f2b3-4b9c-b07d-534872160228 02/28/2016 10:01 AM bp-49e5d3d9-8949-4f63-b350-060962151125 11/25/2015 02:31 PM bp-c730487c-ebcc-4d42-b8ad-0e48b2151124 11/24/2015 04:19 PM bp-ab66f1bf-33e1-469a-ada5-548f92151124 11/24/2015 06:49 AM bp-aec2271f-ac2e-4a25-8875-5e1e22151124 11/24/2015 02:31 AM bp-ea408cde-1664-4efb-8ec8-83ede2151123 11/23/2015 03:48 PM bp-4179d0b6-a5bd-4d22-ae7f-e8fa52151123 11/23/2015 11:42 AM bp-e3fc2a20-c400-43ac-8200-d7ced2151122 11/21/2015 08:25 PM bp-15b23f9f-11e2-4b67-8247-cf4b42151121 11/21/2015 01:59 PM bp-8436127f-8d7d-4df7-925b-0606c2151120 11/20/2015 11:50 AM bp-464e10c2-3231-41e7-8fed-40d312151120 11/20/2015 07:39 AM

As you can see it crashes all the time. I tried contacting Mozilla for months and was ignored, so I have been looking for another browser.

Difficult to find something that doesn't try to please even the most esoteric users and just displays web pages...

Thanks for your help.

I forgot to add that:

I am running Debian Linux 2.6.32-5-686 Firefox 45.0.2

I'm sure that you realize that Linux has problems with flash due to it not being updated in a timely manner for Linux by the vendor.

I am not interested in changing operating systems... the dark side can choke on their milk and cookies...

Just a quick note I wanted to mention...

I'm sure that you realize that Linux has problems with flash due to it not being updated in a timely manner for Linux by the vendor.

To be honest, if you don't use Flash that often, I suggest you uninstall it completely as more and more sites are phasing out Flash in favor of HTML5. I don't have Flash installed in my Ubuntu set-up and I've yet to encounter a site that doesn't run natively on Firefox.

I'm not able to read Linux crash reports so I couldn't help you on that front, however, there are tons of other contributors here that will be able to assist you.

As you can see it crashes all the time. I tried contacting Mozilla for months and was ignored, so I have been looking for another browser.

Those crash reports are old as they are from early March or older.

Also Mozilla has no resources for call centers for one on one support by phone, chat or email, especially since it would be for free. If you are referring to the email part of crash reporter, that is not for support but a option in case a dev that can see such details may want to contact for further details that is not in crash reports. The email can also help those devs looking into problem crashers confirm reports from same user.

danp387 said

I'm sure that you realize that Linux has problems with flash due to it not being updated in a timely manner for Linux by the vendor.

Actually Adobe releases security updates for (NPAPI) Flash Player 11.2.x for Linux at same time as they do for Windows and Mac OSX unless the fix was not for all OS's. The Flash Player updates provided by Linux distros can be a bit behind sometimes yes if the user relies on those instead of from say https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html or https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/

Linux users do have a workaround option if willing by trying to use a freshplayer plugin wrapper to use the Pepper Flash Player from Chrome/Chromium in say Firefox and SeaMonkey.

HTML5 is getting more popular for video use yes as some like Youtube has been using it for some time now and the popular game streaming Twitch is looking to have HTML5 for video part of player (end of month maybe?) as the controls/chat has been html5 for over a year now.

On Linux make sure you have packages like FFmpeg installed and you can chack what your system install supports at https://www.youtube.com/html5 as my Linux system gets all blue checkmarks. Gstreamer packages may not be needed anymore in recent Firefox Releases to play HTML5.

Thanks to all for your help.

FF is the only program that crashes, except for the HTML5 mentioned below.

My system periodically updates automatically, so all libraries ect should be up to date for the version that I am using. Flash I get directly from Adobe.

HTML 5 will play most videos, and flash is disabled anyway so it is only used when I specifically turn it on for a video. HTML 5 has it's own problems as it uses more resources, has less options, and occasionally hangs meaning the video stops, but the sound keeps playing... I don't consider that a FF crash.

When FF crashes it either disappears, or hangs and the hang can usually be traced to the video being played via killing that process which frees the browser, so that is not a FF crash either. Sometimes when FF disappears it leaves a zombie process that has to be killed to restart FF right away... That may trace back to a flash problem as well.

Other browsers such as chrome seem to work well, but I have never trusted google, so I won't be using their browser or add-on flash player.

I'm not fond of flash anyway, but most sites use it so what can you do?

It may be time that I upgrade the entire system - I've been using this version of Linux for years... they probably have a new stable repository. Linux is pretty good about just install it and let it update. It then runs well for years, so I have become complacent about it

I'll try the suggested fixes and schedule in a system update in the near future.

Thanks again for the help.

Chrome of course has Flash effectively built in, as James aluded to with mention of PPAPI. Adobe still support Flash Player on Firefox linux for security backports, but I would have to look it up to see how long for. Browsers including Firefox are moving away from plugins but as we all know a lot of websites and users still use it so it is hanging on and causing problems.

Your Linux is about a decade out of date and no longer supported. You may note that Debian now has Long Term Support and you tend to be able to get up to 5 years support on more recent Debian versions. As you say it may be time to bite the bullet and "upgrade the entire system". I suppose I would be preaching to the converted if I say using separate partitions at least for the Debian Home location can make upgrades a lot easier especially if you use encrypted drives or jump more than one version on upgrades.

Does Firefox start faster or crash less in Firefox's safe mode ? and what about if for test purposes you create and use a new additional profile. The profile manager lets you chose which profile to use so you can just temporarily test a new profile, but note it is safe practice NOT to rename or delete profiles it is too easy to make mistakes.

• Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode
• Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles
• You could also turn on telemetry Share data with Mozilla to help improve Firefox

One of the bloatware features is Firefox Health Report (FHR). I don't think the development of that progressed as far as initially proposed, but it does chart the actual startup times, it may be of interest looking at that to find out just how long Firefox does take to start on your System.

• Key in to the addressbar about:healthreport and press enter
• See: Firefox Health Report - understand your browser performance_what-is-the-startup-time-graph

I wonder what sort of time in seconds seems like "forever" Do you closedown Firefox using its menu button by the way. Note if Firefox runs in to issues on closedown - yours will if it is crashing - then that often has a knock on effect on the subsequent startup time. FHR will give you solid data to compare changes in startup time if Firefox does not crash, or if plugins are disabled or safemode used.

See also

• Debian LTS https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases#Production_Releases
• Deprecating plugins https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/
• And I note a couple of Extensions listed in some of the Crash Reports
  • There may be a newer version of Flash Control add-on available https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/flash-control/versions
  • Not sure what your the version of You Tube Video and Audi Downloader add-on is https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube-video-and-audio-dow/