# Firefox web browser tuning help



## ahavatar (Oct 12, 2010)

Greetings,

There is a web site where I frequently go, and I have a problem to see images on my Firefox 3.6.10 on FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE (it was same on FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE). 

For example, if I visit to the page like

http://gall.dcinside.com/list.php?id=cat&no=273312

that has many big jpeg images (about 3K by 2K resolution and 2MB size each), my Firefox and FreeBSD start to crawl and almost freeze. 

However, when I visit the same page on my Ubuntu or Windows XP, I have no such problem at all - I can browse it with ease.

Is there a way to tune my Firefox and FreeBSD so that my system does not crawl ?

As a cat lover, I think this is the most serious problem in FreeBSD.

Thanks.


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## Ralph_Ellis (Oct 13, 2010)

I suggest installing Seamonkey which uses the same browser engine and seeing if it loads faster. This would at least tell you if it is a Firefox problem or a general Mozilla problem. I visited the page with Seamonkey and had no issues. Alternatively, you could also try Opera which has a faster rendering engine than Mozilla. 
If all of these browsers are slow on your system, it is probably a video driver issue.


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2010)

Page loads fine in Firefox. No slowdowns. 

Do you test with Ubuntu and XP on that same box? 

There really isn't much to tune on FreeBSD. At least not for 'normal' desktop use. Most of the tunables are set automatically.


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## ahavatar (Oct 13, 2010)

Yes, it is a multi-booting PC for FreeBSD, Ubuntu and Windows XP. I have the problem only with Firefox on FreeBSD. 

I've installed Seamonkey 2.0.8, and it has the same problem. As soon as it loads the page, it starts to crawl and almost freeze. I can't scroll down the page even after all the images have been downloaded.

However, Opera 10.63 works quite well - very smooth scrolling down the web page without any problem.

I run FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE amd64 (I do "cvsup" for base and "portsnap fetch update" for ports and compile etc. at least once a week, so my FreeBSD is quite up-to-date), Gnome 2.30.2 and FireFox 3.6.10. Any idea why my Firefox (and Seamonkey also) becomes so slow?  

If I can't fix this, I'd like to move to Opera, but then Opera has a Adobe Flash support on FreeBSD?


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2010)

What kind of machine is it? How much memory? 

Any settings changed in /etc/sysctl.conf? Or /boot/loader.conf?

What kernel? GENERIC or custom?


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## ahavatar (Oct 13, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> What kind of machine is it? How much memory?
> 
> Any settings changed in /etc/sysctl.conf? Or /boot/loader.conf?
> 
> What kernel? GENERIC or custom?



Athlon64 X2 3800+, 2GB RAM, ATI 800GTO 256MB video card, Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard, WD Blue 640GB HDD

/etc/sysctl.conf

```
vfs.usermount=1
```

/boot/loader.conf

```
snd_via8233_load="YES"
```

I didn't change anything when I compiled the kernel. I guess this means GENERIC kernel, 8.1-STABLE.

When I scroll down the web page using my mouse wheel, the CPU load (one of the cores) hikes up to 100%, almost freezing entire desktop.

edit) 

PS. I've managed to install Adobe Flash for Opera, but it seems that Opera is buggy with Korean character input method called nabi. Oh well one thing fixed and another broken :-(


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2010)

ahavatar said:
			
		

> When I scroll down the web page using my mouse wheel, the CPU load (one of the cores) hikes up to 100%, almost freezing entire desktop.


This sounds like it's related to your videocard/driver.


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## ahavatar (Oct 13, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> This sounds like it's related to your videocard/driver.



I hope it will be fixed in Firefox 4, in the mean time, I can use Opera instead.


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## Mirror176 (Oct 13, 2010)

Upgrading firefox will not fix videocard driver issues (such as no acceleration). What graphics hardware and drivers are you using? Are you sure acceleration is on? Do other windows scroll, drag, etc. smoothly?
  A few firefox (still on 3.5) tweaks I always do are the following:
Type "about:config" in the address bar.
Type "pipe" in the filter bar.
Change "FALSE"s to "TRUE" and "4" to "8" (and last I checked, higher values are still silently overwritten with an 8 contrary to what other guides think).
Those steps have made firefox load pages faster and have overcome loading problems when on a bad internet connection.
  I also prefer adblock plus with easylist to cleanup pages and noscript so I dont have to always close a page or `killall -STOP firefox3` just to keep my cpu where I want it.


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## ahavatar (Oct 13, 2010)

Mirror176 said:
			
		

> Upgrading firefox will not fix videocard driver issues (such as no acceleration). What graphics hardware and drivers are you using? Are you sure acceleration is on? Do other windows scroll, drag, etc. smoothly?
> A few firefox (still on 3.5) tweaks I always do are the following:
> Type "about:config" in the address bar.
> Type "pipe" in the filter bar.
> ...



I can view the webpage with Opera without any problem, thus, I doubt that it is graphic card related. (I install and run default xorg and gnome2 ports, no fancy customization) 

Since Seamonkey has the same problem, it might be a Mozilla engine related bug, thus I hope it will be fixed in firefox4 that uses a different engine.


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## Ralph_Ellis (Oct 14, 2010)

There is a Firefox extension call FasterFox which changes some settings and may speed up viewing. After having said this, Opera is a fine browser and should meet your needs. 
Did you ever try Rekonq? It does not have extensions yet but the WebKit engine works well and is fast.


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## Mirror176 (Oct 14, 2010)

Probably not the graphics card issue. Maybe someone knows more about troubleshooting such issues; I just learned today about http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=18156 being a possible issue too which reminds me of my hate for complex dependencies and them going wrong.


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## SirDice (Oct 14, 2010)

It's not a firefox issue. The page loads fine in firefox. No slowdowns, no problems.


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## ahavatar (Feb 28, 2011)

Greetings, I've updated my Xorg to 7.5.1 and this Firefox problem is gone! Now my Firefox can display/scroll the above mentioned web page as fast as Opera which has no such problem.


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## dralex (Mar 2, 2011)

You might also want to try a `pkill npviewer.bin` at the command prompt to see if that helps resolve the problem.

Just my 2 cents.


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