Firefox EXTREMELY slow with many (more than three) tabs open

[Johannes Konow]

First of all, I am worthless at bug reporting so a bit of help would be appreciated. All my prevoius bugs have been invalidated since they "lack the information necessary to fix the bug", so I'd LOVE to get some help requiring the information necessary this time.

The thing is that firefox is extremely slow when browsing the web with more than 3-5 tabs. If I use more than 8 tabs, it becomes almost unusable. Scrolling is done at speeds below one broswer window hight a minute. Flash runs ok under theese conditions so I'm sure that it has nothing to do with flash. Firefox is even better at handling flash than opera on the same computer.

Opera, as I mentioned before, runs flawlessly and smoothly so it has nothing to do with the hardware or anything.

Information about package, system and ubuntu version
__________________________________________________

System:
Eee PC 901, standard ubuntu install, all settings set to maximize performance.
Ubuntu 8.10, standard release, eee-control and eee-pc-kernel installed

Package:
  Installed: 3.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1
  Candidate: 3.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com intrepid-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages

If you need more info, PLEASE DO TELL ME WHAT TO DO instead of closing the bug report.

[Jarno Suni (jarnos)]

How much RAM do you have in the Eee PC?

[Johannes Konow (itix)]

The standard one GB, but I never use more than 600 Mb of it so I don't see any need for upgrading. I never use any of the swap.

Whenever firefox becomes that slow, I always check the ram usage with top. It's not insufficient ram that is the problem. I think it is something else... some sort of goo that builds up or something, because it generally becomes slower over time as well.

[Daniel Serodio (dserodio)]

While it doesn't address your report, I suggest trying Opera. I found it to be MUCH snappier on my Eee 900 (and eats up less RAM too)

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, a new version of firefox-3.0 was released for your Ubuntu release after your bug submission. Please upgrade to the most recent version and let us know if you are still having this issue. Thanks in advance.

[Johannes Konow (itix)]

This was with Firefox 3.0.<4 (can't remember exact version) and it has gotten a lot better since I upgraded to 9.04 and Firefox 3.0.10. I still have problems with heavy sites and it's still a problem with more than 12 tabs and a music player running, but not as bad as before. It's usable now ;)

So... you might just mark this bug as solved (for now...)

Though firefox DO need to be a bit quicker. The windows version kicks linux-firefox's ass which is not good.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Many bad Firefox behaviors are in fact caused by one of the many third-party 'themes', 'extensions' and 'plugins'. These will go away with a new profile - that is, when Firefox is restored to default settings and without any extensions and themes. You do not need to delete your old profile to test.
Could you please try with a new profile and let us know the results?
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs?action=show&redirect=DebuggingFirefox#Try%20with%20a%20new%20profile

If a new profile helps, maybe you can help us determine what is slowing down Firefox.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!