Looking at the task manager, many users may have noticed the presence of several firefox.exe processes in memory at once. Why do you need many processes and is it possible to disable them - read on.

So, in the task manager today you can see two, three, four, five or more Firefox processes.

Why does the browser need multiple processes? Multiprocess architecture increases security and stability: if a failure occurs somewhere, it will not drag down everything else at once.

In fact, the multi-process technique has been used by other browsers for a long time, and much more aggressively than Firefox. For example, Chrome and all Chromium-based browsers (modern Opera, Yandex.Browser and others) can even show dozens of processes in memory in the task manager if you have many tabs loaded.

There is one serious negative point in this: many processes can put a lot of stress on a weak computer, and if you are used to working with a large number of tabs or have many extensions installed, then even a PC with relatively up-to-date specifications can become strained.

Does Firefox create fewer processes than Chrome?

As we have already said, Mozilla approached the issue of multiple processes much more carefully than Google itself.

Initially, the developers created only one additional process for Firefox, where plugins (not to be confused with extensions) were displayed - plugin-container.exe. Thus, Firefox has 2 processes for the first time.

However, time passed and required the company to not be inferior to its competitors in terms of stability and security. As a result, the long-tested, full-fledged Firefox multi-process architecture was completed this year.

Firefox does not lose the advantage of lower memory consumption, even if it uses its multiprocessing to the maximum (8 CP - 8 processes for processing content)

Some users of stable versions of Firefox were able to appreciate multiprocessing for the first time this summer, starting with Firefox 54. The final stage here was the autumn release of Firefox 57, which no longer supported . Some of these extensions could previously block multi-process mode, forcing Firefox to use only one process.

However, with processes in Firefox, things are still not the same as in Chrome. If Google's brainchild launches literally everything and everyone in separate processes (every tab, every extension), then Firefox breaks various elements into groups. As a result, there are not as many processes as the main competitor.

This results in noticeably lower memory consumption and, in some cases, lower CPU load. After all, a huge number of processes in Chromium browsers can load even the weakest processor. But Mozilla eventually came to a compromise and, in our opinion, the most reasonable solution.

Additionally, Firefox uses a different on-demand tabs mechanism than Chrome and Chromium-based browsers.

If these web browsers automatically sequentially load tabs from the previous session in the background, then the “fire fox” does this only when the tab is explicitly accessed (clicked), thereby not creating unnecessary processes when they are not necessary. This also contributes to less resource consumption.

How to reduce the number of Firefox processes?

Unlike Google, Mozilla practically allows the user to control how many memory processes the browser uses.

You see several firefox.exe processes (or firefox.exe *32 in the case of using 32-bit versions) hanging in the task manager and want to remove/disable them - no problem. Open Settings, scroll down the “General” section, reaching the “Performance” subsection:

If you uncheck the "Use recommended performance settings" option, you will be presented with a setting for the number of content processes.

There are options from 1 to 7 processes to choose from (if you have more than 8 GB of memory, then more than 7 processes may be offered):

At this point it is worth making several important clarifications.

Firstly, we are talking about processes for processing content. If you specify here, for example, only 1 process, then the total number of processes in memory will decrease, but you still won’t get only one copy of firefox.exe, because in addition to the content, Firefox also outputs interface processing to separate processes.

Secondly, reducing the number of processes makes sense on computers with a small amount of RAM and extremely weak hardware. In turn, on more or less acceptable hardware, multiprocessing will not worsen performance, but, on the contrary, will contribute to it, albeit at the cost of increased memory consumption.

Is there any benefit to reducing the number of processes?

If we talk about our own example, for a PC with 8 GB of RAM, 4 content processing processes were initially proposed. At the same time, up to 7 processes could be displayed in memory when opening a large number of tabs.

When we set the number of content processes to 1, restarted the browser and re-clicked on all the tabs to load them, predictably only 4 processes remained in memory.

Of these, 3 are intended for the browser itself and 1 process is specifically for processing content, and the latter is easy to distinguish, because when you open a decent number of tabs, it begins to take up much more memory than the others:

In Firefox, we had 15 different sites open. In the original mode (7 processes), the total memory consumption was about 1.5 GB. When there were only four processes left, in total they took about 1.4 GB (see screenshots above).

We repeated the experiment several times, each of which the “gain” of RAM was only 100-150 MB. It is worth considering that browser performance could be reduced by switching to 1 process for content. Thus, as you can see, the point of reducing the number of processes is very small.

Web browsers may automatically open the most recently viewed tabs. To enable this feature, you must change your browser settings. If you set your browser to always open a specific website, i.e. your home page, or you set it to always open a blank tab, the browser will not load tabs from your previous session. Both Firefox and Chrome support this session recovery feature, but Firefox adds something extra. If you set Firefox to open tabs from your previous session, it will do this. However, it won't load the tabs until you actually visit them. Firefox does this to prevent slow startup. It's best to load just one tab you want to use and set the others aside until you visit them. This feature is called click to load tabs. Here's how you can disable loading tabs in Firefox.

Enable session recovery

Loading tabs only occurs if Firefox is set to open tabs from the last browsing session. To enable this feature, go to Firefox Settings by entering the following in the address bar:

A: Preferences

On the General tab there is an option called “When Firefox starts”. Open the drop-down menu next to this option and select "Show my windows and tabs since recently."

Disable download

Now that you have enabled session recovery, you need to disable downloads in Firefox. In the address bar, enter the following:

A: Configurations

Click the "I accept the risks" button to continue. On the About:config page, enter the following in the search bar (not the same as your browser's address bar);

Browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

This is the preference that controls the click to download. By default, this value is set to True. To disable loading tabs in Firefox, you only need to double-click this preference to change its value to "False".

That's all it takes. The next time you launch Firefox, all tabs from the previous session will be loaded. You don't have to visit them to start downloading. We should note that this will slow down Firefox when you start it. If you have a good internet connection, this may not be great. For slower connections, disabling click to download is not a good idea.

Mozilla Firefox is a convenient and comfortable browser. But it can be made a little more convenient. When we launch the browser, we can make sure that only the tabs and windows we need are opened. We can also speed up the loading of the initial Firefox launch. How? We'll talk about this in this article.

Settings inside the browser

To select the pages that open on startup:

It is very comfortable. For example, if you need to work in several tabs at once, then by setting the “show windows opened last time” option, you will not have to re-enter website addresses. Firefox will remember windows when closed.

If you first view email, for example on Mail.ru or Yandex.ru, then you can make them open when you open the browser. To do this, select the “Show home page” option, and write the address in the field. For example, www.yandex.ru.

Advice! Selecting the “Show blank page” option is inconvenient and too banal. Each time you have to enter the address of the desired site or look for a bookmark.

In the dialog box you can enter the home page address. In this case, you can select either an already open tab or one of the saved bookmarks. There are two buttons just below for this.

Configuration via Prefetch program

If the browser opens too slowly, you can speed up the Firefox launch options (read about speeding up Firefox). To do this, we will turn to the Prefetch program. It is already built into Windows. With its help, we will edit some of the shortcut parameters.

Important! Before you start working with this program, you need to close the browser. Since it has its own application and add-on manager, and as long as they are running, changes will not occur.

By following these steps you can change many properties:

1. Find the Mozilla Firefox shortcut. Right-click on it. A menu will appear, in it we find the Properties option and click on it.
2. In the dialog box that appears, find the Object tab. It contains a line indicating the path to this file.
3. At the very end of the line, manually enter “/Prefetch:1”. After this, Firefox will open in a separate directory, which will significantly speed up its launch.
4. Click first Apply and then OK.

Important! After changing directories, the first launch of Mozilla Firefox may be slow. Don't be alarmed, this is how it should be. Subsequent launches will open much faster.

To summarize, I want to say that settings of this type are not limited to this. You can also enter configuration mode and change anything you want. But if you are not an expert in web technologies, it’s better not to do this. I hope all of the above was useful to you, good luck everyone!

Thanks to its multifunctionality and versatility, it confidently holds the second position in popularity among global network users around the world. Working in the browser is intuitive even for beginners who are learning the basics of immersing themselves in the information abyss of the Internet. If you spend a little time and master the functionality of the Firefox search engine, working in it will become more efficient, more productive and much more enjoyable.

This article will discuss a useful feature of the browser that allows users of the World Wide Web to cover more information in one unit of time, save important links to Internet resources, and group portals by topic, characteristics and preferences. We are talking about TABS.

Having opened the home page, as a rule, the user first opens a search engine (Yandex/Google) and then moves around the network by opening sites in new pages, that is, in tabs. The user can find and customize settings for useful actions in the main menu in the “Tabs” item.

When familiarizing yourself with the Firefox browser from the very beginning, the user will encounter thumbnails of Mozilla Corporation's developments on the New Tab page, which will be replaced by frequently visited and recently closed Internet resources. Next, favorites saved by the user and simply useful links to sites will be displayed here.

How to save tabs in Firefox

The most reliable way to save links to websites is with Mozilla Firefox bookmarks. With their help, links in a special table will always be at hand. As for pinning tabs on the home page, this is done even easier:

• Open the home page;
• Move the mouse cursor over the tile with the tab of interest;
• When you hover your cursor over the top left corner of the tile, a pin icon will appear with the prompt “Pin this site at its current position” or, if the tab is already pinned, then “Unpin this site”;
• Select the desired action.

This way, the pinned tab will always appear as a tile on the home page in a specific position.

Mozilla New Tab Settings

If you click on the gear-shaped icon in the upper right corner of the new tab, you will be able to customize the controls.

You can choose to display custom sites by browsing popularity with recommendations from Mozilla, or a blank page. It is very useful to take advantage of additional information from browser developers, visit their pages and learn more about the functionality of the tabs.

The user is also recommended to master some of the technical capabilities with open tabs built into the browser interface. To do this, right-click on one of the open tabs and the engineering menu will open.

Through trial and error, you can try all the offered functions and options. Among them, the most useful option is “Pin tab”. Thanks to this feature, the user will always have access to selected pinned tabs. And no force majeure or accidental actions will be able to close these sites. All useful and necessary information is always at hand and before your eyes!

Additional extensions - Tabs

After the user has mastered the basics of working with tabs using the built-in tools of the Mozilla Firefox browser, you can move on to advanced features. On the official Internet resource of the development company (https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/extensions/tabs/), you can download and install additional extensions for free, which will significantly increase the productivity of working on the Internet and will make work not a burden, but to joy. The choice of applications is very large. The possibilities are almost limitless (it all depends on the user’s imagination and skills).

Descriptions and characteristics of most additional extensions are in English, but this does not mean that users who do not speak foreign languages ​​cannot use them.

Firstly, the description of many applications is in a foreign language, but the graphical interface of the application itself can be configured for the Russian language.

Secondly, by downloading and installing the additional application “,” the user will overcome all language barriers.

As they say: “The eyes are afraid, but the hands do.”

Productive and fun surfing the waves of the ocean of information on the World Wide Web without lags and bugs, dear users!

Sometimes it happens that Firefox repeatedly opens new, empty windows or tabs after you click on some link, and you are forced to close Firefox. The same empty windows or tabs may appear again as soon as you reopen Firefox if the previous session has been restored.

This usually happens because you have selected Firefox to be used constantly for certain actions, such as opening a certain type of file or launching an application to send email.

Reset actions for all content types

If the previous steps failed to resolve the issue, or if you cannot find the problematic item in the Applications panel, you will have to reset all actions for all items by manually deleting the file containing these settings.

This will remove all set actions for items, not just those that are causing problems. You will have to make these changes again if you decide to take these steps.

Check for viruses

If the problem persists, or if Firefox opens multiple tabs or windows with inappropriate content, you can assume that your computer may have been infected.