On 12/12/24 06:01, Van Snyder wrote:
On Thu, 2024-12-12 at 05:32 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
The symptom remains that if I kill firefox and restart it, things run a
lot faster for a few hours, and then bog down again.
I believe that 4GB of RAM is now not enough for web browsing, especially
with web browsing involving javascript.
Whether you continue to use Firefox, if you can, I suggest that you
upgrade your RAM, to as much as your motherboard will take. Whilst I do
not know what the pricing of RAM is like, now, it was, a while ago,
quite inexpensive, and, a desktop computer that I bought, with an i3
CPU, was upgraded to 32GB of RAM, as soon as I could, after buying it,
and, it has run well with that.
MB has all the RAM it can take, so more RAM would require a new MB.
I do not know in which country, you are, or, what computer prices are
like, where you are, but, I suggest looking for a new computer, with at
least 32GB RAM.
I believe that cellphones nowadays start with about 4GB RAM.
A possibility, depending on computer pricing, where you are, and, the
pricing of refurbished computers, is to consider buying a refurbished
computer.
The computer that I am currently using (it is, I believe, my most robust
computer, and so, it is the only computer, apart from a cheap tablet
computer that I am using a couple of times a day, due to electricity
supply problems (I have a big UPS, which is faulty, so, I am not
confident to use my other computers) ), has a Xeon CPU and 128GB RAM. In
Firefox, amongst the other add-ons, I have Bluhell Firewall, uBlock
Origin (I recommend those two , together, as a minimum) , AdBlocker
Ultimate, AdGuard AdBlocker, AdBlock Plus, and, I think that is all f
the ab blocking and anti-tracking and general privacy add-ons that I
have. They, together, can slow Firefox, but the combination of Firefox,
and, javascript, are what slows down the use of Firefox. javascript,
malignantly applied as client-side processing, rather than more
properly, server-side processing, is like pouring sugar into the fuel
tank of a petrol-fuelled car.
The cost of this computer, in Australia, a couple of years ago,
refurbished, was about 1100AUD, about the price of a new i5 "laptop"
with about 8GB of RAM.
So, it could be worth you investing in a refurbished computer with a
powerful CPU and lots of RAM; preferably at least 64GB, to provide for
the future (well, the next couple of years).
Another suggestion for you, is to switch to a less resource-demanding
desktop environment.
I do not know what its status is now, but, from memory, KDE used to be
the most resource-demanding desktop environment. I use the MATE desktop
environment, with a deprecated MATE interface, and, I keep a copy of my
interface, on my Ventoy drive, so that, if and when I install on a new
computer, I can put the interface on it. Perhaps, you could consider one
of the more economical desktop environments, like XFCE, or, and, I
believe that it is still currently available, fvwm. fvwm was the first
Linux desktop environment that I used, on Slackware, and, I think, Red
Hat (about 4 or 5), about 25 years ago, before a kindly person showed me
Debian (which was about 3.0, I think), and, the wonders of apt.
The web sites that you access, can also have a considerable effect on
your computer's performance. One web site, that I now access only on the
tablet PC, through an Android app for the web site, is the Weather
Underground - wunderground.com, for weather status and forecasts
monitoring. That web site would persistently crash whatever web browser
I would be using to access it, and, because of the ominous effects,
would take down whatever computer I would use to access the web site. It
would cause the computer to freeze, so I would have to power off the
computer, and, reboot it. But, the Android app seems to work, with me
viewing the web page, then closing the folder front for the tablet PC,
which is like putting a chook's head under one of its wings - it puts it
to sleep.
..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............
