Firefox tab... question

[Scorpion Ghost]

So here's a scenario.

You open a tab in Firefox and keep it open for 2 weeks on the same website, and you refresh it 500 times in those 2 weeks. It gets slower.

Now you close that tab and open a new tab on the same website, the website is working a little faster now.

Why?


p.s forget about computer heat and browser extensions and any of that other stuff. Everything else is equal and this behavior will occur.

I can only assume it gets slower because the tab itself is storing shit (like the stuff it needs to allow you to hit backspace 500 times and go back to where you were before). If this is the case, how can I disable it? (not disable the backspace function, disable the storage of information that happens to allow me to do it, if you know what I mean).

 

[GenesisOne]

I don't get what you are experiencing.
I have like 200 tabs opened just in FF (same on other 3 browsers) and never experience any slowings (I am a mac user).
In such case you may use the Empty Cache extension (with tabs opened) and test if it fixes the problem.

 

[SilentDreamer]

How do you know that it gets slower? Slower by how much?

 

[Scorpion Ghost]

I don't get what you are experiencing.
I have like 200 tabs opened just in FF (same on other 3 browsers) and never experience any slowings (I am a mac user).
In such case you may use the Empty Cache extension (with tabs opened) and test if it fixes the problem.

I'm under the impression that each tab has it's own memory or something. I don't want to clear cache on the entire browser, I want to clear a tab.

I'm on Windows.

How do you know that it gets slower? Slower by how much?

I know because I use Firefox all day every day for all my work. It gets slower.

Restarting the browser helps a lot. Restarting the lap top helps the most. But even closing the tab and opening the same website in a new tab makes it a little better. And I want to understand why, what does the tab remember that ends up making it slower, where is that information stored, how do I clear it and restore the tab to "new"?

 

[SilentDreamer]

how do I clear it and restore the tab to "new"?

Try the Hard Refresh Button addon, it might help.

 

[satyr85]

Longer you have firefox instance opened, more ram it use. That's a potential problem. Probably your lap run out of ram and start to use swap and thats why everything is starting to work veeery slow.

You open a tab in Firefox and keep it open for 2 weeks on the same website

Your approach is wrong. Why would you keep website opened in tab for 2 weeks when you can open fresh firefox instance for every refresh? 500 times/2 weeks is refresh every 40 minutes on average.

I don't want to clear cache on the entire browser, I want to clear a tab.

You cant clear a tab, you can clear specific cookies or per domain cookies if you know how to.

 

[RebeccaThomas]

So here's a scenario.

You open a tab in Firefox and keep it open for 2 weeks on the same website, and you refresh it 500 times in those 2 weeks. It gets slower.

Firefox will keep adding memory on that tab with each refresh. How fast is your PC and how much memory? Anything under 4Gb will cause this, personally I would stick another stick in as you'll find your PC doesn't have to use virtual memory then.

 

[Gogol]

Why would you keep a tab open for two weeks?

When programs keep running, they start eating up your ram, because they save different states and other stuffs. Same goes for hibernation data (but that's a bit offtopic to this). If you want to know exactly why, you will need to go deep and debug the program you are trying to watch.

I am sure, your motto is to make your process better than trying to find out why something happens. In that case, try something smarter. We don't know what you are trying exactly, but I am sure you can optimise what you are doing currently.

 

[Strangilla]

So here's a scenario.

You open a tab in Firefox and keep it open for 2 weeks on the same website, and you refresh it 500 times in those 2 weeks. It gets slower.

Now you close that tab and open a new tab on the same website, the website is working a little faster now.

Why?


p.s forget about computer heat and browser extensions and any of that other stuff. Everything else is equal and this behavior will occur.

I can only assume it gets slower because the tab itself is storing shit (like the stuff it needs to allow you to hit backspace 500 times and go back to where you were before). If this is the case, how can I disable it? (not disable the backspace function, disable the storage of information that happens to allow me to do it, if you know what I mean).

I agree with you. But it still uses less ram than chrome and I believe it also doesn't steal data

 

[SilentDreamer]

Firefox will keep adding memory on that tab with each refresh. How fast is your PC and how much memory? Anything under 4Gb will cause this, personally I would stick another stick in as you'll find your PC doesn't have to use virtual memory then.

This is probably the reason, simply not enough ram.

 

[Scorpion Ghost]

Okay thanks all.