Browser performance problems

exoplasm

Okay, so I am having some issues lately with web browsing. I'm rather unsatisfied with performance. I primarily use Firefox with a slew of super handy extensions that I have a hard time giving up. I tried to set up Opera 10.51 to match my Firefox setup as closely as I could, but it has similar issues. I just can't get into Chrome(ium) because the extensions don't work as expected.

Problem 1: Brief freezes
This happens mostly in Firefox, but Opera does it occasionally, too. In Firefox it happens for 5-10 seconds at a time when starting and finishing a download. Downloading multiple small files is a major pain in the ass. Virus scanning within the browser is disabled and my real-time virus scanner is disabled. It also freezes up periodically while scrolling through a page or typing something into a text field. Even while watching Youtube videos everything will freeze up, but audio will continue to play, for a few seconds. The video catches up immediately. I notice brief hard disk activity when this happens so I have moved my Firefox installation and profile into a RAM disk. At first I was pleased, but it only took a few minutes to realize it did not resolve the issue.

Problem 2: Blurry/slow scrolling
This happens in both Firefox and Opera. Scrolling blurs the page and is rather slow in general. I don't know what the deal is here. This is not a problem in Chrome.

Problem 3: Tabs cause more freezes
Opening and closing tabs makes the browser unusable for a few seconds every time. Both Firefox and Opera are affected while Chrome is not. I guess this is just due to the (lack of) UI threading in the browsers, but it's super annoying.

So does anyone have any good solutions? Should I just use Chrome with inferior extensions (example: adblock is pretty useless in Chrome)? :?:

Further information:
Windows 7 Ultimate
AMD Phenom II Quad Core
8GB DDR2 RAM
500GB Seagate drives (7200.9 or .10? From year 2007)
Firefox 3.6.3
Opera 10.51
Chrome 5.0 (latest dev)


Update:
I disabled Greasemonkey to see if it's a contributor to the problem. It feels snappier now, but I will need more time to evaluate. Too bad Greasemonkey is so awesome.

Frem

That doesn't sound normal. Exactly how many extensions are we talking about here?

exoplasm

I've got 31 extensions enabled right now. Disabling Greasemonkey seems to have resolved the problem for now.

For curiosity's sake, is it possible to get good adblocking working in Chrome? The available extensions just hide the ads. I'd prefer not to load them at all since waiting for them to load can often slow down an entire page loading.

Azio

exoplasm wrote: »

For curiosity's sake, is it possible to get good adblocking working in Chrome? The available extensions just hide the ads. I'd prefer not to load them at all since waiting for them to load can often slow down an entire page loading.

- Install Privoxy
- open the Wrench menu
- options>Under The Hood>Change proxy settings>LAN Settings
- Check the "Use proxy server" checkbox. address is 127.0.0.1 port 8118.
- Click OK, close chrome and restart it.

Dedian

Does the CPU usage spike to 100% (or at least very high) across cores, or at least one core, when things seem sluggish? The blurry/stuttery scrolling seems like a video driver issue. All drivers up to date?

TheUnsane1

I get the exact same 5-10 second freeze ups with firefox all the time... it's the main reason I end up dumping firefox. I came back to firefox because I tried it a few days and it seemed to be working better than Safari and looks nicer than Chrome. It took about a week before they started but at home I get them about twice a night browsing only the same 4-5 tabs of pages (PA Forums, SRK.com forums, GiantBomb always open; Gmail/Hotmail/imdb sometimes open.). I run script block, abp, and a few interface mod extentions.

exoplasm

CPU usage doesn't seem to spike. I am pretty confident at this point that disabling Greasemonkey and running in a Ramdisk has solved all my problems.

My graphics drivers are indeed up to date as well.