too much freezing/slow websites : what is the next web browser I should try?

[anotherChris]

I posted this thread recently about Microsoft Teams websites freezing my browser/system. I have also had issues recently with YouTube, Hotmail, and just now Google Maps froze everything. This is too much. A huge waste of time and very frustrating.

I am using the FireFox browser that came installed with Lubuntu 20.04, which I have been using about 2 weeks or so. I wanted to give FF a chance as I hadn't used it in many years, but now I want to try a different browser.

In one thread, someone suggested I use Brave browser for its Microsoft Teams compatibility, but I don't want to build my life around Teams, which I hate using.

In another thread, someone suggested that YouTube was slow because FF doesn't use hardware acceleration like Chrome. So, I am wondering if I should try some Chromium derivative. Maybe Brave, or maybe Vivaldi?

Does anyone have a browser suggestion that they think will solve a problem of Office365, YouTube, Hotmail, GoogleMaps all causing my system to freeze up? This is really my issue, and not being able to use Tor or something.

[Frogs Hair]

Can you tell us about your hardware, memory,cpu,and graphics.

[Autodave]

Until you get your specs here, you can try uBlock add on for Firefox. I have had a lot of luck with that.

[CelticWarrior]

Can you tell us about your hardware, memory,cpu,and graphics.

This ^^^ please, in order to properly evaluate the problem.

That said, recently you posted about an ancient Dell Inspiron 1545 and a much newer yet very likely very limited Intel Compute Stick. Regarding the latter even the current crop of those glorified media players isn't good. The cheaper ones are crap and the the best that can be said about expensive one is "not bad". Not even the expensive one is for serious tasks.

So, if your question is still about either one of the aforementioned hardware your seriously need to tone down your expectations. The problem isn't the web browser, it's the websites. The internet of today bares little resemblance with what it was 15 years ago, it's requirements are simply too much for the computers that you already mentioned in your previous threads.

[CatKiller]

In another thread, someone suggested that YouTube was slow because FF doesn't use hardware acceleration like Chrome. So, I am wondering if I should try some Chromium derivative. Maybe Brave, or maybe Vivaldi?

There's a PPA that will give you a build of Chromium with hardware accelerated video decode.

The problem isn't the web browser, it's the websites.

Exactly this. They're running arbitrary code on your machine, and there's no incentive to keep it lean since it's not their machine that needs to run it. There are extensions you can use that will limit the number of arbitrary programs from other sites, which will make your general browsing more pleasant, but bloaty programs like heavy websites run in a browser will require equivalently beefy hardware.

[NM5TF]

I posted this thread recently about Microsoft Teams websites freezing my browser/system. I have also had issues recently with YouTube, Hotmail, and just now Google Maps froze everything. This is too much. A huge waste of time and very frustrating.

I am using the FireFox browser that came installed with Lubuntu 20.04, which I have been using about 2 weeks or so. I wanted to give FF a chance as I hadn't used it in many years, but now I want to try a different browser.

In one thread, someone suggested I use Brave browser for its Microsoft Teams compatibility, but I don't want to build my life around Teams, which I hate using.

In another thread, someone suggested that YouTube was slow because FF doesn't use hardware acceleration like Chrome. So, I am wondering if I should try some Chromium derivative. Maybe Brave, or maybe Vivaldi?

Does anyone have a browser suggestion that they think will solve a problem of Office365, YouTube, Hotmail, GoogleMaps all causing my system to freeze up? This is really my issue, and not being able to use Tor or something.

FireFox is not to blame for your problems....I use the same apps as you (Office 365, YouTube, GoogleMaps, Microsoft Teams, etc...) on my ancient (2007) dual CPU machine
with no problems....I also tried different browsers ( Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi ) but I ALWAYS come back to FF....

without any information about your hardware, you can't really expect to get help here...

do you have inxi installed ??.....if not sudo apt install inxi will install that...after install, open a terminal and key in

inxi -F

post the results here using code tags to make the output more readable...

this will tell us all about your hardware & drivers...we can go from there....

tommy

[anotherChris]

Can you tell us about your hardware, memory,cpu,and graphics.

Sorry. I should know better... I don't know the most efficient way to do this, but I ran a bunch of terminal commands and compiled the information...

Inspiron 1545
2GB RAM 160GB memory
======================================
CPU
------------------------------------
Genuine Intel(R) CPU 585 @ 2.16GHz
1 physical processor; 1 core; 1 thread
------------------------------------
model name : Genuine Intel(R) CPU
585 @ 2.16GHz
cpu MHz : 2161.105
cache size : 1024 KB
cpu cores : 1
Architecture : x86_64
CPU op-mode(s) : 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order : Little Endian
Address sizes : 36 bits physical,
48 bits virtual
===================================
Motherboard
-----------------------------------
Dell Inc. 0G848F
===================================
Storage
----------------------------------
ATA ST9160310AS
HL-DT-ST DVD+RW GT10N
Generic-Multi-Card
----------------------------------
disk model ST9160310AS
partition table msdos
1 partition ext4
===================================
Graphics
-----------------------------------
1366x 768
Unknown
The X.Org Foundation
-----------------------------------
description: VGA compatible controller
Mobile 4 Series Chipset
Integrated Graphics Controller
===================================
Wireless Interface
-----------------------------------
BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries

[sdsurfer]

Also you might look at your connection: your Ethernet hardware speed, speed tests of your connection, etc. I see "Wireless Interface" but try hard wiring it, see if it makes a difference. I doubt the problem is with the wireless, I use it all the time but it is definitely slower than hard wired.

[sdsurfer]

Also I just noticed you're using the default X.org video driver and the display is listed as "Unknown," see if there is one specific to your device. The problems I've had with browsers often trace back to the wrong video driver for the hardware.

[anotherChris]

Until you get your specs here, you can try uBlock add on for Firefox. I have had a lot of luck with that.

Thanks. I did try uBlock, and I think it helps.

This ^^^ please, in order to properly evaluate the problem.

Yeah, my bad. Sorry. See above and below.

a much newer yet very likely very limited Intel Compute Stick... glorified media players isn't good... Not even the expensive one is for serious tasks.

Indeed. I only use it to play movies on my wife's computer. It is slow to get going using Netflix or Amazon via FireFox, but once it gets going, the movies play fine.

you seriously need to tone down your expectations. The problem isn't the web browser, it's the websites.

Okay. I hear you, but I just upgraded from 17.10 running an outdated version of Chromium, and until YouTube really completely broke (couldn't use the Share or Add to Playlist functions at all) in the last few months, it was running much better than up-to-date FF on 20.04. For example, I used to use Google Maps quite a bit. Not as fast as I'd like, but worked perfectly fine.

There's a PPA that will give you a build of Chromium with hardware accelerated video decode.

That looks interesting, but everything I do in Linux involves a steep learning curve for me, so I will try that if everything else fails first.

do you have inxi installed ??.....post the results here using code tags to make the output more readable...

System:    Host: ptr Kernel: 5.4.0-29-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: LXQt 0.14.1 
           Distro: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) 
Machine:   Type: Portable System: Dell product: Inspiron 1545 v: N/A 
           serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 0G848F serial: <superuser/root required> BIOS: Dell v: A07 
           date: 05/13/2009 
CPU:       Topology: Single Core model: Intel 585 bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
           Speed: 2161 MHz min/max: 1000/2167 MHz Core speed (MHz): 1: 2161 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express (CTG) v: 2.1 Mesa 20.0.4 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-29-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Marvell 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet driver: sky2 
           IF: enp9s0 state: down mac: 00:25:64:3e:9d:33 
           Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY 
           driver: b43-pci-bridge 
           Device-3: Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb 
           IF-ID-1: wlan0 state: up mac: 00:22:5f:bf:3f:a4 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 149.05 GiB used: 7.74 GiB (5.2%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST9160310AS size: 149.05 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 145.71 GiB used: 7.74 GiB (5.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 64.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3800 
Info:      Processes: 142 Uptime: 1h 13m Memory: 1.90 GiB used: 774.0 MiB (39.7%) 
           Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.38

Also I just noticed you're using the default X.org video driver and the display is listed as "Unknown," see if there is one specific to your device. The problems I've had with browsers often trace back to the wrong video driver for the hardware.

Hmmm... I am pretty ignorant about that kind of thing; any ideas after looking at the above from inxi?


Thanks for all the help and advice above!

On another thread I posted, commenter Holger suggested this...

One thing I did back when I had just 4 GB in my laptop was to limit the number of content-processes in Firefox ('Settings'->'General'->'Performance'->'Number of content processes') to two instead of four (might be set to 8 now, at least that seems to be the default). This will not stop it completely but should make it less frequent. Also the add-ons / extensions you use can have a serious impact on memory use. Switching from 'Adblock plus' to 'uBlock Origin' was one of the things which helped me a lot.

I don't know if this "fixed" my problem, but I did get through work today using the Microsoft O365 Teams website without any slowing or freezing. I am going to keep using FF set up this way for a while to see if reducing the content processes seems to have definitely changed something.

However, I am still interested in any other comments/advice people may make. Thanks!