Firefox + Flash = 50% CPU

Community Forums/General Help/Firefox + Flash = 50% CPU

Gabriel(Posted 2010) [#1]
Every time there's an update to the Flash plugin, Firefox goes back to hogging 50% cpu time. Eventually, it goes away, through no action of mine, but it's annoying that it happens every time the Flash plugin gets an update. Is there some known cause for this and some known way to resolve it without disabling Flash content. I don't really care for Chrome or Safari, and Opera is only just bearable.


Ross C(Posted 2010) [#2]
I had to abandon Firefox because of Flash. It's slightly better on Iron, but it uses WAY too many resources. Especially those stupid flash rollover ads that take up most of the screen, start playing really loud music, and have a really tiny exit cross, located somewhere... Sorry, but I hate flash :) Hope you get the problem sorted, without having to change browser...


shinkiro1(Posted 2010) [#3]
There are lots of addons out there that prevent loading flash elements. Try to search for 'firefox flashblock addons' and pick what suits you needs.

Btw: You are on Windows? Linux and OSX are known for bad Flash compatibility.


Gabriel(Posted 2010) [#4]
I'm aware there are ways to block Flash content, but as I said in my original post, I don't want to do that. It's not a general problem with Flash, it's a specific bug or glitch which only occurs after updating Flash. I just can't pinpoint it. I thought it was having two java consoles active at once (which still happens after numerous versions) but I disabled those, and it only helped a bit.

Yes, on Windows.

@Ross, what's Iron? Is that a tweaked version of Chrome? Much better than Chrome?


Ross C(Posted 2010) [#5]
Sorry for the delay, I forgot I posted here... It's just Chrome with all the privacy concerns removed I believe. I must admit it's not 100% compatable withs ome websites. I tried to apply for a savings account online, and the site didn't support Chrome... :/


Gabriel(Posted 2010) [#6]
Cheers, Ross. Might have to give it a go as FireFox is still misbehaving and disabling rogue Java plugins doesn't seem to have done the trick this time.


xlsior(Posted 2010) [#7]
@Ross, what's Iron? Is that a tweaked version of Chrome? Much better than Chrome?


Iron is identical to Chrome, except it doesn't "phone home" to google, and doesn't install the uato-update service that's always running when you install Google's Chrome.

The only functional difference I've come across is that in Iron the 'inspect element' website debugging stuff appears broken, unfortunately.


Ross C(Posted 2010) [#8]
You didn't post that only 4 hours ago? Oh wait, it's a new month.


SLotman(Posted 2010) [#9]
I was also having Flash problems with Firefox, until I found out it was launching Flash as a separated process.

This is the fix for that:


In some cases you may want to disable the "out-of-process plugins" (OOPP) crash protection feature; e.g., to troubleshoot problems that first appeared in Firefox 3.6.4 or above. To disable crash protection, go to about:config and set all dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.* preferences to false. This will prevent the "plugin-container" process from running and all plugins will run within the Firefox browser process.



You can read all about it here


D4NM4N(Posted 2010) [#10]
Go with chrome instead, it is great.


puki(Posted 2010) [#11]
I just run Firefox with NoScript - best extension in the whole world.