Browser speed problem

paulo_andre

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Mar 18, 2011
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I was always a Firefox fan, I just love the extension support.
However, I didn't like the speed, the fact that it blocked the browser (all tabs) for a few seconds everytime I opened a javascript intensive tab, like gmail, so I tried Chrome.

It was fast. Really fast. But after a few days it just still wasn't fast enough.
I noticed it struggling to show me 3 simultaneous tabs, cpu always at 100%, after changing tabs I had to wait a few seconds to show me the contents, scrolling also took at least a second on some javascript intensive pages.
It's not as bad as firefox (and extension support is much worse for me), but it is still bad.

So now I ask the community: Is there something I can do to make this faster or is a netbook just not enough for web browsing anymore?
Your answer may be the only thing stopping me from buying a top-of-the-line core i7 ultrabook (or equally fast) to see if I can forget about the slow old days.

Note: I do have 2Gb of RAM, so I don't think that's the issue. Apart from the antivirus, no other software is running with the browser and I have tried to disable all extensions to see if speed went up. Nothing worked.
Also, the internet speed is not the problem here, I wait for all the pages to load and the problems appear after that.
 
Solution
Firefox is slow because it just is.
Chrome is slow because it goes into virtual memory (hdd thrashing) very easily, as each tab has its own memory.

Have you tried Opera?

david_w

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Can I ask what antivirus you are running? Also check for malware/spyware there is a high chance that could be slowing your computer down. Ensure all browsers are up to date and see if there are any processes running in the background that seem to be consuming large amounts of CPU (look in task manager, processes)
Use malwarebytes and spybot to run some scans
 

paulo_andre

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It's not malware. I have avira as anti-virus.
The cpu is close to 0% when the browser is closed, the only thing slowing the computer is really the browser.
Everything is up-to-date.
 

david_w

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Also, is it just web browsers that seem to slow down your computer? Or do other applications do it too?
It may be worth doing a little bit of a cleanup as well.
Run a defrag and disk cleanup
 

shizanky

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If an answer is all it'll take to upgrade to an i7 ultrabook... by all means. ;] You would have about a 99.9% chance of not regretting it. No more worries about your processor being at 100% load just from browsing. + All the more things you could be doing simultaneously without even noticing an impact on performance.
 

david_w

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Your wallet may dis agree with you! Haha brilliant machines not sure if it is worth paying that much for something which doesnt really have much too it, i mean you miss out on a lot of peripherals and get a rather small screen.
But if you want a laptop purely built for speed then that is a good option :)
 

paulo_andre

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I have no add-ons, no toolbars, nothing. Just a clean browser.
I regularly clean my disk and defrag, so that's not the problem too.
All applications behave as fast as possible for a netbook, I don't have any problems with them and I know this is not a fast computer, but I expected that just web browsing would not require as much as it apparently does.
That was the reason I got a netbook, I know it's slower, but it should be enough for what I do and it's a lot cheaper than other options.
 

Pherule

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Firefox is slow because it just is.
Chrome is slow because it goes into virtual memory (hdd thrashing) very easily, as each tab has its own memory.

Have you tried Opera?
 
Solution

paulo_andre

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I've heard this before. People try Firefox, they try Chrome and forget about Opera.
I never thought it would be the solution to my problem, but it appears to be.
I just installed it, so there may be problems I don't know about, but for now it really seems faster than chrome.
Thanks for the answer, you might have just saved me a lot of money. Now instead of an i7 I can just buy an i3 or lower.