Restore bookmark descriptions in Firefox with Bookmark Notes

Martin Brinkmann
Sep 11, 2018
Updated • Sep 18, 2018
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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38

Bookmark Notes is a new extension for the Firefox web browser that restores bookmark note taking functionality in the browser.

The first version of the extension is limited and not a 100% copy of the bookmarks description system that Mozilla Firefox before version 62 supported.

Mozilla removed bookmark descriptions in Firefox 62; more precise: bookmark descriptions are not displayed in the UI of Firefox anymore but they are still there. Users can still export descriptions but the option to do so will be removed in future versions.

For now, all it supports is the ability to add notes to bookmarks, store these notes, and even use sync to synchronize the data across devices.

Update: A recent update introduced capabilities to import existing notes from bookmarks.html files. These files can be created in Firefox in the following way:

  1. Use Ctrl-Shift-B t0 open the Bookmarks Library. You can alternatively tap on the Alt-key on the keyboard and select Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks.
  2. Select Import and Backup > Export Bookmarks to HTML.

Bookmark Notes

firefox bookmark notes

Installation of Bookmark Notes is straightforward. The extension requires two extra permissions: Bookmarks -- which is self-explanatory -- and Storage, which it uses to store notes and sync them across devices if Firefox Sync is used.

Bookmark Notes uses an independent system right now. There is no import of old bookmark descriptions and that is probably the main issue that many users will have with the extension. The author revealed however that imports may come in future versions which would certainly make the extension more useful to Firefox users who want to continue using bookmark descriptions they saved in the past.

The extension opens a sidebar with the list of existing bookmarks after installation. Use Alt-key > View > Sidebar > Bookmark Notes to display it whenever you need to if you don't display it all the time.

The only option that you have right now is to left-click on a bookmark to add a note to it. A left-click on a bookmark opens the notes editor. Just type or paste text into the field and don't forget to hit the save button to link the note to the bookmark and store it permanently in Firefox. You may edit existing notes as well at any time.

Bookmarks have blank notes associated with them by default; this is different from Firefox's bookmark description feature which added default information to each new bookmark.

Since bookmark notes are stored locally they remain available when you open Firefox again and also on other Firefox devices if you use Firefox Sync.

Closing Words

Bookmark Notes is a promising add-on that could fill the gap left behind by the removal of bookmark descriptions in Firefox 62. If the author manages to include import options for existing descriptions, it would certain have more appeal to users who used the feature in the past.

Since it supports the importing of existing notes now, it offers a great option when it comes to preserving bookmark descriptions in Firefox and even making them available in the browser in form of notes.

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Comments

  1. Researcher said on April 16, 2020 at 12:55 am
    Reply

    I just got “Mozilla’d” yesterday when I updated from v56! Lost the better part of a days work trying to make feeds work again, dealing with userChrome.css and trying to find out where all my bookmark notes went… wish I had gotten some warning.

    Since then, I’ve found a stand-alone feed reader that I like a lot better than the one in FF, so that was actually a blessing!

    But modifying userChrome.css to fix what they did to my sidebar was exasperating because they point you at useless snippets and recipes but give no guidance on keywords, magic phrases and syntax: where would I find #bookmarks-view… yada, yada? How about an explanation of parsing rules and the relationship to spaces, point sizes, fonts and such to codes? I don’t know where to go from here…

    Lastly: bookmark descriptions. if you have several THOUSAND bookmarks as I do, you frequently want to make comments on subject matter, the webpage, the document, the author and so on that can be referred to a month or a year later. I mean, what else would you do to make a note to yourself about each and every one of those bookmarks?? This makes me wonder what goes on at Mozilla.

    So, this is why I only update FF every few years. If they are planning to take the Win 10 road and FORCE updates on me, that is really over the top.

  2. Buddy said on November 5, 2019 at 10:11 am
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    Question: How do I export the new notes from the “Bookmark Notes”? Although there is an import feature, how do I export these new “bookmark notes” for another device?
    If I only export the Firefox bookmarks (.html or .json), there are no more Notes stored there. So where are the notes now stored with “Bookmark Notes” ???

  3. Richard M. said on September 29, 2018 at 11:52 pm
    Reply

    Removed description fields in your Firefox bookmarks ?

    My recommendation: ZOTERO! Open source, local storage, uncomplicated html import of Firefox bookmarks and easy integration into Firefox via the “Zotero Connecor” AddOn !

    1. Klaas Vaak said on October 31, 2018 at 6:47 pm
      Reply

      @Richard M.: thanks for mentioning Zotero. I did not know the program, but have downloaded it because it can solve the description/notes issue with bookmarks in Firefox. But it can do more, so I will explore it in detail. Thanks.

  4. krixus said on September 18, 2018 at 8:28 pm
    Reply

    Mozilla should melt with Google Chrome – as that seems exactly what they want… Getting rid of everything not Chrome similar. Strange that they have not adopted Chromium yet…

    But well, it is never too late to do it, isn’t it right Mozilla? So why they aren’t doing it? As they know they would lose the rest of their shrinking market share because of that ;)

  5. Richard Allen said on September 11, 2018 at 1:48 pm
    Reply

    Wow, what with all the crying and gnashing of teeth I fully expected to see more than four users of the Bookmark Notes addon. Along with many others I personally don’t care about RSS, Live Bookmarks and bookmark descriptions. They need to kick all the detritus to the curb. I haven’t used any of those features in years.

    1. marketka said on September 12, 2018 at 2:03 pm
      Reply

      Shame on you. Because your preferences differ, the others are weird or silly? Clairvaux in his first post expressed clearly why what FF did is wrong and I agree with every point. Bookmark Notes addon is not the satisfactory solution for many of us, at least at this moment. You also ignore the fact that many people are too busy to deal with the mess FF served them immediately. I am one of them.

      1. Richard Allen said on September 12, 2018 at 7:58 pm
        Reply

        Boo hoo!

        I never said anyone’s opinion was weird or silly. Where did you come up with that? Actually, don’t care.

        Because my opinion differs from yours I’m supposed to stay silent? Good luck with that. :)

    2. Clairvaux said on September 11, 2018 at 3:13 pm
      Reply

      Well, you don’t care for RSS or bookmark descriptions, and that’s perfectly all right, but many others do. Just check this old Ghacks thread : we’re at 95 comments now, and it’s growing by the day.

      https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/27/mozilla-plans-to-remove-bookmarks-descriptions/

      The whole point of a tool, software of otherwise, is to allow different users to do different things with it. Not all people have the same needs.

      1. Richard Allen said on September 11, 2018 at 5:51 pm
        Reply

        I feel for you guys kinda sorta, maybe a little. I actually get a few hundred RSS feeds every weekday and when needed I can just create new feeds in Feedly, I haven’t had to use FF for that since I was forced away from google reader. Bookmark descriptions and live bookmarks? Meh! ;)

  6. Shiva said on September 11, 2018 at 11:05 am
    Reply

    It’s almost funny:
    07/25… Mozilla plans to remove RSS
    07/27… Mozilla plans to remove bookmarks descriptions
    07/30… Livemarks restores Live Bookmarks
    09/11… Restore bookmark descriptions in Firefox with Bookmark Notes

    In the meantime some users are using the bookmarks bar as a substitute for status bar with CSS (I discovered this yesterday looking for the same reason); we still have to wait some months for API, but maybe it’s better start now to pray for a holy and merciful add-on developer. I will suggest to Vatican State a special rosary dedicated to Mozilla’s removed features; each bead is a pray for a new add-on. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap

  7. John C. said on September 11, 2018 at 10:41 am
    Reply

    It was this elimination of Bookmarks descriptions which led to me refusing to update Firefox this time around. IMO the Firefox developers are making so many poor decisions since version 28 that it’s probably time for somebody else to come up with a competing browser. None of the other options are worth using right now.

  8. Mourad said on September 11, 2018 at 9:59 am
    Reply

    The addin didn’t work for me, I found a better way to recover previous bookmark description. Press Control+MAJ+B and click export as Html. Open backup the html, there are your old notes and descriptions!

    1. owl said on September 14, 2018 at 12:36 pm
      Reply

      Mourad said : Press Control+MAJ+B ([ctrl] + [shift] + [B]) and click export as Html. Open backup the html, there are your old notes and descriptions!

      This method is also commonly used by me. And by using “Import and Backup” function, duplication to other browsers is easy and reasonable.

    2. Millenicide said on September 11, 2018 at 2:38 pm
      Reply

      MAJ = ?

      1. Anonymous said on September 13, 2018 at 6:00 pm
        Reply

        Ctrl-Shift-B

  9. Madrou said on September 11, 2018 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    holly hell wtf is wrong with mozilla !!! I can’t login to my bank today as I always store my login ids (not password) in bookmark description, you guys are a life saver !!!
    Once I recover all my bookmark description, Mozilla is out of my computer. This stupid useless upgrade is the reason I’m finally uninstalling and moving to chrome

    1. Layne said on September 11, 2018 at 5:38 pm
      Reply

      Yup, I too used the description area to leave myself notes about login information etc (again, not actual info but prompts so I knew which password, email, username, etc applied to that site or if more than one were used, and all that. Thankfully I my complaining about it got me directed here so I could at least salvage the information. That will save me a huge headache. And now I guess it’s time to look into a universal password manager.

      1. David McRitchie said on March 15, 2019 at 3:42 pm
        Reply

        For bookmarklets descriptions are critical documentation, what it does, where it came from (more documentation), how it was modified or what it was modified from. What I disliked was that descriptions were not searchable implying that Mozilla never considered them important. Also keyword was not sortable in Bookmarks Manager, but I placed the keyword as the first word in the bookmark title (and most of my keyword shortcut included a colon)

        Mozilla destroyed keywords for a whole year in Betas saying tags were the same. When that version finally went into production Mozilla had to restore use of the keyword within a few days.

        Just never understood why Mozilla developers were not users, so never they understood what they had and what they systematically destroyed.

        I have Fx65 on a small laptop with 32GB SSD drive modified my bookmarks toolbar on it with userChrome.css to eliminate all folder and bookmark icons that I used to do with Styles in the Stylish extension, but not ready to update Fx56 to Fx65 so mostly using Chrome. Chrome extensions are getting better but don’t have much in options or customizations.

        I will probably install “Bookmark Notes” on the small laptop with Fx65, but really hope Mozilla will put descriptions back before I Iose them r can no longer use Fx56.

    2. Clairvaux said on September 11, 2018 at 4:17 pm
      Reply

      The author of Bookmark Notes says he wrote it literally in a day.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9ep8ts/bookmark_notes_quickndirty_replacement_for/

      While such speed of reaction is impressive, and a nice tribute to the potential power of extensions, you obviously cannot rely (yet) on a program that has so little work put into it, if long-term reliability is important to you.

      1. Yuliya said on September 11, 2018 at 4:57 pm
        Reply

        >Don’t commit to it anything that could not be replaced instantly by another program
        This right here: imgur.com/SmAKyZ1
        These 10k bookmarks is what’s stopping me from using Chromium as my main browser right now. I’m fed up with Firefox and Mozilla’s ignorant attitude. Remove this, remove that, add more useless junk nobody has ever asked for, maybe some malware too in the process, namely Pocket. You get an extension, you get an extension, everyone gets an extension as part of their “tests”. But fixing bugs? Hmm, strange concept, what do you mean “fixing bugs”?

        I am tired of this browser, since v57 was released my extensions are losing their database after a browser restart. Sometimes Firefox starts using one or two cores of my CPU for absolutely no reason at all, everything “auto” has been disabled, all tabs closed, no plugins, no extensions, yet Fx is still using two cores and won’t let go of those resouces. At this point I honestly believe Mozilla is mining Bitcoin on my machine, because there is no explanation at all for this behaviour. Just yesterday I had to scrap an entire browsing session due to this issue, and move tens of tabs one by one into another browser so I could free the CPU.

        It is fundamentally broken, and I tried new profiles, different operating systems (Windows 7 and LTSB1607), different hardware (at least two desktops and three laptops). It’s all the same, from the initial v57 to the whatever version last week Nightly was.

        Heh, Australis, rounded tabs, or tab bar forced on top. Those “issues” pre- version 52 were nothing. This, whatever they have done to v57 is an absolute mess. And there’s more to come, the next version will take away the user control over updates. Yay.. But it’s fine, because some mozillians told me in the last thread that I was wrong and Mozilla is doing me a favour via this change, so I guess it’ll be ok. Right?

    3. Clairvaux said on September 11, 2018 at 3:00 pm
      Reply

      Here we go. An major aggravation to some Firefox users that was inevitable. Anyone with a modicum of common sense could have foretold that at least some users would have stored critical website identifiers in that field. And that therefore, taking the description field away was not an option.

      Note that Mozilla has commited two extra sins, on top of breaking the Xth commandment of software design : thou shall not break backward compatibility.

      The first is doing it unannounced. Information on Mozilla developer boards does not count. Neither does information given out on sites such as Ghacks, however grateful we may be that Martin provides that unique work. Most Firefox users never read such sites. Announcing it would have meant : a big red warning displayed on everyone’s screen, as soon as upgrade to v.62 was attempted. “Don’t proceed unless you’re willing to see your bookmark descriptions go.”

      The second is not offering any conversion path. And no, export to html does not count (and that was unannounced, as well ; you have to research the issue to come up with this solution). A conversion path would have meant offering a way to keep the description feature within the browser.

      Yes, you can display, or print, a list of your 15 000 bookmarks with assorted descriptions, and then ? What do you do with it ? How do you use it ? How to you add to it ?

      The obvious answer is : import it into some other browser, Vivaldi for instance, and abandon Firefox. Is that what Mozilla wants ?

      Now we have this ridiculous situation where a perfectly usable feature, killed by Mozilla, is replaced by a unsatisfactory solution under the guise of an addon — and again, many thanks to Martin for providing this quick solution.

      The first reason why this addon is not a viable alternative has been explained in the article : you can’t import your descriptions into it. Yet.

      But the other one is : it’s impossible to rely on a addon developer for such a critical feature. If descriptions are important to you, if you’re about to commit years of painstaking work of description-filling to a specific tool, then you need to have strong confidence that this tool will be around, five or ten years from now.

      If Mozilla, with all their million dollars, cannot provide this level of trust, how could an individual, unpaid developer provide it, with a quickly put-together extension ?

      The conclusion is clear : Firefox must be, from now on, considered as a disposable piece of software. Don’t commit to it anything that could not be replaced instantly by another program. Especially don’t commit to it any databases, which are years of work accumulated by yourself, and which are at risk of being destroyed instantly by Mozilla’s fiat. Because, “telemetry”.

      1. JJ said on September 11, 2018 at 9:46 pm
        Reply

        Well said.

        FF is becoming a POS (=Piece Of Shit); its days are counted by now.

  10. Weilan said on September 11, 2018 at 9:32 am
    Reply

    Ever since Chrome came out and made Firefox sit on the bench and watch, Mozilla have tried to copy everything Chrome does, and it’s resulted in backlash from the users, now they keep stripping Firefox of features in order for it to become Chrome, but it will never do – it will always be slower and now – even more gimped than it. Something that was previously not an issue, in fact it was Firefox’s strong point – it had addons and customization, now it has neither. Such as shame – to see the once best browser now crawling in the sludge.

    1. owl said on September 14, 2018 at 11:48 am
      Reply

      @Weilan,
      @Richard Allen,
      @Clairvaux,
      Although it is a topic derailed from the subject, but let me addition of Comment from me.

      I am “Use recommended performance settings”: content process limit [4 (default)]. And I use Addon “Tree Style Tab” and “Temporary Containers”. In browsing, it is customary to open a separate tab or a new window. Therefore, the tab is always 30 to 50, it may open as much as 200 at the maximum. In using Vivaldi or Brave, the tab is stable up to “20”, but it freezes at “30”. I do not the videos and games. Mostly “ghacks.net, news site, web search” ….

      Certainly, when you open a tab or window, RAM value will jump to “1GB or more”. However, soon RAM value begins to decrease, after a few minutes will be about 300MB, and even more after a few minutes and then stabilized at 100MB +.
      Perhaps it seems that “global garbage collection” and “cycle collection” (about: memory> Free memory) will work.
      Use environment:
      Firefox 63.0b5 (64bit), Tor Browser 8.0 (64-bit)
      Windows 10 Home 64-bit / i5-7400 processor (6 MB cacheable up to 3.50 GHz) / 8 GB, DDR 4, 2400 MHz / Intel® HD Graphics 630 with shared graphics memory

      As reference information:
      · Clear the cache, you can release RAM: [ctrl] + [shift] + [delete]
      · If you press [F12] key (web development tool opens) you can analyze “memory”.
      · By using the add-on “Clear Cookies and Storage Button”, you can delete (optional setting item: cache etc) with one click.
      https://addons.mozilla.org/ja/firefox/addon/clear-storage-button/

      1. Clairvaux said on September 14, 2018 at 1:29 pm
        Reply

        Thank you, Owl. Only 100 MB with one Firefox tab certainly seems vey little. I’ve never achieved that.

        I once used about:memory / Free memory / Minimise Memory usage, and it worked, but only for a short time.

        The consensus now seems that 4 GB is too little for Firefox — I wonder what’s the deal with Chrome. Some people say it eats more memory.

        Here is a thread by a 4 GB user with similar complaints :

        https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9fef02/memory_usage_high/

        Notice how a 16 GB user slips into the discussion, and says he has the same problems. I’ve read several such complaints. It seems that Firefox has a tendency to overeat memory whatever the amount you throw at it.

        “> dirtbagdh
        I’ve had Firefox occupying 13GB of RAM after closing every tab down to a single new tab, and forcing GC and memory minimization. That’s after only a day or two of usage.”

        And another user says you should restart FF regularly. I agree with dirtbagdh that the situation is completely ridiculous. This could be excused in a brand new program in beta, but not in a 16-year old piece of software.

      2. owl said on September 14, 2018 at 3:31 pm
        Reply

        @Clairvaux,
        In Japan, “is Firefox wasting RAM” on the net had frequently become a hot topic.
        About six months ago, I have experienced remote procedure call (RPC) runaway.
        Mozilla.org,
        https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/accessibility-services
        By referring to that case, I deleted the third party Security solution (Kaspersky), after that the RPC issue subsided.
        A similar topic is posted on the MozillaZine.JP forum
        https://forums.mozillazine.jp/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16909
        In summary “Third party security solutions are related to Firefox’s RAM runaway”

        Incidentally, Security solution currently being implemented:
        Malwarebytes free, simplewall, Windows Firewall Control, Heimdal PRO, Reason Core Security free, Spywareblaster, AppCheck free.

        By the way, The lowest value “100 MB +” is in inactive state. When it is active, it will go between “300 to 600 MB (The total value)”.
        Also, when using the tree style tab, RAM consumption is suppressed because it puts it to sleep except the [active] tab.
        These are experiential views.

      3. Clairvaux said on September 14, 2018 at 7:59 pm
        Reply

        “Third party security solutions are related to Firefox’s RAM runaway”

        That’s interesting. I was thinking of downgrading from Avast to Microsoft Whatever is its current name. I’m tired of the bloat, ads and extremely long full scans.

      4. owl said on September 15, 2018 at 2:10 pm
        Reply

        For your information : About System Resources (resident task:RAM)
        ・Heimdal Pro:173MB± (Agent:66±, AgentLoader:14±, ClientHost:35±, DarkLayerGuard:35±, UptimeChecker:23±)
        ・Malwarebytes free:57MB± (Service:33±, Tray Application:24±)
        ・Reason Core Security free:62MB± (Security:1±, Service:2±, Engine Service:59±)
        ・Windows Firewall Control:68MB±(35±、Services:33±)
        ・simplewall:20MB±
        ・AppCheck free:12MB±(Tray:8±、Service:4±)
        ・Spywareblaster free:0MB!

    2. Richard Allen said on September 11, 2018 at 1:36 pm
      Reply

      ” – it will always be slower and now – ”
      Do you have FF installed? Because I don’t know what kind of hardware you are running but on mine FF beats Chrome in Every category. FF is faster in browser startup and page load times, graphics rendering, scrolling performance and smoothscroll are much better in FF. Font rendering is still much better in FF and has been for years. 1080p 60fps video playback is better in FF with FF never having dropped frames on my hardware and Chrome always has a few, not horrible but still a few. Memory use is always higher in Chrome and if site isolation is enabled it can get crazy high if content blocking isn’t used. Maybe I misunderstood and you meant that Chrome will always be slower which actually makes more sense. My bad. ;)

      These are some screenshots of page load times using the dev tools taken yesterday:
      https://s22.postimg.cc/ilkrar0i9/Chrome_Dev_on_Flickr.png — 3.75s
      https://s22.postimg.cc/71kiwhyv5/FF_on_Flickr.png — 3.14s
      https://s22.postimg.cc/9qjx08r5d/Vivaldi_on_Flickr.png — 3.71s
      https://s22.postimg.cc/3pm836roh/Waterfox_on_Flickr.png — 5.17s

      1. Clairvaux said on September 11, 2018 at 3:22 pm
        Reply

        “Memory use is always higher in Chrome.”

        I have never used Chrome, so I don’t have any opinion to offer on this. What I do know, is that since one of the post-Quantum “upgrades”, Firefox, while being noticeably faster than pre-Quantum when it works, regularly eats up most memory available, and has my PC crawl to a stop. At which point, the only solution is to quit (or kill the app) and relaunch.

        I’m talking of Firefox eating up to 1, 1,5 or 2 GB of RAM (out of 4), with no more than 1 to 10 tabs open. Many other users have reported that problem.

        That’s the reason why this is written under Opera. Which is fast, and tight.

      2. Richard Allen said on September 12, 2018 at 2:23 pm
        Reply

        I just wanted to add that using older hardware with 4GB of memory or less is not going to provide a very good browsing experience when using Firefox or Chrome because of their multi-process architecture. You obviously know that. Even a Core i7 with 4 GB of memory is going to suck.

        The laptop I gave my sister has an Intel Core2Duo @ 2.2GHz with 4GB of RAM and if it didn’t have a GT 230m 1GB graphics card with a SSD that I installed it would basically be unusable, in my opinion. It could still use more memory but only needs to work till the holidays.

        I don’t know how effective of a solution it might be but “browser.tabs.remote.autostart” being set to “false” will disable multi-process. I set my sisters laptop to use 2 content processes but one might have been a better choice. I left multi-process enabled thinking the graphics card would help it handle all the processes.

        4 GB of RAM with the default config of FF isn’t going to cut it. I routinely use 1-2 GB of memory in ALL of my installed browsers, that’s easy. And 4-5 GB of total system memory used with one browser open is easy for me to do as well, and on a daily basis with my browsing habits. That’s not even including graphics memory. 8 GB of system memory should really be the minimum now in my opinion. For those that can afford it at least memory prices have recently been coming down.

        “I’m talking of Firefox eating up to 1, 1,5 or 2 GB of RAM ” That’s not a problem! That’s a feature! LoL

      3. Richard Allen said on September 12, 2018 at 7:48 pm
        Reply

        I just ran a quick test with 24 tabs open using my “Test” very stock FF profile that uses 4 webext with one being uBO.

        With multi-process enabled and using 4 content process I saw 1.36GB of memory used, 1 content process used 1.06GB (1091MB), and with multi-process Disabled 980MB of memory was used (0.95GB). So… 4 content processes used 28% more memory than multi-process set to use only 1 content process and 4 content processes used 42% more memory versus multi-process Disabled. I have some screenshots if anyone wants to be bored with those.

        Without verifying it in the dev tools, page load times appeared to be slower along with slower graphics rendering when multi-process is disabled. It wasn’t exactly horrible but it was noticeable. Multi-process using one content process appeared to be faster and was much more acceptable to use in my opinion. Of course, that’s what I see on my desktop. I didn’t see a Huge difference between 1 and 4 processes being used in my short term test. Memory used did not include graphics memory and the pages were not scrolled when getting the 24 tab memory totals.

        Personally, I think everyone using 4GB of Ram should probably use 1 content process unless they have a graphics card and keep it to a small number of open tabs. Anyone that feels like they need to resort to disabling multi-process really really needs to get more memory. JMHO!

        I honestly feel for my sister and everyone else having to make do with 4GB of memory. But then… when I think about what I see on my desktop I’m quietly giggling hoping I don’t get busted with my nose up in the air. ;)

      4. Clairvaux said on September 13, 2018 at 2:35 pm
        Reply

        Thank you for your helpful comments, Richard. Let me follow up with a few questions.

        Actually, no, I did not know that 4 GB of RAM were limiting for browsing. My reference was still the old piece of advice : if you don’t use games, don’t edit pictures or video, and just use the Web and office applications, you don’t need more than 4 GB and integrated graphics. Because I also rely on integrated graphics. And mechanical drives.

        To be very clear, the way Firefox has started to eat up RAM lately, I have begun research to bump up my motherboard from 4 GB to 16 GB, and be done with it. But I still hate Firefox ways, because I don’t have those problems when using Vivaldi and Opera. And I read from people who have 8 or 16 GB of RAM, and still complain of Firefox gobbling it up.

        What has changed ? One opinion I read is Web sites are sloppily designed nowadays, and unnecessarily eat up huge amounts of resources.

        An SSD is also on my shopping list. Is a graphics card required ?

        Then, I’m confused about FF multi-process settings. In my experience, trying to change the number of processes in Settings > Performance does not change it, actually. I’ve read other people complain of that. How do you do it ?

        The only thing that worked was about:config > browser.tabs.remote.autostart = False. Since that fateful “upgrade” which started to gulp memory, I use this to have a single process. Not so much as to reduce RAM use, but in order to have a single RAM figure for Firefox in Task Manager, which allows me to monitor it, and kill FF as soon as it splurges.

        Again, Opera and Vivaldi don’t go on a memory rampage like this. I don’t know about Chrome proper, I never used it.

      5. Richard Allen said on September 17, 2018 at 4:48 pm
        Reply

        @Clairvaux

        Sorry, I didn’t realize there were any new comments.

        In FF when using the “default” process count (4), my hardware will show 5 processes in the Windows Task Manager when opening up the browser with one tab. By the time I open 3 tabs the process count in the Windows Task Manager will have climbed to 7 processes and 7 will be the max no matter how many more tabs are opened.

        If I change the number of processes in the Settings to use 1 process count, when FF is started I will see 4 processes in the Windows Task Manager and the number of processes will stay at 4 in the Windows Task Manager no matter how many tabs are opened. If you see something different, something is likely wrong. I would try 1 content process with 4GB of system memory.

        You said that Opera and Vivaldi are better with memory usage for you which is odd because chromium browsers use a process for each extension and then an additional process for each tab. For me, Chrome uses more memory than FF and Vivaldi uses more memory than Chrome. Always has. And I always measure memory use with 12 tabs open. I saw the same results with memory use on the laptop I gave my sister. I seldom see FF use more than 3GB of memory by itself and that’s with dozens of tabs open. I also don’t leave my browser open longer than 3-4 hours. I never do all day long or multiple days. I “want” to clear cookies and site data, which is cleared after each session, and I want to release memory when I close FF. I’ve been doing that for years. Going back years there have always been some of those that leave their browser open all day or for multiple days that complain about memory use and my thought has Always been…duh! :)

        “Is a graphics card required”
        No but… even for us non-gamers it’s worth having even if it’s mostly just used in a browser and for videos. I actually watch a lot of 50-60 fps 1080p video. Depending on the processor that is used some will have less capable integrated graphics than others, a Core i7 will often have better graphics than a Core i3 or a Core i5 and a graphics card will have much improved graphics rendering compared to something integrated and the gpu uses its own memory leaving system memory available for other things.

        Hypothetically, my upgrades on a desktop would be memory first. Then, if the HDD spins at 7200 rpm then do a graphics card as the second upgrade and then after that do an SSD. If the HDD spins at 5400 rpm then upgrade to a SSD and leave the graphics card as the last upgrade. Something like a GTX 1050 2GB or a GTX 1050 Ti 4GB would be good choices. Not a good choice would be a GTX 1050 3GB which has a slower memory bus (96-bit) than the other two (128-bit). Wow, just looked, prices haven’t come down much, WTH? I got my card new on sale 2 yrs ago for $100 US.

        I honestly believe that without a graphics card my desktop would have very average browser and video playback performance. I only have a small GTX 750 Ti SC with 2GB of memory and FF does exceptionally well for me. It would be very hard for me to go back to not using a graphics card. Nowadays I see a ton of graphics heavy websites and I only see that increasing in the future.

        I would seriously consider not using 3rd party anti-virus, especially on computers using 4GB of RAM. On Windows 7 I’ve always used MSE unless the owner had some paid version of anti-virus. Something like Avast or AVG is just too resource heavy and on older and/or memory challenged hardware, using MSE or Windows Defender (Windows 8-10) will improve performance. On Win7 I personally use MSE, and the free versions of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware v2.2.1.* and Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. That’s it. Haven’t seen so much as a single malware object in over 10 yrs. JMO but the most important security software on my computer is my browser config that includes a content blocker.

        Some about:config settings I use that helps reduce memory use:
        browser.meta_refresh_when_inactive.disabled=true (keep inactive tabs from refreshing)
        browser.sessionhistory.max_entries=5
        browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers=1
        browser.sessionstore.cleanup.forget_closed_after= 86400000 (Forget closed windows/tabs after 24 hours)
        browser.sessionstore.interval= 30000
        browser.sessionstore.max_serialize_back=5
        browser.sessionstore.max_serialize_forward=5
        browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo=5
        browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo=1
        browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash=false

      6. Clairvaux said on September 17, 2018 at 10:14 pm
        Reply

        @ Richard Allen

        Thank you, this is very helpful, you’re most welcome. I’ll look into this and check back later.

      7. Richard Allen said on September 11, 2018 at 5:45 pm
        Reply

        Okay, I see. I have an over abundance of memory so I don’t worry about memory use and in fact have memory cache set higher and content processes set to 6.

        Before I gave my sister my ‘old’ Win7 x64 laptop that has 4GB of RAM I had installed Chrome and FF. Chrome had slightly better performance but used a lot more memory and I’m thinking I had FF set to use 2 content processes. Definitely didn’t want to be opening 2 dozen tabs with either one. If it didn’t have discreet graphics I would have had to find more system memory for sure.

  11. beemeup5 said on September 11, 2018 at 6:56 am
    Reply

    Mozilla, M.O.: Remove til there’s nothing left to remove.

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