This is Firefox's upcoming process manager (about:processes)

Martin Brinkmann
May 11, 2020
Firefox
|
24

Mozilla is working on integrating a process manager into the organization's Firefox web browser. A preview of the upcoming process manager is now available in recent Firefox Nightly development builds; reason enough to take a look at it to see what it is all about.

Mozilla added a Task Manager of sorts to Firefox in 2018 when it launched the new tool in the browser. First available in Nightly builds only, the Task Manager was launched eventually in Firefox Stable. All Firefox users may open about:performance in the address bar to get energy readings and memory impact information on every open tab, extensions, and browser internals.

Unlike the Task Manager, which focuses on memory use and energy use of open tabs and extensions for the most part, Firefox's upcoming Process Manager provides information that may be useful mostly to engineers and users interested in technical details.

Load about:processes in the address bar to get started. The current iteration of the Process Manager divides the data into browser, socket, gpu, web, extension and privilegedabout (with one web reading for each open site in the browser).

firefox process manager

Firefox displays the resident and virtual memory, user and kernel CPU usage, and thread for each entry. You can expand individual data points, e.g. a Web or browser section, to get sub-listings. If you open a web process, you get readings for JavaScript, PaintThread, or Decoding activities; these are limited to CPU usage at the time of writing though.

The detailed view level is mostly useful to developers and engineers. Extension developers may be able to get some information from the new Process Manager in Firefox as well provided.

Most regular users of Firefox will have little use for the process manager if it remains in its current form. While it may be useful to find out about individual memory usage and CPU usage, it is difficult to link certain information, e.g. web process information, to an actual site (unless only one is open).

Interested users can check out the meta bug on Bugzilla. The feature may land in Firefox 78 at the earliest. The version of the browser is scheduled to arrive on June 30, 2020.

Now You: What features would you like to see implemented in Firefox? (via Techdows)

Summary
This is Firefox's upcoming process manager (about:processes)
Article Name
This is Firefox's upcoming process manager (about:processes)
Description
Mozilla is working on integrating a process manager into the organization's Firefox web browser to provide detailed process information.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
Logo
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. james said on May 13, 2020 at 11:07 am
    Reply

    I used to love this browser, sad that mozilla is more about not doing what users want

  2. MartinFan said on May 13, 2020 at 5:51 am
    Reply

    @Rex you do not have to leave the webpage your on to access bookmarks or history. Just enable the old menu bar at the top of the browser then click history or bookmarks while at any website. I never enable the bookmarks sidebar it’s just wasted real estate to me.

    But yeah I don’t like Firefox’s over complicated bookmarking system if they would at least default bookmarks to the bookmarks menu instead of hiding them in some folder called other bookmarks that would be the feature I would like to see implemented the most!

    Also don’t add items to Windows task scheduler, this is what made me uninstall my copy of Firefox from Windows 7, I still use Firefox as default browser in Linux though.

  3. John-Paul said on May 12, 2020 at 4:04 am
    Reply

    Tells windows OS like Firefox and other browsers to auto suspend process not needed to save on battery life cpu gpu and ram usage. Looking at you Chrome!

  4. Greg said on May 12, 2020 at 12:37 am
    Reply

    be great if they could fix the ugly AOM UI , get rid of all that bloat in it that a user doesnt need. to see, make it quicker/easier to get Addons like it is in Chrome

  5. JohnIL said on May 11, 2020 at 8:08 pm
    Reply

    Firefox isn’t the only browsing piling on features in hopes to attract users. I think many browsers see more features as a means to gain interest at least in terms of news articles talking about them. Notice how they release these features in bits and pieces. Looking at market share I don’t see a lot of movement between browsers. Most users seem happy with whatever they are using.

  6. Stan said on May 11, 2020 at 3:58 pm
    Reply

    ‘If You Can’t Take the Heat, Get Out of The Kitchen’ ;)
    Must feel good knowing frakking Edge now has a larger market share.
    The “anti-firefox’ brigade” WERE its ‘community’….

    1. Yuliya said on May 11, 2020 at 4:59 pm
      Reply

      Everyone who is against mozilla was a firefox user in the past. It’s something mozillians can’t understand.

      1. @Yuliya said on May 12, 2020 at 3:13 pm
        Reply

        Yeah, right, every single one. Is there any evidence to support your claim?

      2. Yuliyas_Wifes_Boyfriend said on May 13, 2020 at 10:12 pm
        Reply

        Half truths and exaggerated claims are all that he has, please don’t question the textual diarrhea.

      3. Kubrick said on May 13, 2020 at 5:14 pm
        Reply

        @yuliya.
        Your responses are self evident….

        Have a good day.

    2. Kincaid said on May 11, 2020 at 4:17 pm
      Reply

      For some of us adults, Firefox is simply a useful tool. It’s not some sort of sophomoric popularity contest or childish competition.

  7. Kubrick said on May 11, 2020 at 1:35 pm
    Reply

    useful for some people although i suspect the anti-firefox brigade will arrive with the usual banging of drums.

    1. Lord-Lestat said on May 15, 2020 at 9:06 pm
      Reply

      @ Kubrick

      And why do you think today there are so many people around who are anti-Firefox advocates? Mozilla today has zero respect to their origin power-user/add-on/themes community – i do not think many people love openly to be mocked by a developer which once had big interest into such peoples wishes/demands and then left them into the dust.

      Like it or not, Mozilla turned into a Google cheering fully anti-feature/anti-choice/anti-customization advocate in their goal to emulate Chrome in look and function as they know Chrome users only use a browser with “zero bloat” – which means all customization and all features related to power-users have to go. Mozilla today has turned into a generic commercial entity which only hungers for finding a way to become number one market-share-wise. But the problem is nobody is interested in using a wanna-be copy of another product (Google) – if there is an original and a copy around, people rather use the original and not the imitation.

      The moment Mozilla has decided to discard their origin vocal user base which was advertising them and making them big, they lost all credibility – Mozilla once was a proud and honorable developer – today they are just selling out for Chrome users and market share which they never get the way they think they will. And now… Users decide to vote with their feet – which means they are switching to different browsers, no matter if Chrome, Chromium, re-branded Chromium based browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Ungoogled Chromium) or others like Seamonkey, Waterfox, Pale Moon, Otter Browser! And why? Mozilla are sellouts and have shown zero respect to their origin power-user/add-on/themes community.

      People have the right and the duty to shout this out loud!

  8. Yuliya said on May 11, 2020 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Will it show I/O?
    https://i.imgur.com/WeyPR2A.png
    NSFW warning: the screenshot depicts an SSD being abused.

    1. Carl G. said on May 12, 2020 at 8:16 am
      Reply

      Nice spyware running in background.

  9. Addy T. said on May 11, 2020 at 12:42 pm
    Reply

    I increasingly fear that Firefox is becoming bloatware. (That’s a good place to bring up the bizarre Pocket thingy.) If they integrate such features, they should make them optional. Even primitive applications allow you to select their features during install. A browser should aim to consume as few CPU/memory resources as possible. I agree with the above point that it’s going to be of little use, which suggests that the developers are out-of-touch with their everyday users.

    1. Rex said on May 11, 2020 at 2:37 pm
      Reply

      Earlier with XUL it was possible to build any kind of feature but have it optional, be it Pocket or the Mr Robot survey fiasco or the pop out video player (which cannot display subtitles from Netflix/Prime and is hence useless for them). Now that they have replaced that with highly limited web extensions, they’re just stuffing in features without any choice in accepting them.

  10. Allwynd said on May 11, 2020 at 12:18 pm
    Reply

    It will be good if they finally integrate their bookmarks and history into tabs and remove that archaic sidebar trash.

    It’s weird how Mozilla forced upon people those context menu icons for Back/Forward/Reload instead of the traditional text entries with no option to revert this, the new, limited UI, the removal of XUL support, but they can’t get rid of the stupid sidebar.

    Firefox is a paradox of its own.

    1. Anonymous said on May 12, 2020 at 9:20 am
      Reply

      I prefer the history in a tab of its own rather than the sidebar as well, but they could always just give the user the option since a lot of people seem to prefer the latter.

      The thing I really hate about Firefox’s history is that when you click on an entry (whether you left click or center click to open it in a new tab), it immediately brings you back to the top of your history in the sidebar. It makes it incredibly annoying to try and find certain pages when I’m not sure of the title because I’ll be scrolling down a long list of entries, and then as soon as I click on one to see if that’s the one I’m looking for then it brings me back up to the top of the list and I lose my place in the list of entries I was scrolling through.

      Also, for some reason, when you click on a site it removes that entry from that position in the history and moves it to the top. Making a new entry at the top makes sense, but why remove it from where it was?

      1. Anonymous said on June 17, 2020 at 12:05 pm
        Reply

        Had the same history issues before.
        Use the history sidebar in a private window to get around them all re-ordering when opened

      2. Anonymous said on May 13, 2020 at 9:36 am
        Reply

        The history and bookmarks can be opened without sidebar for those that don’t want it.

        Ctrl + shift + H for history
        Ctrl + shift + B for bookmarks

    2. remakui said on May 12, 2020 at 8:55 am
      Reply

      Nah, its good. In don’t want to leave my current tab every time I open history.

    3. Kincaid said on May 11, 2020 at 4:14 pm
      Reply

      Only have bookmarks and history in their own tabs? What a horrible idea.

      With a sidebar, you can access your bookmarks or history without leaving the current page.

      The UX with a bookmarks/history sidebar is superior for most, and that’s why Firefox has it available as an option.

      If you really want bookmarks or history in their own tab, you can just go to “chrome://browser/content/places/places.xhtml” in Firefox.

    4. Rex said on May 11, 2020 at 2:39 pm
      Reply

      ‘archaic sidebar trash’. Yeah, heaven forbid I should be able to access bookmarks/history or anything else without leaving the current page I’m on. Fuck desktop UI conventions that have been there for 20 years and let’s force everybody to use the mobile UI designed for mouth breathers.

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.