Firefox crashes every few minutes, while remaining extremely sluggish

[khaley]

In every recent version of Firefox I've downloaded (up to 15 now)I've had sluggish behavior and frequent crashes. My antivirus software sends me a popup while I'm in Firefox saying, "Warning: High disk usage by Mozilla Firefox" with a quote as to how many MB the program is using. The last quote was 1039 MB.

[caperjack]

get a better antivirus program ,microsoft security essencial is a very very good one,not a resource hog ,running it for the past 2 yrs or more now ,and it catches everything nastthat come our way , and its free , it even built into windows 8 now .

[khaley]

Wouldn't Norton 360 detect any viruses? Do you think a virus is the root of this problem then?

[caperjack]

im not saying it wouldn't detect viruses ,im saying its a resorce hog and and personaly donlt like Norton [except for corprate version ]dose this behavour happen with internet explorer ,or is it just firefox ,and yes I think it could be caused by the norton360 temporaly disable it[a setting somewhere in its prefernces ] and try using firefox

[khaley]

No, this behavior doesn't occur in I Explore (haven't yet tried Google Chrome but will). Do you mean that I should go into the preferences in Norton 360 and enable it for FF, or do you mean I should go into the preferences within Firefox and enable Norton 360--or something else?

thanks so much

[caperjack]

go into to Norton preference and turn it off,just to see if its the problem with firefox

[khaley]

I confess I can't figure out how to disable Norton Antivirus! I've been through the whole list of help topics in Norton 360 and down its list in the index, as well as through its menu--aack!

[gerbil]

Rclicking the tray icon should get you the options:
-Click Auto- Protect > Turn Off
-Click Personal Firewall > Turn Off

FF should only use about 80MB if no sites loaded? Check it in Task Man. What addons are running?

[khaley]

I turned off those functions in Norton that you specified, and FF is using about 140 MB w/o the firewall or antivirus. I also looked at the Physical Memory stats, and apparaently out of 1918 MB total, 1050 are cached, 1054 are available, and only 50 are free. Could this have something to do with my problem?
I will try to figure out now how to find out which addons are running in FF (do I go into TaskManager also for that?)...

[khaley]

Also forgot to mention that every time I do a basic search with any of the engines (particularly Google), the search page first loads a ton of ads at the top before you can click on any of the items retrieved by the search.

[gerbil]

You likely have a redirector running. Kick off with Malwarebytes...
==Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
from: http://www.majorgeeks.com/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware_d5756.html
=Dclick that file, mbam-setup.exe, to install the application,
-ensure that it is set to update and start, else start it via the icon, and UPDATE it.
Select "Perform QUICK Scan", then click Scan; the application will guide you through the remaining steps.
ENSURE that EVERYTHING found has a CHECKMARK against it, then click Remove Selected.
If malware has been found [and removed] MBAM will automatically produce a log for you when it completes... do not click the Save Logfile button.
Examine the log: if some files are listed as Delete on Reboot then restart your machine before continuing.
Copy and post that log [it is also saved under Logs tab in MBAM].

[johhny-marshal]

Firefox has crashing problem since its first version. I would suggest you to use Google chrome. It's fast and interactive. It offers a lot of tools for further uses like SEO, games etc.

[khaley]

Gerbil, thanks for the advice. I got the following log after the Malwarebytes scan: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.65.0.1400
www.malwarebytes.org

Database version: v2012.09.21.06

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 x86 NTFS
Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421
Haley :: HALEY-PC [administrator]

9/21/2012 9:40:51 AM
mbam-log-2012-09-21 (09-40-51).txt

Scan type: Quick scan
Scan options enabled: Memory | Startup | Registry | File System | Heuristics/Extra | Heuristics/Shuriken | PUP | PUM
Scan options disabled: P2P
Objects scanned: 193956
Time elapsed: 8 minute(s), 34 second(s)

Memory Processes Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Detected: 1
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Google\chrome\Extensions\fdloijijlkoblmigdofommgnheckmaki (PUP.Funmoods) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Registry Values Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Files Detected: 0
(No malicious items detected)

(end)

By the way, what is a registry, and how does it come about that it harms the speed and efficiency of FF?

[khaley]

Unfortunately, removing that registry key after the malware scan didn't solve the problem! FF is still sluggish and still crashing every few minutes...alas!

[caperjack]

the registry is the heart and sole of windows ,corrupt registry or registry key ,window and its 3rd party software will malfunction .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry

[khaley]

Do you think I need to buy the WinZip Registry Optimizer ($29.95) online to have them fix all the errors in my windows registry? Or is there another route I can take to get rid of all the errors that are supposedly (seem to be) slowing my system down so much?

[caperjack]

no don't buy any registry optimisers they are crap .

[khaley]

I won't buy it then. But what should I do to speed up the system (it seems to me now that other browsers are taking longer to load and to open new tabs (etc.)--not just FF.

[caperjack]

it could be other programs running at startup using all your ram ,try autoruns for windows ,run and go to the logon tab and see whats running on startup ,count them/ name them/ and post the results back here if you wish

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx