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how to monitor extension resource usage? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 4 days ago by whatwasthat@lemmy.sdf.org to c/firefox@lemmy.world

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When you have the choice of multiple addons/extensions that can perform a certain task, is there a way to monitor their system resource use? To select the one which is the leanest.

I am sometimes using firefox on low-end devices. I feel that certain extensions are using more/less resources. But what's the truth?

In linux system/task monitors, you can see processes "WebExtensions" running beneath firefox. Is this reporting extensions as name suggests? If so, is there a way to correlate them to specific add-ons?

Would also like to be able to know about what extensions are doing "in the background" vs when you are actively using them.

This is about desktop versions of firefox, not mobile.

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[–] gazby@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

~~Visit about:performance in your address bar 👍~~

See replies.

[–] whatwasthat@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't understand how to use this though.

For a moment there actually was info in the Memory and CPU columns but I went to another tab/window and when I returned it is blank again. If I could reproduce that, then I would be able to see resources use of individual pages, but there is nothing about individual extensions here that I can see.

If you hover the mouse each row, a little speedomoter time icon appears. It has a tooltip reading "Profile all threads of this process for 5 seconds". Clicking it brings you to a URL beginning https://profiler.firefox.com/from-browser/calltree/ which appears to collect information from the system and send to mozilla (?) without asking consent to do so.

Here is the content when I clicked the speedometer button on the "Extensions" row above:

How is this interpreted?

Tangent: is anyone else finding duckduckgo extremely unhelpful these days? A search for "about:performance" gives zero results. Is this do to having to be so aggressive against AI spam?

[–] gazby@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Oh friggin Mozilla, they've dumped it in favor of about:processes, which is useless for this purpose. I guess you could try about:memory, or see if any other pages in about:about might suit, but I don't have an answer for you anymore 😞

FWIW if you put an !g in front of that query there's plenty of results, DDG still ain't there yet 😞

[–] whatwasthat@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

hmmm... about:memory might have the info but I have no idea how to interpret it.

Adding the !g gives a google results page with 1 relevant result which suggests it might just be an open question. (Thread is from March 2024.)

I have been using ddg for years and never bothered with bangs. They've changed something in the past months/year or so. I think the engine tries to guess too much what you mean. Obviously, there exists many webpages with my search query exactly as I wrote it. But even the google search is mostly finding results "about performance" like the screencap of the ddg is guessing.

[–] gazby@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

I didn't pay enough attention, and boy you aren't kidding, and the verbatim filter doesn't even help, JFC. Please accept an apology for my snark, this is just sad 😭

Anyway, adding "firefox" to the query helps a lot (wow Google, where did you find all those verbatim instances of this search term?!), enough to find the bug report of it being removed.

Sorry to be of additional no-help mate 😞