Win 7 Guest FireFox Lagging?

[Rayj2016]

So I am running Virtual Box 4.3.28 r100309 on a Win 7 Pro host.

I have a Win 7 Guest. Firefox use to run pretty good. Now it is lagging something awful.
I have no problem with Chrome.

I have uninstalled and re-installed FireFox but have the same issue. FireFox 39.0 is so slow it is unusable.

I have a 100Mb internet connection so bandwidth is not the issue. Like I said, Chrome works fine,
And even IE works fine.

Could there be something missing in the Guest?

I really love my FireFox and want to get this fixed.

Thanks,

Ray

[Perryg]

This usually is due to access gpu directly being enabled in Firefox. Disable that and see if it helps.

[Rayj2016]

This usually is due to access gpu directly being enabled in Firefox. Disable that and see if it helps.

Ok I feel dumb. How to do this on FireFox 39.0? I'm not seeing this setting anywhere.
However, use hardware acceleration is checked.

[Perryg]

However, use hardware acceleration is checked

That would be what you need to disable.

[Rayj2016]

However, use hardware acceleration is checked

That would be what you need to disable.

I unchecked that option. All OK now! I have no idea how it got checked?

Ray

[loukingjr]

I unchecked that option. All OK now! I have no idea how it got checked?

Ray

It's checked by default.

[Rayj2016]

I unchecked that option. All OK now! I have no idea how it got checked?

Ray

It's checked by default.

Really? I never had this issue before? Oh well.

[loukingjr]

Well there have been quite a few changes to Firefox recently. Could be putting more of a demand on the system. I'm not sure. I haven't run into the problem yet myself.

[mpack]

IMHO Firefox itself has become quite laggy over recent releases. I see the effects on my physical hosts. I suspect it may be getting bloated.

[noteirak]

When a browser takes 600MB of RAM to display 10 tabs where 9 of them have the almost same content (except text), yes that's bloat
I'm with you on that one Don...

[loukingjr]

Not that I want to get involved with the browser wars, I thought the issue was lag. Since on my systems with my connection speed takes less than 1 second to load almost any page, with any browser, I can't see that as being "laggy".

As far as bloat, on OSX, Google Chrome takes up more memory than Firefox.

Lastly, I would say opening 10 tabs at once is self-imposed bloat.

[Rayj2016]

Not that I want to get involved with the browser wars, I thought the issue was lag. Since on my systems with my connection speed takes less than 1 second to load almost any page, with any browser, I can't see that as being "laggy".

As far as bloat, on OSX, Google Chrome takes up more memory than Firefox.

Lastly, I would say opening 10 tabs at once is self-imposed bloat.

I lacked a better description for my issue other then lagging. When I clicked on a link or even a menu item, it would take a few seconds to respond. Same with moving the FF window around the desktop.
But unchecking the "Use hardware acceleration when available" fixed the problem.

Note that on my host (Win 7), this is still checked and I have no issues with FF. Must be a virtualization problem?

[loukingjr]

I was actually addressing mpack and noteirak but be that as it may, if you know the "trick" of rapidly shaking a pencil so it fools the eyes into thinking it's bending, that's how fast I can shake Firefox in my Windows 7 guest. The sides of the Window will look bent slightly. So I'm not sure why you are having an issue. I have 3D enabled. Did you install the guest additions and have 2D and 3D acceleration enabled in the guest settings?

[Perryg]

It can be seen as a virtualization issue I guess, but not one that can't be dealt with up to a point.

It depends on the guest additions for sure but it also depends on the host resources and what the guest has been allocated. GPU or hardware acceleration can not directly use the hosts GPU and must go through the software to get there. If you have available enough resources and installed the proper drivers then hardware acceleration should work for you.

As for Firefox bloat, I am afraid that is just something that’s going to continue. Mozilla has to give the end user what they want even if it is at the cost of performance I am afraid. You have to admit they have been holding off doing this far longer than the other browsers out there, but it was inevitable that they would achieve the same bloat that they reset of them have.