What's Fiefox Doing?

[Ricky Jimenez]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

 

[Desk Rabbit]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

Caching

 

[Ricky Jimenez]

Caching

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

The caching in Firefox can be a bit disc heavy once it has run out of
memory cache.

Steve

 

[Wolf K]

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

Browsers (and e-mail clients) use a cache so that they don't have to d/l
complete page every time you click a link, go back to a previous page,
etc. Set the browser to clear the cache on exit, or run a junk cleaner
(eg CCleaner) once in a while to reclaim disk space. The browser must be
exited for the junk cleaner to clear the cache.

HTH

 

[Paul]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

This isn't the cause, but I read this just yesterday.

http://arstechnica.com/security/201...rstechnica/index+(Ars+Technica+-+All+content)

Now, how's that for stupid ?

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

445MB doesn't sound like all that much. Does it mention how quickly it's
writing that, like is that per second, per minute, or just overall
amount since the computer started? Sometimes utilities like Norton are
just too much of a busybody, warning about things that don't matter.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tim Slattery]

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?

1. FF doesn't know that you'll never look at it again.
2. Much of it is javascript (*.js) and stylesheet (*.css) files as
well as images, which you probably do need again.

What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

Rundll is a very small shell that's called to load and run functions
in various DLLs. Usually it's running something from one of the core
Windows DLLs.

 

[Buffalo]

"Ricky Jimenez" wrote in message

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

I think Win 7 actually does some defragmenting while the OS is idle. Perhaps
that is what rundll.exe is doing.
Just guessing.

 

[Char Jackson]

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

If you're looking for things to shut down or remove, I'd probably start with
Norton 360. ;-)

 

[Ricky Jimenez]

"Ricky Jimenez" wrote in message


I think Win 7 actually does some defragmenting while the OS is idle. Perhaps
that is what rundll.exe is doing.
Just guessing.

What does svchost.exe do? It says 10,419 MB total disk read activity.
I guess that is since I booted the machine this morning.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

This isn't the cause, but I read this just yesterday.

http://arstechnica.com/security/201...rstechnica/index+(Ars+Technica+-+All+content)

Now, how's that for stupid ?

Paul

Maybe not as stupid as the fact that the above site has a live link to
the offending site.

At least the link *looks* live. I chose not to click it ;-)

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

What does svchost.exe do? It says 10,419 MB total disk read activity.
I guess that is since I booted the machine this morning.

It manages some services for Windows. There are often several instance
of svchost running, each managing one or more services.

It's somewhat analogous to rundll, which Tim Slattery described in
answer to your other question.

 

[philo]

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

I recommend setting the cache to a lower number 150 megs should be plenty


edit
preferences
advanced
network

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I recommend setting the cache to a lower number 150 megs should be plenty

edit
preferences
advanced
network

My Firefox (version 19.0) has it at Tools - Options - Advanced - Network

But anyway, I had no idea it was configurable

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

I fairly often get messages from my Norton 360 that Firefox has been
doing a large amount of writing to disk, like 445MB's worth. I am
just reading the news at the time and saving nothing. Just what is
going on here?

Caching.
Prefetching.
Cookie downloading.
Bookmark URL updating.
Etc.
You can turn all that stuff off including disk cache.
Mine is set to Off and Zero and it works just fine.

 

[Ricky Jimenez]

Caching.
Prefetching.
Cookie downloading.
Bookmark URL updating.
Etc.
You can turn all that stuff off including disk cache.
Mine is set to Off and Zero and it works just fine.

The only setting I found is Options --> Advanced --> Network -->
Cached Web Content --> Override automatic cache management --> Limit
cache to 150 MB of space, which was recommended by a previous poster,
instead of the 350 MB default.

What you are saying, I guess, is that a setting of 0 doesn't hurt. I
try that if I notice Firefox is still waiting and waiting to finish
caching before I get get it to respond.

 

[Steve Hayes]

Why do I need it to cache so much of what I never will look at again?
What about Rundll32.exe? I just got a message that it has been
READING 592,832MB of disk. I assume my computer would work much
faster if these background processes weren't so busy.

Perhaps you need more RAM.

 

[Joe]

If you're looking for things to shut down or remove, I'd probably start with
Norton 360. ;-)

These AV programs are getting so heavy and not allowing the computer to
function correctly, its lucky that the speed of computers has increased
so much we don't take notice just how much work is going on in the
background. I have removed PCTools AV which was stopping some updates
and not allowing JPG images to be saved.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

What does svchost.exe do? It says 10,419 MB total disk read activity.
I guess that is since I booted the machine this morning.

It runs the background services in Windows, such as the print spooler,
plug'n'play, etc., etc. There are usually several instances of svchost
running simultaneously, usually each of these are running several
related services, such as network services, or system services, etc.

Yousuf Khan