Browser Slow Down May Have a Windows Cause
By Strictly-Software
Yesterday if you read my blog article about Firefox and Chrome slowing me down as if I was being dragged through mud by a 3 legged donkey, then you will know that I was blaming the browsers and their settings for the slow down.
However when I could take no more, of browser windows hanging and then seemingly Windows applications not opening when I clicked the desktop icon which I have never had before I thought it must be a virus or some sort of app slowing me down however virus scans with Windows Defender and MalwareBytes AntiMalware showed nothing at all.
I was trying to open applications like Open Office only to see the process in the task manager running as a background process. It was not up the top under Apps, but just sat there forever under background processes.
I also had 100% Disk usage with no singular app or process looking like it was causing it. I also had high memory and CPU usage. So I thought what I had done lately. I went to Programs and Features to see which applications had been updates or loaded recently. Skype was there, like it is today, and I removed it as I can no longer use it with Windows 8.1r.
There was also Spotify which I hardly ever use so I uninstalled that as well. However it was after this I started getting the problems.
So I went to System Restore Points and noticed a Critical Windows Update had been carried out on the 11th of this month. I ticked the box to show all restore points and chose the Automatic Restore Point before the update.
I did a system restore to that date which was 2 days before the Windows Update and after an hour I had my PC back and working. It was much faster and the browsers were fast as well, both Chrome and Firefox.
However I will not take away the points I made yesterday about over complicating the options and issues for privacy and security which seem far too over the top for the average user to understand.
So when I was finished with what I was doing I went to shut the laptop off and did the Windows Update again. This time it seems to not have slowed everything down. The Critical Update has been done and I have a much faster laptop. For example just look at the Task Manager, which for the same apps, with the same tabs open was showing 100% DISK usage and high Memory and CPU usage, with programs running in the background not as open Apps.
However I am not holding my breath as it seems that all these browsers and other apps like Rapport (banking crud software), seems to be slowing the laptop down.
I think it is time I do a proper search of the computer, remove apps I don't use, run Chkdsk -f (from the command prompt), and see if a particular browser is causing me issues.
However when I could take no more, of browser windows hanging and then seemingly Windows applications not opening when I clicked the desktop icon which I have never had before I thought it must be a virus or some sort of app slowing me down however virus scans with Windows Defender and MalwareBytes AntiMalware showed nothing at all.
I was trying to open applications like Open Office only to see the process in the task manager running as a background process. It was not up the top under Apps, but just sat there forever under background processes.
I also had 100% Disk usage with no singular app or process looking like it was causing it. I also had high memory and CPU usage. So I thought what I had done lately. I went to Programs and Features to see which applications had been updates or loaded recently. Skype was there, like it is today, and I removed it as I can no longer use it with Windows 8.1r.
There was also Spotify which I hardly ever use so I uninstalled that as well. However it was after this I started getting the problems.
So I went to System Restore Points and noticed a Critical Windows Update had been carried out on the 11th of this month. I ticked the box to show all restore points and chose the Automatic Restore Point before the update.
I did a system restore to that date which was 2 days before the Windows Update and after an hour I had my PC back and working. It was much faster and the browsers were fast as well, both Chrome and Firefox.
However I will not take away the points I made yesterday about over complicating the options and issues for privacy and security which seem far too over the top for the average user to understand.
So when I was finished with what I was doing I went to shut the laptop off and did the Windows Update again. This time it seems to not have slowed everything down. The Critical Update has been done and I have a much faster laptop. For example just look at the Task Manager, which for the same apps, with the same tabs open was showing 100% DISK usage and high Memory and CPU usage, with programs running in the background not as open Apps.
However I am not holding my breath as it seems that all these browsers and other apps like Rapport (banking crud software), seems to be slowing the laptop down.
I think it is time I do a proper search of the computer, remove apps I don't use, run Chkdsk -f (from the command prompt), and see if a particular browser is causing me issues.
At the moment I have 5% CPU, 40% Memory 3% Disk usage (Not the 100% I was seeing all the time).
I have no ideas what the Windows Update did to screw this up and when I look at programs recently installed I only see Google Chrome as having updated itself today. Firefox is set to auto update so I will wait to see what happens when the latest version comes in as I am currently on version 70, and yesterday I was on version 71. Since Chrome updated however the CPU and Disk Usage also started to spike again.
I have decided to uninstall Chrome and just use Firefox and since doing so my disk usage is running at 1%. I have no idea what Chrome could be doing to cause these memory leaks and disk usage. I did notice in their settings under advanced the other day an option to look for "malware" that could be slowing your computer down. I reckon it is more to do with all the holes that let PUPs and other files that keep popping up after a scan in the Chrome Roaming folder that they are looking for.
However it in not uncommon for people to have issues after Windows Updates. User Profiles going missing causing you to think you have lost all your apps and other weird things. Having to do restore points seems drastic but at the moment I am happy as my apps are all running and the task manager is showing good stats. However I still think Firefox's security and privacy options are too much for the average user and some of them even confused me as their was no explanation. So read that article if you can.
I think these auto updates behind the scenes can cause major slowdowns and they should all be optional. If I have a version of Chrome that is running fast, not causing major CPU, Memory or Disk usage then I should be able to keep it. I don't want some new buggy install being rolled out and then a fix for that buggy version rolled out later.
As I said earlier IE only brings a new version of IE out once every couple of years. I cannot really see the need for 70+ versions of Chrome or Firefox unless they contain bugs and future version are to fix them.
By Strictly-Software
© 2019 Strictly-Software
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