Sick & tired of tabs deciding they need to be new windows

[AGoodDay2Die]

Windows 7:
33.2.1:
64-bit:
Problem URL:
Browser theme (if not default):
Installed add-ons:
Installed plugins: (about:plugins):

If possible, please include the output of help->troubleshooting information (as text):

**PASTE troubleshooting information here**

I'm sick & tired of tabs suddenly deciding to move themselves to a new window. Unless I grab the actual tab and pull it from the tab row it should NEVER move! This is an ongoing problem that has only gotten worse since I updated from a 2+ year old version (don't remember the number). It's getting virtually impossible to use some sites because of the frequency with which this occurs.

Also, is anyone ever gonna fix the memory problems in this browser? I keep a couple dozen tabs open all the time in 2 windows, (down from the 1400+ in 5 windows I kept in the previous version,) and I'm constantly having to kill & restart the browser because it starts freezing up after as little as a few hours of opening & closing new tabs while browsing. Pages with lots of pictures seem to speed the process. I have 24GB of RAM and this browser will suck down 9GB or more of that at times before I have to kill it because of sluggishness & freezes.

(No, I will NEVER update to Windows 10 or 11 - I do not willingly install spyware on my computers!)

[jobbautista9]

We need more information than this; the template is there to be answered completely. Where's your troubleshooting information as instructed in the template? What specific website (with an example URL) is causing this "new window" issue? What add-ons and plugins do you have installed? Does the issue happen in a fresh profile? And for the memory and sluggishness issue: what websites do you usually browse on and stay long?

[Moonchild]

Sorry to hear you're having a frustrating experience.
Tabs should definitely not decide by themselves to become new windows if you don't drag them out of the tab bar; I've never heard of anyone having that happen before, so it's certainly odd. I'm assuming you are trying to at least manipulate the tabs one way or another when this happens - what exactly are you doing at the time?

As stated we'd need Troubleshooting information from Help -> Troubleshooting information (Copy text to clipboard button) to know your environment.

As for the memory use: when you are experiencing very high memory use open a new tab and type about:memory in the address bar to open the memory reporter page, and click "measure" in the top left, to see which objects are using up so much memory. That should give you an idea which site(s) are being problematic. 9GB is certainly not typical use. You can also PM me a memory report with "measure and save" (do not anonymize it) for me to have a more detailed look at if you aren't sure how to interpret it.

[Nuck-TH]

Tabs should definitely not decide by themselves to become new windows if you don't drag them out of the tab bar; I've never heard of anyone having that happen before, so it's certainly odd. I'm assuming you are trying to at least manipulate the tabs one way or another when this happens - what exactly are you doing at the time?

For me this happens when there is a brief GC hang of browser when i drag tabs. Nothing critical, but sure annoying.

[Moonchild]

So it's effectively all centered around shitty scripting causing problems for the browser.
That also would not be a regression, in fact it would be the direct result of Pale Moon being more compatible with the modern web and the newfangled APIs and "features" loading up the JS engine more and more (unfortunately the one major drawback of being single-process combined with the JS engine driving both content and GUI being that misbehaving content does influence the UI in such situations)

[andyprough]

this browser will suck down 9GB or more

That's interesting, I've never seen anything remotely close to that. I think I've seen 2GB on occasion, maybe a bit higher. 9GB seems like an extremely high amount. Is it some kind of a Microsoft Windows issue of obscenely poor memory management or something?

[suzyne]

I think I've seen 2GB on occasion, maybe a bit higher. 9GB seems like an extremely high amount.

I used to make those observations about Pale Moon too! Where 2 to 3 GB was the upper limit of the memory consumption, and I couldn't understand what people were doing to require much more than that.

But since I have started using Reddit, I discovered that using extremely high amounts of memory, is actually very easy to do.

[andyprough]

But since I have started using Reddit, I discovered that using extremely high amounts of memory, is actually very easy to do.

Wow! I mean, shame on Reddit. That's just got to be unnecessary in every possible way. I would imagine it's no better on any other browser then.

[moonbat]

But since I have started using Reddit

Use old.reddit.com, it has a more desktop friendly UI and loads and works much faster. You can create a redirect for it using URL Rewriter, or find a greasemonkey script that does the job.

[suzyne]

I did give "old" reddit a try, but the aesthetic offended my tastes too much, and experimenting with the required types of extensions doesn't interest me at all.

No, I am happy to have reddit on my short "open in Edge" list.

I suppose my remark about the memory use is more to highlight that when people complain about high memory consumption (or poor performance) in Pale Moon, it is important to ask what sites they are visiting because they are likely not the same sites that everybody else without such problems are using.

[andyprough]

No, I am happy to have reddit on my short "open in Edge" list.

What's the memory usage in Edge? I'm assuming it's still around 9gb, shouldn't be much better than in Pale Moon. Chromium based browsers tend to use quite a bit more ram (and slightly less cpu in some cases) in my experience.

[suzyne]

I'm assuming it's still around 9gb, shouldn't be much better than in Pale Moon.

I don't like making comments that directly compare Pale Moon with another browser because I don't want to be critical, and I know that Pale Moon is not like other browsers, but I will say that your assumption is completely wrong.

[andyprough]

I don't like making comments that directly compare Pale Moon with another browser because I don't want to be critical, and I know that Pale Moon is not like other browsers, but I will say that your assumption is completely wrong.

Well, that might be worth looking into from a development perspective. Because if a chromium-based browser that routinely uses more ram is using vastly less for this one site, and Pale Moon is using more ram for that site than more than half the world's population has available on their machine, then something should be looked at. I don't know if anything can be done, but 9gb of ram for one site is clearly not workable.

The effort for the past 3+ years has been to make Pale Moon thoroughly modern and usable with the modern web. For example, moving to AVX is a big part of that, being the first browser to fully implement jpegxl is a big part of that - Pale Moon does not strive to be a second class citizen. This is the kind of thing that will ultimately have to be addressed, it would seem like.