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Which Site in Which Process (Tab)?

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  • Last reply by Shadow110

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Hello all - thanks for reading, this is driving me nuts and I hope you can help.

Let me give a scenario.

I have the latest Firefox installed in Windows. I start it up and it starts 5 or maybe 6 Firefox.exe processes. I have five tabs open - BBC, Youtube, Google, Amazon, Boogywoogy.

Boogywoogy is not a real site, and is used for information purposes.

Now, Boogywoogy site is a nefarious nasty site, and it's giving me trouble. It had dialog box pop ups, and when they're up you can't just close the tab. That is - unless you kill the process.

So I go into Task Manager (or Process hacker, which I prefer). Task Manager shows lots of Firefox processes - which one do I kill to get rid of Boogywoogy, but leave the rest of Firefox running?

Put another way - with all those processes, how can I know which sites are in which process? I've tried to figure this out, and I just can't get the order.

Hope this makes sense... Can anyone help?

Hello all - thanks for reading, this is driving me nuts and I hope you can help. Let me give a scenario. I have the latest Firefox installed in Windows. I start it up and it starts 5 or maybe 6 Firefox.exe processes. I have five tabs open - BBC, Youtube, Google, Amazon, Boogywoogy. Boogywoogy is not a real site, and is used for information purposes. Now, Boogywoogy site is a nefarious nasty site, and it's giving me trouble. It had dialog box pop ups, and when they're up you can't just close the tab. That is - unless you kill the process. So I go into Task Manager (or Process hacker, which I prefer). Task Manager shows lots of Firefox processes - which one do I kill to get rid of Boogywoogy, but leave the rest of Firefox running? Put another way - with all those processes, how can I know which sites are in which process? I've tried to figure this out, and I just can't get the order. Hope this makes sense... Can anyone help?

Chosen solution

Hey, I got it! Sort of.

As I say, I'm using Process Hacker, which is essentially a super version of Task Manager.

Anyway - I bring up Firefox, and it'll start a set of processes. Process hacker let's you order them by start time, so the oldest process is listed first (the first one to start), and the other afterwards.

Okay - stay with me. I open four tabs: BBC, Youtube, Google, Amazon.

Now, as I switch from tab to tab, it's that first started process that picks it up and displays it. You can kill that, but it kills Firefox along with it. So not good for what i want.

However - the tag is indeed running in one of those other processes. I just discovered the secret bit - tabs are run in pairs of processes. So, every tab I open, is using two processes.

So here's my example. If I open Firefox as above, and I opened each of those tabs in sequence as shown - the last process started belongs to Amazon - but I'm not sure what it does, it does'nt kill the page. The second tab however, does. I kill the second tab down, and that page crashes.

The third process does nothing, but it belongs to the Google tab. The fourth process - if killed - kills the Google page.

And so on.

This seems to be working for me this way - not sure if it'll continue to do so. That's what it looks like right now. This will help me big time with bad tabs!

Thanks for your help, PK. Sometimes you just need someone to fire questions at to get the old juice to flow. Much appreciated.

ps: I hope this makes sense - it's easy to show someone, difficult to explain. LOL

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HI, please update : Flash Player Version: 31.0.0.108 Current Version https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/ Step 1: Select Operating System Step 2: Select A Version (Firefox, . . . .) Note: Other software is offered in the download. <Windows Only>

You can not tell what so ever as not all are sites. Some/one of the processes running are Extensions, some/one are the Sandbox, some/one are websites, I would imagine there is something I am missing from here.

I do not know of a way other than the Largest will be Firefox itself, the smallest will be extensions as for what's in between I do not know.

This was a solution for 57 at one time :

I found that by sorting the tasks in task manager by name (instead of by memory or CPU usage, for instance), the task manager groups them into Apps and Background Processes. Then it's easy to see which one is the root task. If you are using the Details tab and you add the Command Line column, that also will help you distinguish the content processes from the main process.

As to the above I have no idea.

This was also done in Windows 10 Task Manager which is different than Win 7's

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Thanks, PK.

I use Process Hacker, which allows me to sort by Start Time - so each process is listed when they were created. However, it's not as simple as that, as sites appear in different processes. For example, the site you are currently looking at always shows on the first process (in my case, the oldest process).

If I start killing processes, I eventually will find that one I'm after, and it'll stop it. However, it doesn't seem to be in any order. Meaning, if i open a tab you'd think it would be in the process that has just started - but it's often not.

It's really annoying actually. I can find out so much about the processes - but not the one that is supporting a tab, even though, as I say, if you hunt and peck, you can eventually stumble upon it.

Hope that makes sense. I don't know if you use Process Hacker - it's a free tool, and is basically Task Manager on steroids. Much recommended.

Though this Firefox issue is driving me mad.  :)

Thanks again.

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You can change the dynamics of that by also not running default 4 but a custom number up to 8 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings

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I followed your link, PK. It says something interesting:

"Content process limit: With Multiprocess Firefox, also called electrolysis or e10s , Firefox runs web content for all tabs separately from the main Firefox process for increased security and performance."

Taking this one step farther - I just need to know which process is running the "web content" for a specific site (TAB). Strange there's no way to know....

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Ya, the more technical you get the further lost you can get.

If you take largest and smallest out of the equation then the next highest number would possible be the bad website if you follow logic.

But none I can figure out.

I do not know what the will end up with with this new toy. Copy/Paste about:networking and will be asking next what am I connecting to...

Note this came out a few days before the release of Quantum so is off some what.

https://winaero.com/blog/the-full-list-of-firefox-about-commands/

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Seçilmiş Həll

Hey, I got it! Sort of.

As I say, I'm using Process Hacker, which is essentially a super version of Task Manager.

Anyway - I bring up Firefox, and it'll start a set of processes. Process hacker let's you order them by start time, so the oldest process is listed first (the first one to start), and the other afterwards.

Okay - stay with me. I open four tabs: BBC, Youtube, Google, Amazon.

Now, as I switch from tab to tab, it's that first started process that picks it up and displays it. You can kill that, but it kills Firefox along with it. So not good for what i want.

However - the tag is indeed running in one of those other processes. I just discovered the secret bit - tabs are run in pairs of processes. So, every tab I open, is using two processes.

So here's my example. If I open Firefox as above, and I opened each of those tabs in sequence as shown - the last process started belongs to Amazon - but I'm not sure what it does, it does'nt kill the page. The second tab however, does. I kill the second tab down, and that page crashes.

The third process does nothing, but it belongs to the Google tab. The fourth process - if killed - kills the Google page.

And so on.

This seems to be working for me this way - not sure if it'll continue to do so. That's what it looks like right now. This will help me big time with bad tabs!

Thanks for your help, PK. Sometimes you just need someone to fire questions at to get the old juice to flow. Much appreciated.

ps: I hope this makes sense - it's easy to show someone, difficult to explain. LOL

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Hi, ya go it. I would think that the one that does nothing is the extensions in the background (maybe)

If you want to mark your Solution as the Answer so others can find it, great.