Browsing is killing my computer, or it is shit or both

I’ve done a fair bit of failed research on this, but cannot find any solution.

I’ve got an ASUS running windows 10, i5 processor, 4Gb ram, though it happened before I ‘upgraded’ to W10

Basically, whichever browser I use (Chrome, Edge, Firefox), the memory usage, just increases until the thing seizes up.

When I was using chrome, this manifested itself with ‘Shockwave could not load’, normally I’d get ‘Stop Plugin’, then ‘Reload’ as options.

Using Edge (which is not all that shit), the memory usage still steadily increases, though I don’t get those message.

I tried running in Chrome in Windows 7 compatibility mode which worked for a while, in as much as memory wasn’t being chewed up so fast, but did eventually crap out.

Trying to identify what has changed since ‘everything was ok’, I could probably identify getting the full AVG anti virus paid for suite and the motherboard being replaced.

However, the way memory gets sucked up when browsing the internet points at how the browsers are working (unless AVG is causing this - no excessive memory visibly being used).

normal websites I visit are here, SWF and the ladbible. My solution right now is to only open one tab at a time and close it as soon as I have read it. I used to like scrolling through a forum and opening multiple tabs which I would then read as a group, but this is no longer viable. Which I consider shit.

Anyway, could be anything, but can’t use the frickin computer really. Any advice appreciated.

Too much porn

… or yewtree

You have win 10?

Uninstaller AVG. It’s probably clashing with Windows Defender.

I had similar issues i5 etc ditched the AV & now crashes only once a week.

Win 10 shouldn’t have been allowed onto i5’s

Buy a mac.

3 Likes

AVG is a bag of shat.

Mine has started to struggle with SaintsWeb (as many have) - shockwave keeps failing and this week it was typing on there at half a mile an hour.

Is that similar to the issues above?

I thought it might be them rather than me.

Mine does too (with SaintsWeb) and with my local newspaper. So bloody annoying!

Almost no porn!

It is interesting to see that two other people have a smilar problem. Maybe it is the Windows 10 operating system, but most non browser related processes work ok.

Defender isn’t enabled, though god knows if it is attempting to become aware somehere under the hood. Whichever browser I’m using, I can see the memory counter keep rising til evertything goes to shit.

I have seen Adblock been proposed as both a cause and a soluton of/to this problem. Chrome has been slagged off in the past, but appears to overcome issues with Adobe stuff now.

I’m paid up to AVG know, and I’ve used it ok for about 10 years now, so reluctant to unistall it.

So, no magic bullets, other than the one I want to put through my lap top?

Originally posted by @Goatboy

And this is too subtle for me. What does it mean? Ah, flash…? Is there an alternative to this? I paid for Adobe suite as well. But I have had so many Shcokwave errors - 50 a day at least - I’m happy to put something else in, as it were.

Well, I decided to re-install Firefox. Memory usage is commensurate with the number of tabs open, and I can click between tabs and scroll without everything going to shit. BBC wants me to install flash player to see cricket highlights, though I already have this. I suspect re-installing this for Firefox purposes may cause things to go to rat-shit, but I will report back when I do.

I notice SWF appears to be trying to constantly refresh (the refresh button keeps getting changed to the ‘stop loading button’) which basically means it’s a very needy website, I suppose.

Anyway, I’m a happy internet user, though I feel I will get burned again before long - and that’s without porn!

At the BBC’s behest I installed flash player so I could listen to the cricket this morning. Everything went to shit immediately so I unistalled it and my browsing experience is now fine.

I’ve been down this road so many times before with Shockwave/Flash and not found a definitive answer as to why this software is so problematic on my computer. Various suggestions about modifying hardware acceleration, built in capabilities in Chrome etc, but I can’t understand why it doesn’t ‘just work’.

My question to anybody reading is - have you had problems with Shockwave on a similar computer to mine (i5 / 4Gb RAM)? Have you resolved it? How? Is there another bit of software which works and can convince sites like the BBC that Flash / Shockwave is installed - only want the frigging commentary!

Ta,

A1

For the sake of posteriority (sic), I have done some more reading and see that Adobe Flash products are often derided on grounds of security as well as resource consumption, though of course there seem to be many anal programmer wars about its benefits.

In any case, many websites including YouTube seem to be in the process of moving to HTML5 which obviates the need for this frustrating/shite software. The BBC iPlayer site has HTML5 on mobile devices and on-demand TV, as far as I can see, but not on live streams (including radio). This means iPlayer requires Flash to listen live, downloading such, as mentioned before, destroys my computer, so no thanks. The website indicates HTML5 will be the standard going forward, though no dates mentioned.

So, I’m listening to the cricket on my phone (I can’t download the iPlayer app incidentally as it’s an Oz phone, but that’s another topic - I am in the UK at the moment). Heaven forfend, I might even dig out a radio!

I’m pleased I’ve looked into this a little bit, and managed to reduce my blood pressure slightly. It’s very difficult to find a layman’s help for this online, so that’s why I’m doing this.

I still haven’t found a ‘solution’ for the Flash problem (again, lots of dickering around with settings are proposed, but nothing conclusive), but at least it might go away as an issue over time.

2 Likes

Maligned is probably too soft a term to describe what other firms think of Flash. Remember the furore when Apple said they were taking it off iPads? It’s a trend that has been continuing, and as you say, will probably be killed by HTML5.

It was always a complete no-no for SEO purposes. I’d cringe when someone would proudly show me their Flash-based site, lovely to the human eye but containing no usable information to tell Google what the fuck the site was about.

Most of what Flash did other standards now handle. The only real exception is games, which is something of a shame, as Flash was a low barrier to entry for a lot of developers. A lot of games began their lives there. Mostly though, I won’t miss it.

There to fill a hole that traditional browsers couldn’t fill at the time, creating all kinds of its own holes in the process.