Also, it's not letting me upload an image of my process tree, for some dumb reason. It just keep the loading graphic cycling and not doing anything for over 4 minutes.

Yes! The upload server is a pain in @#$!!!

After rebooting the computer and logging in, before you run Firefox, is there already processes showing in the task manager? What happens if you run Firefox in Safe Mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode#w_how-to-start-firefox-in-4troubleshoot-modesf5safe-modesf

There are many other processes when I reboot, but none of them are Firefox.

When I run Firefox in Safe Mode, there are 5 instances of Firefox, one parent and 4 child processes.

If you notice you have more content processes than in the past then Fission is probably enabled. Fission is about a new site isolation architecture in Firefox and you will see more Firefox processes running than before and when Fission is enabled you can no longer limit the number of content processes in Settings or via dom.ipc.processCount on the about:config page. You can check the current Fission state on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page (search for Fission).

• https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/

It is quite normal to see more Firefox processes running.

• process for the main Firefox thread (user interface)
• one or more content processes
  you see more content processes when Fission is enabled
• process for the compositor thread
• process for extensions
• process for WebRender when this feature is enabled

You can find the current multi-process state on the Troubleshooting Information page (about:support).

• "Help -> Troubleshooting Information"
  "Application Basics": Multiprocess Windows
  "Remote Processes" further down

See also the about:memory and about:processes pages for information about the process IDs.

So, how do I keep Firefox from spamming my hard drive?

Spamming.... What does that mean? How many windows and tabs do you normally have open when running Firefox? I have 3 windows with 50 or more tabs open. My daily driver laptop dual boots Win7 and openSUSE and I have know issues.

What are the specs of you desktop? Processor? Ram? HD or SSD?

Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20220116 KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.90.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 Kernel Version: 5.16.0-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: X11 Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz Memory: 31.0 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics 4600

I have ONE window open, and if you'll look at the image I uploaded, there are 11 instances of Firefox in my process tree (and only one tab open). When I open Firefox, they start spamming my hard drive to the point where everything else slows to a crawl or stops, until later when it's done doing whatever it's doing (God forbid I open YouTube, then everything stops because of the hundreds of MB being downloaded). It didn't used to happen when it was just the one instance running at a time. It's been going on for at least a month, and I'm sick of it. It's so bad that I have to wait 30+ seconds before any YouTube video actually runs, and hitting refresh doesn't help.

When I open Firefox with no home page, as I always do, it should load whatever little bit of memory Firefox needs, and THAT'S IT. No spamming my hard drive slowing everything else down, no opening a dozen instances and making it worse. One window, one process.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.5GHz RAM: 32 GB HDD: 2TB, 187 GB free

Did you check the support paged mentioned by cor-el? see screenshot Let me boot to Win7 and just open Firefox with no tabs and see how many processes are running.

Here is what I get with Fission off and then on. see screenshots 1,2 This is a screenshot with a window that has 32 tabs and my system or other apps are not affected. see screenshot

Open Chrome and see what you get with just 1 tab or several.

I don't have Chrome installed, so I can't do that. I just uploaded a screenshot from opening about:support. I don't know what I'm looking at, so when I see 9 remote processes, I could be wrong in thinking that that is the problem. While I am computer-literate, and I used to be a programmer, I'm not familiar with the internal workings of Firefox's codebase. So, could you please cut out the extraneous stuff and just tell me why I'm getting 9 instances of Firefox running, as per the screen capture I uploaded? Your developer edition might work completely differently from the general release I'm running.

It's what cor-el mentioned earlier.... Fission. Make it false and see what you get.

I can't change any of the fission-related values in about:support. I click on them, but it won't allow me to change them. One of them said "experimental" in reference to fission, so I'm figuring that my standard release version of Firefox is locked into fission, and I'm being used as a guinea pig to test this fission stuff. What else can I do?

Edit: I just upgraded to version 96.0.3 64-bit, and I still can't access fission-related values in about:support.

You can control Fission via fission.autostart on the about:config page, true to enable and false to turn it off.

• about:config => fission.autostart = false

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox

Tried that, didn't work. Also tried setting "fission.openNonFissionWindowOption" to true. Restarted, and the attached pic is what I got - 7 instances of Firefox running. And now it won't let me upload the picture - is your server down at 10 pm or something? What shall I try next?

Good old upload server.... smh

Here's the pic.

Any updates?

You can control Fission via fission.autostart on the about:config page, true to enable and false to turn it off.

• about:config => fission.autostart = false

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/ You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox

Update.... This was your update. You can turn it off if you feel it's a problem. End of update.