PC Performance - Firefox and Iobit (More Software than Hardware)

SnapSlav

SnapSlav

NMA's local DotA fanatic
So for those of you who also use Firefox like myself, I'm sure you're all aware that a few weeks ago the browser had an update that kinda sorta revamped the program. Still a good browser, but it added lots of features, and took out some features. I coincidentally downloaded a few "performance enhancing" programs at the exact same time, so shortly afterward my PC underwent a clusterfuck of performance stuttering. My gut reaction is to blame what I just downloaded, but looking into it enough I found that many of the issues I was having (browser freeze, flash incompatibility, moments of delayed loading) was across the board with everyone I knew who also had Firefox and was forced to download the new version. back in the 3.80 days, I just downloaded the 3.70 version and waiting for the kinks to get sorted out of the latest, but I don't have that downloaded now, so I'm suffering through Mozilla's fumbling through the glitches. Joy.

But I am curious about how those other programs did affect my system, as well, and if anyone else has any experience with them. Namely, Iobit's Advanced System Care 7 program, Malware Fighter, and Driver Booster. I always manually updated my own drivers, so having a program do it for me was both convenient but also slightly worrisome (cause just like with Firefox, sometimes you don't WANT to download the driver updates.... sometimes), and the features provided by the other programs were equally nifty as well as shifty.
-I already have Kaspersky Internet Security installed (which I bought, so I get the good stuff, and it's always satisfied me) so it's not like I needed more anti-virus software.
-I defragged and disk cleaned enough that Windows was always telling me it was never necessary, but those services offered through the System Care program still found something to do.
-I get a new performance monitor that I can Alt-Tab to at any time that tracks my CPU and RAM usage, both of which seem curiously higher than usual (and don't match the Task Manager numbers).
-Lastly they're always running in the background, unless I tell them not to, at which point their icons start to grow unhappy (LITERALLY smilie and frownie faces depending on how often they're used).

When I had the most issues with my system (roughly 1-2 years ago) I was using other programs that were suggested to me here to track my PC's performance and monitor where I needed to focus fixes, and the numbers for my CPU and RAM NEVER went above 60%, regardless of how hard I tried to push my system. Yet this new Iobit monitor is always listing them around 80-96%, which coincides with the slumps in performance that I note). Of course, wouldn't THAT be convenient if it were the Iobit programs CAUSING those slumps, for them to detect the peaks in my system? XD They never stall my system, unlike Steam when it downloads ANY update (no matter how small), but I have noticed slowdowns while browsing the net. This is all MOSTLY irrelevant, as I'm going to be building a new system soon (suggestions STILL welcome!) but at the same time, any programs I've downloaded now that I ought to avoid downloading in the future will address not bogging down my NEW system. =)

So who's familiar with the latest Firefox, the programs and services offered by Iobit, and would you have any sagely advice on how to approach these programs? .....BESIDES the "I'd say get Chrome/IE instead, it's better" remark, of course. =P I'm mostly just irritated by the way my system's working, it's not dying on me, but it's not running smooth as a virgin's thighs, neither. So in short, I'm just exploring the possibility that anyone else has experience with these programs and knows more than I do to offer advice and solutions I hadn't considered. I'll otherwise continue my hunt for parts for the aforementioned new system.
 
I don't run any programs like that. I personally feel they only serve to prey on a novice attempting to "quick fix" an issue, withholding "premium features" until you buy a license. I'll download and use any diagnostic program, but aside from an antivirus program I have little faith in programs that claim to "fix" stability issues.

I have a few questions though:
Is your internet hard-wired or wireless?
Have you run a hardware peripheral latency diagnostic like DCP latency checker or LatencyMon?

"clusterfuck of performance stuttering" is a broad term. Care to elaborate? Is it only during web browsing?
 
Well to be fair, it's ALL broad if you're relying on my description rather than collected data, or at least witnessing it for yourself. XD

But for the most part the aforementioned "clusterfuck of performance stuttering" is limited to web browsing or complicated by web browsing. Though that's not necessarily telling about the origin of the problem because..... that's just about ALL I do! XD Since my most recent reformat, I hadn't re-installed the original FO games, so my gaming on this system has been FOT (which I haven't booted up in months) and stuff through Steam, and of course Steam is always connected. I keep my browser up in the background while I'm playing dota, for example, but I want to push my system so that I'll be sure to notice if anything fails. It was pushing my system that helped me determine where the defects in my previous video card were, so when I don't have enough programs running at once and things seem to be working just fine, I don't like the prospect of being lulled into a false sense of security, only for another issue to show itself when I actually do run multiple programs at once.

That said, yeah, I agree that programs such as Iobit's are part of that group that shouldn't be too relied upon, and that "System Boosting" is accomplished best through knowing what you're running and have the least amount of redundant programs overlapping each other with the proper drivers installed, not installing MORE programs that allege to somehow automate your system to a better, smoother state. I tried it out on recommendation from someone whom I greatly respect, though it should have occurred to me that, him having a WAY BETTER gaming rig than my own, he wouldn't notice any such hiccups on his system running those programs like I would. It's like expecting my PC to run a match against 11 Brutal AI Zerg opponents in Starcraft II without any issue, just because I think it should, when the hardware in my system couldn't handle it 2 years ago, so there's absolutely zero reason it would be any better off now!

Anyway, the details...

I spit on wireless internet, since I hate its unreliability when gaming, so my personal internet is hardwired straight to my PC direct from the modem. There's a splitter modem between the 2 connections so that my PS3 is also hardwired to the net, but it's never been an issue. The cable I use that's connected to the modem is also long enough so that I can bypass my splitter altogether and check if there's any problems between those lines, but the results have all been the same, so the wiring is all solid for the time being. (I'll still get new cables to go with my new system, but that's besides the point...)

I haven't run any programs that perform any latency diagnostics, so no to the second question. The last time my system had problems, programs like Hardware Monitor, Memtest, and BurnIn Test helped me track down the source of my problems, which weren't net-related at the time.

Out of the programs that Iobit offered, I liked the Driver Booster the most out of the rest, so I might just uninstall everything else and see if matters improve at all. I do know that the update to Firefox contributed to some of the problems, but since I don't recall downloading any more-recent updates following that, I can only assume that Mozilla did a hotfix to the problems, or I've just noticed them less.
 
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Updated both of my systems (Arch and Fedora 20) and both of them have the latest firefox browser, but everything seems fine, no issues with latency whatsoever (though to be fair, none of those systems are windows). I used to have big issues with firefox a few years ago after one update and it seemed to only bug out on my pc, while my brothers was fine.

Haven't used lobit, but i also used to use similar system "enhancing" utilities when i ran windows 7. After a while i noticed that it's kind of useless and if you don't install new shit in your pc every day and avoid those pesky websites the system runs just fine. I would even claim that one doesn't really need antivirus software, and i've seen people who run their windows systems without them and are just fine. I personally would avoid anything that has words like "booster" in it.. The worse, if it has a "drivers" besides it. If your systems runs well, is there really a need to constantly update drivers?

Actually, now that i think about it, these utilities often run with your system on start-up ( in a hidden way) and can actually contribute to pigging out the resources.
 
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Don't buy iobit it's snake oil shit just get a free program like ccleaner which does the same thing for free. I bought a license for iobit five years ago and it actually had the opposite effect and slowed my PC down and didn't speed it up.
 
Get rid of any and all programs that claim to enhance performance in some way. With a few odd exceptions (like CCleaner), they're all snake-oil shit that will mostly eat up resources while doing little or nothing of value (assuming they're legit; a lot of the time, they're really just malware that is actively harmful). Your aim should always be for your system to be as clean as possible, and only install what is actually necessary.

I'm using the newest Firefox, and I have zero issues. Unless it is behaving poorly on lower-spec systems, it's almost certainly not the cause of your issues.
 
I use Chrome. It goes in sync better with my internet. My dad was old fashioned, used to use Internet Explorer. I would make fun of him all the time for using IE. He didn't like any of the new shit.
 
BigBoss said:
I use Chrome. It goes in sync better with my internet. My dad was old fashioned, used to use Internet Explorer. I would make fun of him all the time for using IE. He didn't like any of the new shit.
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Get on my level, scrub! MY folks didn't want anything to do with Internet Explorer, cause they were too used to the AOL browser and didn't like any of the new shit.
WHATCHU GOTTA SAY ABOUT DAT!?!?!!?!?!?one

Obvious tongue-in-cheek tone beside the point, I WISH that was a joke. ~_~ They eventually came around to using IE- and sometimes Firefox -a few years ago, but so help me if they weren't STILL opening AOL (the WHOLE program, with that ear-blistering dialup noise) to login to their email and browse the interwebs when they'd AT LONG LAST upgraded to broadband DSL, and were always online. To say that they catch on slowly is a mind-numbing understatement.

But anyway, I never BOUGHT the Iobit programs, just the free trials. It's always been my belief that a good product lends itself to a trial version very well, and a trial version that sucks so bad that it makes you want to buy the full version to make the pain go away is not a good product. Needless to say, as time goes on I'm feeling like uninstalling them more and more. I entertain the idea of keeping SOME of the programs, but then I consider, "What do they offer that I'm not already getting from Windows itself?" The Defrag is a bit more thorough, but that's about it.

Kyuu said:
I'm using the newest Firefox, and I have zero issues. Unless it is behaving poorly on lower-spec systems, it's almost certainly not the cause of your issues.
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I consider my system outdated, but I went out of my way to build a system that would last for a while when I created it, so it's actually not that bad. If I weren't a gamer, it would be an excellent system, but I need better and more RAM and video processing, and I might as well just get a new system than spend the money on obsolete memory cards or a "replacement" motherboard.
 
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So, I decided to finally go through with the uninstall of the Iobit stuff. Ironically, I used the Iobit Uninstaller- a program from Iobit designed to make uninstalling unwanted programs from your computer quick and easy -to do the job. I decided to keep the Driver Booster and the Uninstaller for now, but given recommendations for programs like Slim Drivers and other Driver updaters, their presence remains tenuous. The moment I uninstalled the Malware Protector my RAM's efficiency shot through the roof, so go figure, something that shouldn't have been that much of a resource hog, was. The uninstallations were just a few minutes ago, so I've yet to "test out" how things are running now, but I'll be sure to update if there are any particularly noticeable changes/improvements. =)
 
If you have any trouble uninstalling your programs you can also try Revo uninstaller which is a great program.
 
This might not be 100% related, but I've been using Aurora (Which is a Mozilla Browser, I think.) and every Forty-Minutes to an Hour I have been suffering total freezes from my browser, and my computer pretty much freezes up for a few seconds, ten to thirty at the most.

I'm sure it has something to do with the browser, are others experiencing this?
 
That's a browser made by a third party, but it does use a modified version of the Firefox engine. So I'm not really sure if it uses the exact engine of the recently released version of Firefox.
 
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