Firefox for Android v122 high battery usage

[allabouteve]

Hi members,

After updating my Firefox to version 122.0 (latest at the time of writing this), I have noticed a significant battery drain on my Samsung Galaxy A24. I believe the battery drain is due to the background CPU usage by the app which is higher than other frequent apps that I use. I do not keep tabs open in browser nor extensively use the browser as compared to other apps. 

Few details that might help developers

- Handset: Samsung Galaxy A24 4G
- OS: Android 14 OneUI 6.0
- Google Play System Update: 1 November 2023
- Addons: uBlock Origin, TWP-Translate Web Pages, Google Search Fixer

Share your thoughts or suggest a fix. Thanks

[Vibi]

I am also noticing this. It has used 39% of my battery since last charge with 1hr 52min running in the background and only 11min of screen time... which is odd since I only use mobile browsers in private/incognito mode, and it should be auto-closing. For now, I'm going to try setting it to restricted battery mode as I don't need any mobile browsers running in the background anyway.

[allabouteve]

The annoying thing with background usage limit is the refresh of opened tabs eveytime you briefly exit the app

[allabouteve]

:: Update ::

This seems to be a deeper issue. The battery restriction mode (background usage limit) did not help so I installed Brave browser to use it temporarily. I kept Firefox, force stopped, deleted cache and put it in deep sleep and have not used it at all. This should, theoratically, disable the app, but to my surprise it is still running in background and consuming CPU resources.

Now what's left is uninstalling the app and reinstalling it. If the issue persist, I will report this bug on bugzilla.

[theagentsmith]

I have noticed my phone got noticeably hotter and draining battery faster than the usual while watching YouTube videos on Firefox 122.

Hope it can be fixed soon

[Mizar]

Do you have sync enabled?

If so, try to disable it.

[theagentsmith]

I have signed out of sync, let's see

[Vibi]

Will also be trying to disable sync. Setting it to restricted battery does not seem to have made any impact.

edit-
Disabling sync has not made a difference on my end. I'm wondering if Android is misreporting the usage and using Firefox as a catchall for some other apps or services. I'm going to try uninstalling for a day and seeing if the drain is the same.

[JorisCS]

I am experiencing the same issue on my Pixel 7 Pro. I have 51 minutes of screen time, which 5 minutes of those were spent on Firefox and its way ahead of any other apps that I've used so far, with even more screen time

[Mizar]

These battery spikes are also massive on my end.

Will uninstall and see what happens as well.

[michaelsmith]

I also notice that when I am using the firefox browser on my mobile. So, in a few minutes my phone is very drain and heat. Suddenly, the battery is quickly start to down and after that mobile is switched off.

[Mizar]

Well, the battery spikes are gone.

So much for the mobile experience.

[skast]

Same here, my phone (Pixel 7) is on flight mode while sleeping and Firefox is the only app that is draining the battery.

[captain_flint]

Same issue for me on a Pixel 7 Pro. I used it for 22 minutes and its reporting 42% battery drain. Any plans for a fix?

[rafaelf]

I had the same problem and ended up uninstalling the app. Now I noticed in PlayStore that Firefox has been updated to version 123.0. Does that solve the issue?

[Mizar]

Only one way of finding out...

[captain_flint]

No it doesn't. If anything it's even worse - 12 mins of screentime on FF used 21% of battery!

[rva60481]

Not solved... I have to desinstall FF for now

[rva60481]

Same thing for me since FF 122.0 and 123.0 :

High battery drain, phone and tab overheat when I watch video on Youtube (with ublock) !

I have noticed same thing with my phone and my 2 tablets :

S24 Ultra - Galaxy Tab S9 and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra !

And last thing : Youtube video "lags" (10 FPS max). I have to pause the video and then restart it to get a smooth image...

I'm sure it comes from the last 2 versions of Firefox... nothing with FF 121.0

[rva60481]

I installed Firefox 121.1.0 from Aptoide and no more battery drain with youtube...

Edit : I spoke too fast, battery drain starts again (2000mAh vs 800mAh usually on my S9), but no more lags !

[captain_flint]

What about in general? Does it drain battery with just general browsing the same way F 122 and above does?

[rva60481]

I think so...

But I will continue my research, and I suspect Android 14 compatibility issues with FF 122 and 123.

I will follow the list of developments since version 122

[Votterbin]

I was experiencing the same on my S22 Ultra, went all the way back to v115 and haven't had any issues. I'll wait a few months and see if it's improved at all by that point

[mlargo]

reducing battery drain should be the priority for the mobile teams of firefox!

I understand this takes work to accomplish but please focus on this.

[MythEng]

Same thing happening on my Pixel 6 Pro with version 123.0 and I haven't even opened Firefox this today...

I tried restricting it's battery usage on device but it's still using around 30% of my battery and I may end up having to uninstall it for the time being. 

[Tank]

I just uninstalled and switched to Chrome. I like Firefox better, but the battery drain just kept getting worse it seemed. 37 min battery used with screen on... 6 hours and 37 minutes used in the background. No Bueno.  What is it doing when not in use? Egads...

[Mizar]

Playing Scrabble with itself?🤔

[allabouteve]

It seems like the problem is not limited to Samsung Galaxy phone but Google Pixels are also experiencing the same and I would like to share few more encounters.

I tried Brave and Vivaldi browser because the problem still persists. Both of these browsers are Chromium based and do not provide the Firefox experience, that we all love. I found that adblockers do not work well, even with 97% score on d3ward adblock test and some sites do break!

So I had to return to Firefox and I installed version 123.0 in hope that the issue has now been fixed - It did not!
In fact, today received a notification (screenshot attached) saying Firefox is using system resources extensively which is a surprise because I barely used Firefox all day!

I believe Firefox backgroud processes are upto something - you can check them under Developer Options > Running services or Show cached processes (top right). I have now put the app into Deep Sleep state which seems to fix temporarily but will drain battery when ever you use Firefox!

I request Dev Team to please look into this matter or explain what are those background processes doing..

[AurelionLily]

experiencing the same on pixel7a, went from 85% battery before sleep to 65% in the morning, was curious what caused it and the phone's reporting that firefox was the cause for 55-85% of the drainage per hour for the whole 8 hours

[captain_flint]

Does anyone know if anyone at Firefox is looking into this? Is there a bug report filed with them? I went on the play store and nobody seems to mention about the battery, which is odd as its all over reddit etc. Yesterday it took 46% of my battery with 13 minutes of use!

[sBRB4Q7]

I've also noticed an increase in battery use.

My phone use is very minimal, just browsing mostly static sites, no videostreaming. On my motorola phone (G71 5G) with Android 12 my battery use after a single workday is nigh on 20%! It used to be it used about 10% if I was being conservative or around 13-15% at a max.

Currently it's sitting at 82% from 100% charge after about 7 hours of use. It used to be at around 90,92 or 89-85% in the old versions. It also never used to say Firefox has used 20% battery at the end of a day!

I used to have to charge on the 3rd day of phone use, now I need to charge after 2 dsys because it has used 50% of charge in 2 days!

Mozilla, please fix! Community, please file a bug! TYVM!

[sBRB4Q7]

I forgot to add (Why can't one edit in this forum?) are Firefox for Android derivatives like Fennec or Mull by Divest OS from F-droid affected by this bug?

Could someone check? Thanks in advance!

[allabouteve]

I'm currently using WaterFox which is based on Fenix. So far, i have not seen any abnormal battery usage. In fact, I have been using browser frequently now without the fear of unwanted battery drain.

[tsenovIvam]

My Pixel 6 does the same thing.

I reinstalled Firefox multiple times. I tried without sync, no extensions. Battery settings to restricted. Everything I could think of. 

I had to switch to Vivaldi for now. 

[allabouteve]

I have used vivaldi and it is better than others but even with ublock origin filters, it shows ads on youtube and on certain websites. Give WaterFox browser a try

[allabouteve]

:: Update ::
The issue continue in WaterFox as well. I have tried using it without addons but the battery usage is still high. Clearing cache and data maybe helps a little but im not sure. Ignore the solution below.


:: Temporary Solution ::

After the recent minor update v123.1.0 the issue persists. There are some background process running that Firefox dev team should explain. What are they doing?

However, since browsers like Mull and Iceraven are not available on Play Store and I'm not a fan of side loading apps, I found WaterFox browser to be a great alternative to Firefox. It is based on Fenix and has addon support too. I've been using it with the same addons that I use in Firefox and It has been working perfectly without any battery drain.

[Anonymous]

You can use Firefox without the battery drain issue if you clear data and cache and don't sign in. When you sign in, its done for. Even when force stopping after sign in, it may still start itself back up. (I don't remember testing sign out and probably should as the person above didn't state what happened there.) That equals a very high probability of it being related to sign in / syncing / connectivity stuff but could be a bug as a side effect of doing so.

WaterFox, from what one review states, it seems like the syncing has a problem with it. Its possible that is an explanation as to why the above person isn't seeing the drain. But, that would have to be confirmed. That might also mean that it will see the battery drain in time.

I could build from source and debug it but I have my reasons to not. Did it before years ago and the issue was fixed something like 3-5 years later so its not necessarily worth doing anyway.

Have fun solving it however you each solve it 🙂

[vpsj]

Currently using Firefox v124.1.0 and I'm getting the same battery drain on S23Ultra. I had a OnePlus before that was literally 6 years older and that did not suffer from any battery drain on Firefox.

I suspect it's an Android 14 + Firefox issue (since my OnePlus was on Android 10).

Are there any workarounds? Anything at all? My primary browser on my computer is Firefox so having it on my phone is super convenient since I can just 'resume' from where I left off and/or check my browsing history. It sucks that I am losing a couple of hours of battery life each day even if I am using Firefox less than 10-15 mins on my phone

[hongsj]

My S23U was doing same, onscreen seems normal but background 5% in 1~2min. 

On the other hand, Motorola Think phone with Android 14 showing no symptoms less than 1% for a day, with sync on. 

[Synertic]

I'm experiencing the same on my S24+. It drains so much battery even if I don't use it at all. The issue still persists on v124.