We're Building Something New – We'd Like Your Input
Hey everyone,
I'm Tyler, PM for Firefox Performance. Lately, resource usage (CPU & RAM) and better tab management have become some of the most prominent topics in this community; to help address these, we're building an interface that gives you more transparency and control over resource usage, especially as dozens (or even hundreds 😉) of tabs accumulate.
We'd like your input while it's still taking shape.
What We're Building (as seen on the Firefox Public Roadmap)
Resource Monitor: a sidebar panel that shows RAM and CPU usage per tab, grouped by site, sorted automatically by cost to your device. From there, you can unload or close a tab (or group of tabs) to reclaim resources.
🔍Check out the screenshot below to see what we have so far.
The goal of Resource Monitor is to empower you to take decisive action without needing to break your browsing flow. This is what differentiates RM from about:processes today: sidebar persistence, tab-level focus, in-line & bulk action buttons. We have several exciting ideas in the pipeline for V2+, but this is the heart of Resource Monitor: lightweight transparency and actionability.
What We Want to Know
We're still in development, which means this is the right moment for your input to actually influence the shape of this shiny new thing we're crafting.
Our prepared questions:
- When the browser starts dragging: what do you actually want to know first? Which tab is the problem, which site, or just a general "how can I un-slow this thing" recommendation? Something else?
- Unload vs. close: which matters more to you in the moment? Unloading saves resources while keeping the tab; close is more permanent, but makes the tab list leaner. Curious which flow people prefer.
- How frequently would you use a tool like this? e.g. one or more times/session, only when something starts to feel off, etc.
Anything else:
Feel free to share any other thoughts or feedback. I'll be watching this thread in the coming weeks. Closely 👀.
Lastly, I'll update this thread as Resource Monitor progresses and lands in Nightly. Thanks for weighing in – our community is a big part of what keeps us moving in the right direction.
Stay cool out there,-Tyler
P.S. I'll be at this week's community call. Stop by if you want to hear more on this.
