Firefox suddenly starts downloading data

ww1000 · 2017-12-22 20:12:03

I noticed a lot of network activity when I wasn't doing anything. Upon investigating this, it turns out that Firefox was downloading data. However, I wasn't doing any browsing. There were no active downloads. I am able to reproduce this by taking these steps:

- I fully close Firefox. No active Firefox process is present.
- I open a new private Firefox session (firefox --private)
- Without opening any website, with the browser showing the regular welcome tab, there is a large spike in network connectivity

Using nethogs this is what I see:

https://i.imgur.com/Wf37COu.png

All those local network addresses and random ports pop up after starting Firefox, and they close down shortly after. It must have something to do with this. But why would Firefox initiate this traffic? Remember I have not opened any website at this point and no extensions are loaded (private window). Any ideas?

Last edited by jasonwryan (2017-12-22 20:32:13)

jasonwryan · 2017-12-22 20:32:47

Read the Code of Conduct and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cod … s_and_code
And don't post screenshots of textual output, paste the actual text.

Moving to NC...

seth · 2017-12-22 22:10:01

looks like the webservice of your router (or whatever is 192.168.8.1)
If you want to know what's transferred, use wireshark.

nbd · 2017-12-23 01:52:01

Check in your Firefox profile folder for the recently created big files. Most likely it's a cache of some site database/filter.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-12-22 20:12:03

Firefox suddenly starts downloading data

#2 2017-12-22 20:32:47

Re: Firefox suddenly starts downloading data

#3 2017-12-22 22:10:01

Re: Firefox suddenly starts downloading data

#4 2017-12-23 01:52:01

Re: Firefox suddenly starts downloading data

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