Mozilla Firefox users could improve the performance of the web browser by disabling Accessibility Services. Apparently, a newly discovered Memory Leak bug is causing the browser to lag on Windows PCs as well as Android.
Some Firefox web browsers users could be experiencing performance lag. It seems Accessibility Services has a bug that preventing the browser from functioning optimally.
A new bug suggests Firefox’s Accessibility Service has a memory leak resulting in poor performance:
A newly discovered bug is now part of the Bugzilla@Mozilla reporting, tracking, and resolution platform. The bug, reported late last week, suggests Mozilla Firefox suffers from a memory leak issue.
Some users suspect the primary culprit behind the memory leak issue is Accessibility Services. The bug notes the memory leak is severe and causes performance degradation. However, owing to Firefox’s memory management services running in the background, the bug’s effects are visible primarily on heavy web pages.
#Firefox #Accessibility Service Memory Leak
Via Bugzilla:https://t.co/3pyJzdf2ps pic.twitter.com/J1XkheOAd5
— CK's Technology News (@CKsTechNews) August 22, 2021
Needless to mention, Accessibility Services are an important component of any software or application. Usually, “Assistive software”, some extensions, and other tools that help the differently-abled need Accessibility Services running in the background.
Such services may stop working if the users intentionally disable the feature in the Firefox web browser. In other words, only sole users of the web browser should only change the settings of Accessibility Services.
worked for me, bit of a performance boost to turn this one hidden setting off
Why does disabling Accessibility Services improve memory usage? : firefox https://t.co/H6Ep9I0s3B
— Dash Trudeau (@DashTrudeau) August 24, 2021
With the statutory warning mentioned, it is important to note that several Firefox web browser users have claimed that disabling Accessibility Services significantly improves performance. However, some have claimed that disabling the same has no effect.
Simply put, Mozilla Firefox does suffer from a Memory Leak issue. Accessibility Services may be the root cause of the issue, but Mozilla is yet to complete its own analysis of the bug.
How to disable Accessibility Services in Mozilla Firefox:
Given how important Accessibility Services are for many users but users with no physical limitations do not need the same, Mozilla recently enacted a policy. The organization removed options to control the desktop browser’s accessibility settings from the preferences.
Firefox Tip: turn off accessibility services to improve performance #firefox #mozilla #tiphttps://t.co/nNWrRBXbRw pic.twitter.com/ho8SxNG7WU
— ghacksnews (@ghacks) August 25, 2021
Nonetheless, Mozilla offers the About:Config and About:Support page within Firefox. These are settings pages that only experienced users should visit. Users can disable the Accessibility Services from about:config.
It is presently not clear how the Memory Leak issue is linked with Accessibility Services. Nonetheless, sole users of Mozilla Firefox can head over to about:support and scroll down to the Accessibility section. If Accessibility Services is disabled, there will be ‘False’ mentioned.
I say the same thing all the time about the "Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser" option in Firefox. Make it hard to turn off accessibility features.
— Dr. Kate Deibel Refuses to Make Bigotry Accessible (@metageeky) July 31, 2020
To deactivate Accessibility Services, load about:config, search for accessibility.force_disabled and change the preference to 1 (default is 0). Restart the browser. In the Android version of Firefox, disable the ‘Text Sizing’ feature.