Slow Scrolling in Firefox in Pages With Fixed Backgrounds

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I have a unique problem with my firefox – and as far as I know I am the only one who has this issue. Firefox is very slow to scroll pages that has a fixed background image. Ajaxian is an example of such a site. This problem exists in all profiles of Firefox(not a extension issue) – but it works without any issue in other browsers – like Konqueror. Does anyone else have this issue?

This problem is only present in my desktop – a Fedora 8/KDE with Firefox 3.0.8 – with nVidia drivers installed. No issues on my laptop(Kubuntu). I still have no idea what’s causing this. But I did solve the issue.

Greasemonkey Script

I created a greasemonkey script that disables fixed background anywhere in the page. Changes all fixed background images to normal background image(scrolls with the page). Here is the script if anyone has the same issue.

Fixed Background Remover Greasemonkey User Script

Remember, this is a beta version – let me know if you find any issues with the script.

15 comments

  1. Hi Binny,
    I too have the same problem with Firefox/Iceweasel on Debian Lenny. Gmail is also slow in scrolling while the chat window is open.
    the same in Epiphany which also uses Gecko.

  2. I have the same problem. I was surprised that I didn’t happen to uncover a bug report of any kind when searching Google for this…hmm.

  3. Glad to see this is not an ancient issue. Working with Artisteer, builds great sites, but whenever using a background image (already trimmed back to only 50Kb) scrolling becomes a horrible adventure – not only when using a fixed background. As soon as the top-image (kind of glare) rolls in, everything messes up and becomes slow.

    Knowing the Mozilla boys, it will be fixed soon … I hope.

  4. Just wanted to say “me too”. From scanning the google results, it looks like it might be an NVIDIA issue. Thanks much for the script!

  5. Edit> Preferences > Advanced

    Unclick the Smooth Scrolling Box on the General tab

    It’s a known bug mozilla is working on

  6. By the way, chrome has that problem too.

    No wonder… Ordinary scrolling means “I have rendered the page, now I have to shift the image”. With a fixed background, rerendering is needed (or so I guess).

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