top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint
system:

Isolated Web Co
Privileged Cont

ps aux doesn't list them.

Does anyone know what these might be?

On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 -0000 (UTC), Bob Tennent wrote:

> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint system:
>
> Isolated Web Co
> Privileged Cont
>
> ps aux doesn't list them.

“ps -ef” will show all processes, though the names might not match.

For example, on my current system I see a process with PID 3432 at the top
of the “top” listing with name “Isolated Web Co”.

When I do “ps -fp 3432”, the CMD part of the listing begins “/usr/lib/
firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 7 ...”

These are Firefox processes.

On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 +0000, Bob Tennent wrote:

> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint
> system:
>
> Isolated Web Co
> Privileged Cont
>
> ps aux doesn't list them.
>
> Does anyone know what these might be?

They appear to be threads/processes run by firefox.

--
Lew Pitcher
"In Skills We Trust"

On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 01:02:52 +0000, Lew Pitcher wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 +0000, Bob Tennent wrote:
>
>> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint
>> system:
>>
>> Isolated Web Co
>> Privileged Cont
>>
>> ps aux doesn't list them.
>>
>> Does anyone know what these might be?
>
> They appear to be threads/processes run by firefox.

You can observe them a bit better with pstree:

root@wordsworth:~# pstree | more
init-+-CallNotice
|-VisualCallNotic-+-VisualCallNotic
| `-mosquitto_sub
:
|-firefox-bin-+-9*[Isolated Web Co-+-{HTML5 Parser}]
| | |-{IPC I/O Child}]
| | |-{ImageBridgeChld}]
| | |-{ImageIO}]
: : :
| | |-{TaskCon~ller #6}]
| | |-{TaskCon~ller #7}]
| | |-{Timer}]
| | `-{Worker Launcher}]
| |-Privileged Cont-+-{HTML5 Parser}
| | |-{IPC I/O Child}
| | |-{ImageBridgeChld}
| | |-{ImageIO}
etc

--
Lew Pitcher
"In Skills We Trust"

On 18/01/2024 00:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 -0000 (UTC), Bob Tennent wrote:
>
>> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint system:
>>
>> Isolated Web Co
>> Privileged Cont
>>
>> ps aux doesn't list them.
>
> “ps -ef” will show all processes, though the names might not match.
>
> For example, on my current system I see a process with PID 3432 at the top
> of the “top” listing with name “Isolated Web Co”.
>
> When I do “ps -fp 3432”, the CMD part of the listing begins “/usr/lib/
> firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 7 ...”
>
> These are Firefox processes.

+1. They seem normal, but no idea what they do.

--
"Corbyn talks about equality, justice, opportunity, health care, peace,
community, compassion, investment, security, housing...."
"What kind of person is not interested in those things?"

"Jeremy Corbyn?"

On 2024-01-18 12:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 18/01/2024 00:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 -0000 (UTC), Bob Tennent wrote:
>>
>>> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint system:
>>>
>>>    Isolated Web Co
>>>    Privileged Cont
>>>
>>> ps aux doesn't list them.
>>
>> “ps -ef” will show all processes, though the names might not match.
>>
>> For example, on my current system I see a process with PID 3432 at the
>> top
>> of the “top” listing with name “Isolated Web Co”.
>>
>> When I do “ps -fp 3432”, the CMD part of the listing begins “/usr/lib/
>> firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 7 ...”
>>
>> These are Firefox processes.
>
> +1. They seem normal, but no idea what they do.

FF divides tabs processing on several of those. It is the method used
for parallelization of FF.

You can kill one of those that has a high CPU impact, and you see a
bunch of tabs crash. I do that sometimes. A simple click reloads those
that you want or all.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 1/18/24 15:05, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2024-01-18 12:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 18/01/2024 00:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:25 -0000 (UTC), Bob Tennent wrote:
>>>
>>>> top shows the following processes running on my Linux Mint system:
>>>>
>>>>    Isolated Web Co
>>>>    Privileged Cont
>>>>
>>>> ps aux doesn't list them.
>>>
>>> “ps -ef” will show all processes, though the names might not match.
>>>
>>> For example, on my current system I see a process with PID 3432 at
>>> the top
>>> of the “top” listing with name “Isolated Web Co”.
>>>
>>> When I do “ps -fp 3432”, the CMD part of the listing begins “/usr/lib/
>>> firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 7 ...”
>>>
>>> These are Firefox processes.
>>
>> +1. They seem normal, but no idea what they do.
>
> FF divides tabs processing on several of those. It is the method used
> for parallelization of FF.
>

I think it's actually used for fault isolation. It prefers to create one
process per tab or per site until a maximum number of processes is
reached, and then they start to share.

> You can kill one of those that has a high CPU impact, and you see a
> bunch of tabs crash. I do that sometimes. A simple click reloads those
> that you want or all.
>

You can also type about:processes in the URL bar to see which websites
those are, and kill them from there.

On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 15:05:38 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> You can kill one of those that has a high CPU impact, and you see a
> bunch of tabs crash. I do that sometimes.

Yup, done that, too. Sometimes after a tab has been open for days on
end. ;)

> A simple click reloads those that you want or all.

Firefox itself will give you a readable summary of what its tasks/
processes are up to, in “Tools → Browser Tools → Task Manager” which,
funnily enough, opens a window called “Process Manager”.