PerfChaser

The extension lets you examine the resource usage of Firefox. It tracks the CPU load and memory usage of each used process. Hereby the currently used resources are displayed in a sidebar, on for each window.

Please note that the extension is still in early development. That means feedback for noticable issues, or missing features is wanted.

Install

Because PerfChaser makes use of WebExtension Experiments it cannot be signed by addons.mozilla.org.

As such the following preferences have to be set via about:config before installing the XPI:

• xpinstall.signatures.required = false
• extensions.experiments.enabled = true

Afterward the extension can be installed via about:addons by clicking the gear icon, and selecting Install Add-on From File, or by dragging XPI onto a browser window.

Note that only Firefox Nightly and Firefox Developer Edition support the installation of WebExtension Experiments.

Temporary Installation

In case you want to just test the extension without having it permanently installed open about:debugging and select This Nightly or This Firefox on the left side. From there you can select the manifest.rdf file via Load Temporary Add-on....

Note that you also have to set extensions.experiments.enabled to true first, but no changes to xpinstall.signatures.required are required. Now the extension will kept installed until Firefox gets closed or restarted.

Contribution

Everyone is welcome to contribute to the project. It doesn't matter if it's as a user of the extension and reporting issues, or when you want to even fix bugs and implement new features.

Development

When modifying the code of the extension it is adviced to make use of the web-ext Node.js package. Running Firefox through it will make sure that changes to the code are automatically picked-up, and the extension reloaded in the current Firefox instance.

Use the following command to start Firefox Nightly with the extension running:

npm run start:firefox -- --firefox=nightly

Building the XPI

There is also a npm script that builds the XPI file:

npm run build

Note: Due to the above restrictions signing the extension is not possible yet.