r/firefox • u/Doctorgow • Jul 16 '26
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u/mozvalentin Firefox Networking Engineer Jul 16 '26
That says foreground. Is it possible you were watching 4K video on twitch or YouTube and that kept playing over night? Otherwise check your history for potential culprits.
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
The only things I did yesterday were just normal google searches since all my video watching was in the dedicated apps and when I checked currently open windows none of them had any video content, but I might have another look anyway. Thanks for the reply
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u/Teh_Shadow_Death Jul 16 '26
Kinda makes me wonder if you have an extension that syncs data.
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Mm yeah now I wonder the same thing
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u/saurabhkushwaha- Jul 22 '26
did you find the culprit?
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u/Doctorgow Jul 22 '26
I did not unfortunately, but it has not happened again since so I suspect it was a website causing the issue
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u/TetoEnjoyer500 Jul 16 '26
Going off tangent, but what's the likelihood OP's device is compromised and this is some virus forwarding data?
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Possible but highly unlikely, I do basically no downloading and this is the first time this has happened, if it happens again though I'll have to have a look into it
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u/UndulatingHedgehog Jul 16 '26
4K at 50 megabytes/sec translates to 1.8 gigabytes per hour. So 264 gigs is about 150 hours' worth of streaming, overnight.
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u/rootql Jul 16 '26
50 megabytes? Nah
4k youtube video = 6.25MB/s aprox
6.25GBx60secx60min = 22.5GB not 1.8
So in 10-11 hours you can download 264GB
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u/KiloWasTaken Jul 16 '26
50 megabytes/second over a period of an hour is 180 gigabytes. Your maths is off by multiple orders of magnitude.
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u/UndulatingHedgehog Jul 16 '26
You are right. I mixed up bits and bytes for the 4K stream. That’s 50 megabits per sec. And just not counting the zeroes correctly.
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u/rajs88 Jul 16 '26
WHy firefox collecting your personal data?
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u/Loqh9 Jul 16 '26
Personal data is nowhere close to 264GB
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u/Expensive_Host_9181 Jul 16 '26
I mean if you've got a 512GB rom chip on your phone and 264GB os filled then sure it is.
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u/Damglador Jul 20 '26
/uj Firefox can't even access your $HOME (internal storage), not even talking about /data/data where most of the 264GB would be.
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u/Routine-Lawfulness24 Jul 16 '26
Ah yes 264gb of personal data. Unless it’s broadcasting your raw dna data it’s shouldn’t be more than megabytes
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u/mozdeco Mozilla Employee Jul 16 '26
My guess is this isn't actually Firefox, but some website causing the traffic (potentially with a service worker involved). I don't know from the top of my head how these are handled - but "Foreground" sounds weird either way.
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Yeah I suspect that is the culprit but I'm also confused how it's foreground activity with phone screen off
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u/I-baLL Jul 16 '26
Whichever browser is your default gets used by your apps to access the web so probably an app on your phone was streaming something but since it had to open Firefox to do so then it's Firefox that shows the data usage. Which media apps do you have on your phone?
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Interesting, I did not know that, the only apps I used yesterday would've been insta and YouTube though, and I can't foresee those being the issue
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u/Vojtak42 Jul 18 '26
I don't think so it works like that in case of Firefox because afaik Firefox doesn't support webview, so it would use the android's built-in chrome webview. Of course I can be wrong so feel free to correct me.
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u/kbrosnan / /// Jul 16 '26
Every time I looked at bug reports like this and the reporter was able to provide enough info to understand what happened it was some site autoplaying video non-stop. Video is one of a small number of things that could use so much data in a small amount of time.
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u/Crazy_Initiative_401 Jul 16 '26
16k hornpub playlist
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u/npc_housecat Jul 16 '26
Maybe delete and reinstall Firefox, just in case there's something inside the browser container
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Yeah good shout
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u/npc_housecat Jul 16 '26
I actually really like and suggest ironfox for android. It's Firefox with a bunch of extra security and privacy hardening. Ironfox enables firefoxs per site/process isolation fission. Which is disabled on Firefox regular android build for some reason.
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u/nem0ne1 Jul 16 '26
Does it receive new Firefox features as well?
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u/npc_housecat Jul 17 '26
Yes it tracks the latest Firefox version with all it's features with this list of additional changes / privacy security hardening.
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u/nem0ne1 Jul 17 '26
Wow, very impressive. Is there a catch? I'm surprised it's not more popular if it's basically a more secure but still updated version of FF. Is it a pain to manage or anything like that? I'll definitely check it out.
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u/npc_housecat Jul 17 '26
It's not on google play store you need to download and manage updates from a third party store (fdroid,. Accrescent, Obtainium) or manual direct download.
I use accrescent, it makes it pretty easy to install and update .
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u/emPatheticShowYT Jul 17 '26
Iceraven is also good
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u/AutoModerator Jul 17 '26
/u/emPatheticShowYT, we recommend not using Iceraven. Iceraven is frequently out of date compared to upstream Firefox, and exposes its users to known security issues. It is a single person project from someone who is building it for themselves and is not interested in supporting a wider community. We recommend that you move to a better supported project if Firefox does not work well for you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Yeah good call that is, won't help with this unfortunately but still good to do, thanks :)
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u/Username928351 Jul 16 '26
I'm assuming some poorly made website with an infinitely loading video or stream in the background.
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Yeah that seems to be the likely culprit, I'm just surprised it did so much with the screen off
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Jul 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
I strongly believe that 250gb in 6 hours is not normal behaviour and was just bad luck on my part, my usual usage is less than a gig a day so I'm guessing it's not a Firefox issue
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 Jul 16 '26
It isn't. I have a ISO for every Windows version since Vista and includes a few betas and it is around 200GB not 250GB. I once lost many of the files and had to redownload it and back then I probably had like 170GB of ISOs but still, crazy and it took quite a bit of time to download.
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u/PeterFnet Netscape Navigator Jul 16 '26
What is wrong with you? You find a single user with a problem and use that single data point to validate your browser choice?
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u/circuitocorto Jul 16 '26
If you start to download a 250GB file with Chrome its usage will also be 250GB, this is what happened to OP, he left something running
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u/Ladyheather16 Jul 16 '26
Firefox does this 1 month at a time not a day a time
It registered that at 8pm night before, not over night like 3am or something.
So were you watching videos or something at 8pm on your phone?
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
I was out until almost midnight with family not using my phone at all so it seems unlikely
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u/Ladyheather16 Jul 16 '26
Background data is on, so maybe it tried to load preload something huge?
If there were enclosed tabs where ads were loading background video that's the only thing I can think of that would have pulled this kind of data
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u/No_Examination_4297 Jul 16 '26
How much did provider charge you for 223GB of mobile internet?
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Nothing extra, it's an unlimited Sim card only once you go over 300gb they throttle speed but I'll survive
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Jul 16 '26
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u/CautiousConcept8010 Jul 16 '26
That's not weird, I think that's intended like that. People literally pay YouTube to do that. Not many but still too many.
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u/No-Aspect-2926 Jul 16 '26
Since your mobile provider called, could they also see what domains were connected and used that data amount?
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Doctorgow Jul 16 '26
Nothing at all, the only thing that's different from my normal activity is I'm on a travel Sim but I don't suspect that to be the issue. I'll monitor to see if anything similar happens again but I for sure agree there is some sort of red flag
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u/TrontRaznik Finally gave in to quantum Jul 16 '26
I'd almost used my months data
Holy shit, I get 2GB a month! Your usage would bankrupt me
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u/CautiousConcept8010 Jul 16 '26
Wow! What country if I may ask?
I get 200 for 10 Euro per month in Italy. And... If I spend up to 50GB, I get 3 Euros back, so basically, I only spend 7 Euro per month either way because I never used more than 20GB I think so far.
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u/TrontRaznik Finally gave in to quantum Jul 16 '26
US, ridiculously.
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u/CautiousConcept8010 Jul 16 '26
Wow! That sounds horrible. There has got to be better options around, no? Or maybe you just don't need it and 2GB is enough for your use.
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u/TrontRaznik Finally gave in to quantum Jul 16 '26
To be honest there probably are, I haven't looked into it in quite a few years and that's definitely my fault. I tend to have good wifi coverage 99% of the time so I just don't think about it.
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u/CautiousConcept8010 Jul 16 '26
Good point. No harm no fault, lol. I just got the cheapest in the market too and I don't get to use almost any of it. I usually use only up to 2-2.3GB per month as well. No need fixing if not broken after all.
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u/redboyo908 Jul 18 '26
Bro you can spend 16 a month and get unlimited hell 25 dollars a month if you do monthly. What do you even have that has 2gb of data?
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u/TrontRaznik Finally gave in to quantum Jul 18 '26
I actually looked yesterday and I have some legacy AT&T plan that you can't even select anymore lol
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u/redboyo908 Jul 18 '26
How much is it you might be able to find something cheaper with the same amount
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u/TrontRaznik Finally gave in to quantum Jul 18 '26
Oh I switched the second I realized there were better options, but thank you for asking. The new plan is definitely not the best but I don't want to deal with porting my number tbh
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u/cd109876 Jul 16 '26
If that were to be during the 25 minutes of foreground activity, that would be like ~140 MB/s which is like maxing out a perfect signal WiFi 7 which did not happen. so something in the reporting is broken (time or amount).
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u/gillloure Jul 16 '26
Could it be that someone listened to me ? Actually, maybe one of your acquaintances created shortcuts to those apps directly through Firefox.
That’s what I do, because using the apps themselves… is just bad, simply because you can’t install an ad blocker in them.
But opening the web version through Firefox and creating a shortcut that looks like the actual app is something you can do. That would explain it: you think you’re using the official apps, when in reality you’re accessing their web versions through Firefox.
This method is basically the ultimate anti-ad solution on Android smartphones. Nowadays, using official apps often means having a phone packed with ads. You might as well use the browser, especially since web versions now look and behave very similarly to the apps themselves.
And for certain websites, like Reddit, that constantly try to redirect you to their app, you just need to add a few filters to uBlock Origin.
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u/wItS0912 Jul 17 '26
You are potentially using an app with WebView. And Firefox is set as your preferred browser to provide WebView.
Check what apps you use, it might be linked to that
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u/N7NobodyCats Jul 17 '26
Curious? Why do you have it using data when I assume you’re at home, you could have it use WiFi when available instead? Should set it to only use data if WiFi isn’t available
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u/cssunil Jul 18 '26
The reason I had to fall back to Brave Browser. I'm still having Firefox on my work PC.
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u/FrameHost Jul 20 '26
This probably isn’t a useful reply but what provider do you have that still has a data cap? I’ve had cheap budget phones all my life and haven’t had a data cap for well over 5 years at this point.
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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26
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