Opera Hijacked? - Why so many processes

[plewis6]

plewis6 last edited by

Starting Opera on Windows 10 with only 1 default tab immediately creates 19 processes in Windows Task Manger - one of which uses over 2 GB of memory and very high power (killing this process has no visible effect on Opera - but it restarts within 5 minutes). Opening Opera Task Manager does not show all those processes. In fact almost all appear to be hidden somehow (see pic below with side by side comparison of the 2 task managers and all the extra PIDs that don't show in OTM). Is there a way to see all the URL's that are related to the Windows Task Manager processes? I suspect some sort of hijack - but I have reinstalled Opera - so not sure how the hijack could take place? No browser extensions running.

Could really use some good ideas on tackling this - please help!

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by

How many extensions do you have? Which of the various messenger apps do you use in the sidebar?

[plewis6]

plewis6 @sgunhouse last edited by

@sgunhouse - you can see in the Opera Task Manager that I have 3 extensions (Honey, Cisco and Lastpass). I don't think those are causing issues, but I can disable

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @plewis6 last edited by

@plewis6 Maybe just some previous processes that weren't closed? Turn off the computer, turn it on again, start Opera and check if that same amount of processes is opened.

[plewis6]

plewis6 @leocg last edited by

Yes I did a reboot and still had the same. Any reason why there is such a difference between the two Task Managers (Windows and Opera)? Shouldn't they report the same PIDs? Seems strange that Windows shows over 2 GB of memory activity inside of Opera but opera doesn't report anywhere near the same.

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by

We can't actually make out any details in your picture there. Sync will be another process, checking News if that's enabled.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @plewis6 last edited by

@plewis6 I've found the same behavior on Chrome Canary, so I guess that is a Chromium thing. Maybe it has some hidden processes that are not listed in its own task manager.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by burnout426

If you close Opera and launch it with the --show-component-extension-options command-line switch and goto opera://extensions, you'll see that Opera has a lot of built-in, component extensions that can use processes. Also, some of the sidebar apps (like the messenger ones) use extra processes if they've ever been activated. Also, Chromium now separates all kinds of things on a page into separate processes. So, depending on the page, expect to have more than one process per tab.

In short, the number of processes seems fine to me. The 2GB use of the main browser process seems weird though. What version of Opera are you using? Opera 67 might be a little buggy right now.

[plewis6]

plewis6 last edited by

oh ok, I'll try those command line launch options. I'm currently running Version: 67.0.3575.52

[dahook]

dahook last edited by

All those ad process that terminate and stay resident create processes in Opera. I currently have processes that are subframes from google, squareup, openx.net, doubleclick.net, demdex.net, rfihub.com, googlesyndication.com, and doubleverify.com. I often see others, like facebook.com, rubiconproject.com, addthis.com. You can terminate those processes in Opera without losing much functionality, but you might get logged out of your GMail.