How did Isolated Web Co get into my running processes?

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1 
# ps -A | grep lated
 297235 ?        02:34:04 Isolated Web Co
 297320 ?        00:00:00 Isolated Web Co
 297353 ?        00:00:00 Isolated Web Co
 297455 ?        00:14:44 Isolated Web Co
 328254 ?        00:00:01 Isolated Web Co
# /memfd:mozilla-ipc (deleted)
25055

Absent wc, there are a lot of /memfd:mozilla-ipc (deleted) lines. I know of no app by such name. killall 'Isolated Web Co' got it out of process list without killing any open Mozilla apps. Being fishy looking it could be important to know where it came from, right? But, how to find out?

2

How? easy … I did a “web search” for the term:

Isolated Web Co

There are endless posts (all over the web, not an openSUSE thing) about this going back to 2021.
Apparently a Firefox / Mozilla thing.
And of course, folks are complaining about CPU usage, etc.

3

Try:

ps -p 297235 -f

For me it is Firefox.

4

I did that, but trouble with unhelpful initial hits got me sidetracked onto SeaMonkey not providing about:processes as Firefox does, and hunger, then forgot to finish looking at hits before coming here. :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Me? I’m just poking some fun … I’m well-aware of your knowledge and contribution out here :+1:

Oddly, there appears to be a couple of posts at different Github sites about this issue that haven’t been Resolved. (nope, I don’t use FF).

6

I’ve noticed this too … I think it may be a “sandbox/tabgroup” thing so the browser can isolate tabs and/or mem usage … I use tab groups a lot so I can collapse them and they don’t clutter up my tab bar

7

Definitely a Firefox thing, if you happen to be using Gnome, in Gnome System Monitor those processes are clearly marked with the Firefox icon
Screenshot From 2026-08-08 00-23-09
and going into “process detail > command line” shows something like:

/usr/lib64/firefox/firefox -contentproc -isForBrowser -prefsHandle 0:33988 -prefMapHandle 1:291492 -jsInitHandle 2:156236 -parentBuildID 20260727124451 -sandboxReporter 3 -chrootClient 4 -ipcHandle 5 -initialChannelId {28c5db55-95d7-4539-b48b-98d193553b60} -parentPid 4599 -crashHelperPid 4693 -crashHelper 6 -crashReporter 7 -greomni /usr/lib64/firefox/omni.ja -appomni /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/omni.ja -appDir /usr/lib64/firefox/browser 5 tab

That to answer the “where they are coming from” question. If you need more technical detail I guess you have to ask the Mozilla devs?

8

Or maybe about:memory might be useful

Screenshot_20260807_173525
Screenshot_20260807_1735251920Ă—1080 347 KB

1 Like
9

Except here it couldn’t have come from Firefox today here, only SeaMonkey (two separate instances; version released 20260728), or possibly Palemoon (which I doubt).

10

Well on the SeaMonkey site I read

Under the hood, SeaMonkey uses much of the same Mozilla Firefox source code

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11

SeaMonkey is a fork of an older version of firefox as is palemoon which uses a different rendering engine … but they are still firefox … much like chrome, chromium, brave are all chromium underneath

12

isolated web co
isolated web co727Ă—536 64.3 KB

13

I’d check by finding the PID first…
ps -ef | grep -i seamonkey
then
pstree -ap <seamonkey-pid>
to get all the associated child processes.

Or work backwards to get the parent of the “offending” child process?
ps -o pid,ppid,comm,args -p <child PID>

14

If you can do about:whatever it’s firefox … if you can do chrome://flags, brave://flags, edge://flags etc … it’s chromium … you really don’t have any other choices with the possible exception of ladybird which is still alpha so I haven’t played with that (yet)

Just for fun try about:about :nerd_face:

15

I stand by my original assessment … “it’s a sandbox/mem usage thing” so one crashed tab doesn’t take down the whole browser … “Isolated Web Co” is just an unfortunate name … I wouldn’t worry about it too much … just group tabs and collapse them when not in use … without that I would have 30 tabs open at any given time

16

It is perhaps intended to be “Isolated Web Content”.

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17

Firefox is the fork — of an ancient version of the Mozilla (Application/Web) Suite, which was derived from Netscape Navigator on its going open source last century. Mozilla is the suite’s name that preceded SeaMonkey after the forkers in control at Mozilla Foundation made apparent they wanted the suite to die, changing its flagship product from Mozilla Suite to Firefox. Mozilla was several weeks from announcing 1.0 around the time FF 0.8 was built. Mozilla was at 1.7.3 when Firefox 1.0 was released, and changed name to SeaMonkey after 1.7.13 release.

The FF fork was so long ago that FF and SM have grown massively different, on account of a dearth of devs interested in the benefits of the integrated suite concept and product enough to help keep it alive.

I’ve been using Netscape’s line as primary web browser and exclusive email client since before introducing myself to Linux, starting with the OS/2 version 2.02 of Netscape, prior to the release of the Windows milestone 98SE. I use FF so little that at nearly every open it announces a new release is available. Most of what SM can’t handle I use Chromium for, though Chromium’s UI is just about as bad as FF’s imitations of it have been.

18

That’s how they are enumerated by pstree.

2 Likes
19

Not sure how the history lesson relates to your opening post question?

1 Like
20

Explains why FF feature about:processes web searches turned up as a “mozilla” fix is missing from SM.