I’m testing Tail 4.6 on a fairly speedy 32 GB USB 2.0 pen drive. When loading multiple script-heavy websites on the bundled Tor browser or editing moderately-sized images with the bundled Gimp editor, the system quickly slows down, often to a point where it gets stuck in a permanent “overload cycle” indefinitely (mouse cursor gets stuck for a few seconds, moves again, gets stuck again etc.) or even slows down to a complete and permanent freeze, both usually requiring a forced reboot. How can this be allowed to happen? I understand that the USB connection can be a bottleneck between Tails running on the stick and the host’s CPU, RAM etc. that is uses. But shouldn’t system stability have absolute god-like priority over any possible app that might be running? How can a puny web browser or image editor be allowed to compromise the stability of the entire system, isn’t this a catastrophic flaw in the OS (and possibly a security risk)? Is there a way for the user to set a hard limit on the resources non-essential programs can use?
PS.: I’m experiencing a similar behaviour with the Android Tor browser on my mobile phone. It frequently consumes most of the CPU/RAM (heavy lagging when scrolling etc.) – until I simply cut the data connection, which immediately frees up CPU/RAM. Is this normal behaviour or could this be malware-related?
