The current Firefox release creates content processes with very long and ugly commands. Here’s an example, as reported by ‘ps’ on my Linux64 machine (with wrapping to make it show up entirely on your screen):

/home/njn/moz/mi8/o64/dist/bin/firefox -contentproc -childID 2 -isForBrowser -in tPrefs 6:50|7:-1|20:0|35:1000|43:20|44:5|45:10|52:0|58:128|59:10000|64:0|66:400| 67:1|68:0|69:0|70:100|75:0|76:120|77:120|162:2|163:1|167:60|168:30|169:512000|17 8:5000|180:6|194:8192|195:524288|196:5|209:10000|230:24|231:32768|233:0|234:0|24 3:5|247:1048576|249:100|250:5000|252:600|253:4|254:1|262:20|279:4|291:60000|309: 300|310:30| -boolPrefs 1:0|2:0|4:1|5:1|25:1|28:1|29:1|30:1|32:1|33:1|34:1|37:1|3 8:1|39:1|42:1|46:1|47:0|48:0|49:1|50:1|51:1|53:0|56:1|57:1|60:1|61:0|62:0|63:0|6 5:0|71:1|72:1|73:1|74:1|78:1|79:1|80:0|81:0|82:1|83:1|84:1|85:1|86:1|89:0|90:0|9 3:1|94:1|98:1|99:1|100:0|101:1|102:1|103:1|104:0|105:0|107:0|108:0|109:1|110:1|1 11:1|114:1|115:1|116:1|117:1|118:1|119:0|120:0|121:1|122:0|123:0|124:1|125:1|126 :0|127:1|128:1|129:0|131:1|132:0|133:0|134:1|135:1|136:0|137:0|138:0|139:1|140:1 |141:1|142:1|143:0|144:1|145:1|146:1|147:1|148:1|149:1|150:0|151:1|152:1|153:0|1 54:1|155:0|156:0|157:0|158:1|159:1|160:1|161:1|164:1|165:0|172:1|175:0|176:0|177 :1|181:0|183:1|184:0|185:1|187:1|189:0|190:0|193:0|197:1|198:0|199:1|200:1|201:0 |204:1|208:1|210:1|211:0|213:1|216:0|228:0|229:0|232:1|235:0|237:1|238:1|240:1|2 41:0|248:1|251:1|256:0|257:0|258:0|259:1|260:1|261:0|266:1|269:1|270:1|271:1|272 :1|273:1|274:0|275:1|281:1|284:0|285:1|286:1|287:0|288:1|289:1|290:1|292:0|293:0 |295:1|304:1|305:1|306:0|307:0|308:0| -stringPrefs 3:7;default|215:3;1.0|226:332 ; ¼½¾ǃː??։֊׃״؉؊٪۔܁܂܃܄ᅟᅠ᜵ ???‐ ’․‧??????? ‹›⁁⁄⁒ ⅓⅔⅕⅖⅗⅘⅙⅚?⅜⅝⅞⅟∕∶⎮╱⧶⧸⫻⫽> ⿰⿱⿲⿳⿴⿵⿶⿷⿸⿹⿺⿻ 。〔〕〳゠ㅤ㈝㈞㎮㎯㏆㏟꞉︔︕︿﹝﹞?．／｡ﾠ???￼�|227:4; high|280:36;97c47c17-80b5-497c-b5ee-1c5db2d06af6| -schedulerPrefs 0001,2 -appdir /home/njn/moz/mi8/o64/dist/bin/browser 4500 true tab

That’s 1733 characters! Most of it is for three flags, called -intPrefs , -boolPrefs , and -stringPrefs , which are used to pass values of prefs that are required very early in the content process’s existence, before the first normal IPC message is received. These pref values are encoded compactly, but there are enough of them that they make the command quite long.

Furthermore, there is one pref ( network.IDN.blacklist_chars ) that contains a bunch of unusual characters. That explains the gobbledygook on the 4th and 3rd last lines. Unsurprisingly, this gobbledygook was reported as a bug… which has been duplicated five times.

The good news is that I recently fixed this, by changing things so that only pref values that have changed since startup get passed in this way. (Content processes are able to see the startup values, and so don’t need to be told them.) On my machine and profile, this reduces the number of pref values passed via the command from ~222 to ~3. It also reduces the number sent later via IPC from ~3165 to ~180.

The command now looks like this:

/home/njn/local/install/firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 4 -isForBrowser -b oolPrefs 37:1|235:1|257:1|294:1| -stringPrefs 280:36;8bdf7a6e-d39a-494c-b55a-829 2c4fc6254| -schedulerPrefs 0001,2 -greomni /home/njn/local/install/firefox/omni. ja -appomni /home/njn/local/install/firefox/browser/omni.ja -appdir /home/njn/lo cal/install/firefox/browser 3237 true tab

That’s 361 characters, all of them ASCII. Much better! And I have a plan to reduce things even further.

This change is in Firefox 60, which is on track to be released around May 9th.