Whonix is slower than Debian?

Hello. I compared Whonix and Debian XFCE in VirtualBox and found that Debian is faster.
In addition, in Debian my system does not freeze if I open many tab in browsers - Chromium, Firefox. Whonix freezes. My tests took place on the same system in equal settings: the number of processor cores, RAM, disable swap for Debian.
I do not want to say bad things about Whonix. I’m just trying to find out why. Perhaps the reason is the additional security settings?

Something else. I am using VirtualBox 6.0.10 for Whonix (I read the BIOS warning). I want to upgrade guest add-ons to 6.0.10. Will such an update have any security risks (other than bios), or will it violate the Whonix architecture? Thanks.

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Could you be more specific. What were you comparing. Faster how? Tor Browser? Whonix does not alter Tor Browser.

https://whonix.org/wiki/Why_is_Tor_slow#Whonix_.E2.84.A2_has_Slowed_Tor_Connections_Dramatically.21

You can’t compare Chromium , and Firefox to Tor Browser.

https://whonix.org/wiki/Why_is_Tor_slow

Whonix consists of two VMs. Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation. Did you test with two Debain VMs in unison? You can’t really comparing a vanilla Debian VM with Whonix.

It would be helpful to post the bios warning.

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I compared the speed of Chromium, Firefox, and other programs on Debian and Whonix. On Debian browsers and other programs work without freezing even if multiple copies and many tabs are open. I mean that after the end of all free RAM, Debian starts to work slowly, but if you close some kind of program to free up RAM, everything again works wonderfully. In Whonix, if all free RAM is used up, it is dead frozen. I can’t close any program to free up RAM. Only close the virtual machine using the host os.

I did not compare the speed of Internet connections. I understand that tor-network works slowly.

I mean the bios warning that is written in the Whonix-Wiki: Why Use KVM Over VirtualBox? Sorry I cant post link. I just know that Patrick is very responsible and will give a link to this warning. Please do not pay attention to this.

My question about guest add-ons still is relevant. May I upgrade my guest add-on without security risk?

S1mple via Whonix Forum:

Sorry I cant post link.

Remove https://www. or whatever from the link. And/or remove dots “.
from the link.

“violate the Whonix architecture”

Whonix doesn’t have any specifics that would care about guest additions.

If installed outside Debian package sources, yes, see Install Additional Software Safely

Could be some setting for sure. Let’s hope its not something in GitHub - Kicksecure/security-misc: Kernel Hardening; Protect Linux User Accounts against Brute Force Attacks; Improve Entropy Collection; Strong Linux User Account Separation; Enhances Misc Security Settings - https://www.kicksecure.com/wiki/Security-misc. Probably not, since similar reports were done earlier.

Culprit could be /etc/sysctl.d/swappiness-lowest.conf.

https://github.com/Whonix/swappiness-lowest/blob/master/etc/sysctl.d/swappiness-lowest.conf

To try without it…

Delete the file.

sudo rm /etc/sysctl.d/swappiness-lowest.conf

And reboot.