Firefox Memory Issue

[brownsfan019 17]

I am running Firefox 3.0.5 and at times, I can have some serious memory usage issues on FF. I can easily push mem usage over 200k and can get over 500k at times. Only way for me to fix this currently is to kill Firefox through Task Manager and reboot it. And that is a temp fix.

 

I've read there could be memory leaks and/or add-on issues that could cause this.

 

Here's my add-ons:

 

 

 

I've done my best to keep the add-ons to a minimum and would like to keep those if possible.

 

I've also done a few things listed here - http://www.detector-pro.com/2008/04/how-to-fix-firefox-memory-leak-problem.html

 

 

The computer that I have this issue on is one where I will keep multiple FF windows open. This is my 'junk' computer and I keep windows open that I want to look at later sometimes. Maybe the fix is just close the windows and bookmark them or something but was hoping there was a way around this if possible.

[atto 20]

I'm a self-admitted tab whore (I have 22 open now, for example), and it's running at about 240mb memory, so I don't think yours is too out of whack. Flash videos and large images will definitely bump that up (as there's a buffer in memory). A large reason for the high memory usage of modern browsers, imho, is that memory is cheap these days and people have a lot of it, so developers are less worried about streamlining memory requirements, and rather work on overall speed and features.

 

Opera is an alternative if it's really eating you up, but to be honest, the speed advantages it used to have are negligible. Anyone else running FF that has a significantly lower memory usage?

[BlowFish 10]

FF3.0 was greatly improved (over 2) for me. Some sites I visit still just seem to be bloaters. I have to say I have been rather taken with chrome over the last few weeks mainly because it just feels a wee bit snappier.

[namstrader 10]

same issue for me in recent weeks and yesterday I began using chrome also.

[brownsfan019 17]

Interesting...

 

Maybe it's just a design issue w/in FF then. I've tried what I could find via google to help the problem but the only way to keep mem usage low is to really have one FF window open w/ very little tabs open.

[Hlm 10]

How many windows/tabs does it take you to get to those numbers brownsfan? Also, is it just that memory usage is high or do you notice a slowdown as well? How much memory do you have?

[brownsfan019 17]

How many windows/tabs does it take you to get to those numbers brownsfan? Also, is it just that memory usage is high or do you notice a slowdown as well? How much memory do you have?

 

I'd say I have about 4-6 FF windows open and in each of those probably 1-4 tabs.

 

I usually notice when FF is considerably slower than IE (which I usually do not keep open w/ tabs).

 

This computer has 2 gig of RAM.

[Hlm 10]

Well, 4 windows with 4 tabs each pushes FF3 up to about 300 for me. However, IE with 4 windows and 4 tabs also pushes it up to around 300. The only difference is that IE splits them up in the task manager into sizes of 30-40. Chrome splits it up even more than IE but still averages around 300 total.

[brownsfan019 17]

So probably just a function of having too many windows/tabs open.

 

Wonder if it helps at all to have all the tabs open in one window or not. Will have to test later.

[Hlm 10]

It's interesting to see how the different browsers split up their memory usage. I have never noticed that before. I am sure there are pros and cons for each way. So it may not be so much of a memory leak, but how FF3 chooses to use the memory. Just guessing of course.

[atto 20]

On that topic, Chrome has a superior long term strategy for process management as using many tabs is becoming more commonplace. Chrome separates each tab into its own process, so if one tab crashes (from a plugin, bad javascript, or Chrome itself), the browser remains stable. As the computing moves to more platform based verses application based, stability inside the browser is important.

[Hlm 10]

On that topic, Chrome has a superior long term strategy for process management as using many tabs is becoming more commonplace. Chrome separates each tab into its own process, so if one tab crashes (from a plugin, bad javascript, or Chrome itself), the browser remains stable. As the computing moves to more platform based verses application based, stability inside the browser is important.

So does IE8. Kind of funny how FF hasn't caught on yet. I have actually been pretty impressed by IE8 Beta.

[brownsfan019 17]

Hopefully next big FF upgrade will address this.

[atto 20]

Yeah, IE copied that pretty quick (so I've heard, I don't use it). FF should have it on the next major release, as well as the fastest JavaScript rendering engine ever developed .