Firefox memory usage / leak?

[DVDGuy]

Is it me or is firefox taking up too much memory? After a days worth of webmastering (phpmysqladmin and other tools) / browsing I have noticed that my browser takes up 300MB+.

Any fixes I can use or should I switch to Opera?

[Newbie]

DVDGuy -- would recommend you trial opera. Version 9 is pretty slick and more standard compliant than any other browser out there.

[Newbie]

And yes, Firefox has several known weak areas - memory leak problems is one of them. Looks like they are going to address the memory problems in version 3.0.

As of a few days ago, these problems were still not addressed in Alpha2, but they should be in an early beta release.

Still, I'd recommend doing a trial with Opera.

[discobay]

It's funny how each browser improves itself enough to win us over only to be left behind months later for a competitor. I, like most others, used IE then Opera then FF and now FF with Opera.
Opera is the only one with an automatic reload/refresh option - useful for monitoring fluctuations in foreign currency.
I too have found FF's hunger for ram a drain on my system's resources. And on occasions, the system just hangs whilst FF is doing something with its internals.

[patrickdrd]

Hi everyone!

1) I' m using fx for some months now and it really helps in web development! I love it!

However, I find these memory issue to be quite annoying and I am concerned about it!

You can easily get 100's and even 200's of memory consumed by fx if you open many tabs,
even if you don't have that many extensions installed, like me, I have just 8:


* Adblock Plus
* Firebug
* Javascript Debugger
* MinimizeToTray
* StatusbarEx
* Tab Mix Plus
* Update Notifier
* Web Developer



(Today I tried without web developer and firebug - disabled them - and things seem a bit better)

I maily use fx 2.0.0.4, but have tried gran paradiso 3.0a5 and 3.0a6 and even minefield 3.0a7.

I have tried the so-called memory fix "trim_on_minimize",
and what I noticed is that,
even if it lowers down used ram when fx is minimized,
if you had navigated to many pages (many opened tabs) before and you had reached e.g. 200 mb,
you can get this number (200 mb of memory usage) AGAIN fairly easily after maximizing fx and doing a refresh on a single page!

The problem seems to lie in the fact that pages are cached,
i.e. when you open a tab and then close it,
memory just isn't released.
I don't think that many people will want that tab cached,
how many of us are opening a previously viewed page again?

Being a web developer myself, I cannot understand why garbage collector etc. can't be used to clear previously opened leftovers in memory...

2) Another thing I have noticed is that fx seems to be quite slow while navigating secure (ssl, https) pages and eats a lot memory, after finishing you can get 200's of memory claimed by fx with a single web site!

Any way to fix those?

Perhaps some setting in about:config?
Or the only solution would be to wait for the new fx 3.0?

Thanks in advance!

[shri]

Not much you can do other than try disabling the extensions to see which one has the leaks.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by DVDGuy

Is it me or is firefox taking up too much memory? After a days worth of webmastering (phpmysqladmin and other tools) / browsing I have noticed that my browser takes up 300MB+.

To paraphrase the developers, its you. How much system memory does your machine have, and are any other programs running that need it?