Why do we continually have to tolerate Firefox's ridiculous mem leak?

[ViperAFK]

This.

Try using ff for 3 days straight, under heavy duty use (opening and closing of millions of tabs). *Doesnt matter how many you have open simultaneously at any point of time* you'll see that your memory will climb to a ridiculous amount. Even on vanilla install/profile.

They claim this is by design... Yeah, i've heard the 'caching for revisits' argument a million times. But seriously, utilise some more intelligent disk caching ffs.

I regularly leave mine on overnight and the memory usage does not go up.

[Subject Delta]

The OP was rather brave to come on a tech forum and criticize Firefox, that is like a geeks form of blasphemy xD

Seriously, Firefox's memory management is terrible, and this issue isn't new either it has persisted for years now, and although some people here don't seem to realise it, even if you have a lot of memory leaks are still a problem, because in a lot of cases if an application leaks, the memory isn't released back to the system when you close it. I guess it is a question for most users if you need the features Firefox offers enough to tolerate the memory leaks.

[WastedJoker]

My issue is more along the lines that:

1. Firefox should make it easier to manage/diagnose these memory issues/other problems with add-ons.

2. It's been like this since day zero.

3. I'm not concerned that 10% of my total RAM is being used by a web browser - I'm more annoyed that it uses that much at all without warning me. If chrome notices a tab/process behaving incorrectly it pops up with a warning and option to kill it.

4. firefox should have developed a means to control extension use of memory by now.

[ViperAFK]

The OP was rather brave to come on a tech forum and criticize Firefox, that is like a geeks form of blasphemy xD

Seriously, Firefox's memory management is terrible, and this issue isn't new either it has persisted for years now, and although some people here don't seem to realise it, even if you have a lot of memory leaks are still a problem, because in a lot of cases if an application leaks, the memory isn't released back to the system when you close it. I guess it is a question for most users if you need the features Firefox offers enough to tolerate the memory leaks.

its not that a lot of people here 'don't seem to realism it' a lot of people here do not get memory leaks at all in firefox It uses right around the same amount of memory as chrome and ie8 for me, and I am a heavy web surfer.

[Cy-Kill]

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

It's a PLUGIN/EXTENSION PROBLEM

You've got way to much time on your hands!

[Azusa]

mine usually peeks at 300mb when im hunting/gathering.

[spy beef]

My issue is more along the lines that:

1. Firefox should make it easier to manage/diagnose these memory issues/other problems with add-ons.

2. It's been like this since day zero.

3. I'm not concerned that 10% of my total RAM is being used by a web browser - I'm more annoyed that it uses that much at all without warning me. If chrome notices a tab/process behaving incorrectly it pops up with a warning and option to kill it.

4. firefox should have developed a means to control extension use of memory by now.

That's a great idea for an add-on

[Subject Delta]

its not that a lot of people here 'don't seem to realism it' a lot of people here do not get memory leaks at all in firefox It uses right around the same amount of memory as chrome and ie8 for me, and I am a heavy web surfer.

Maybe it doesn't effect everybody, but it is a problem that is common enough to get noticed, and apparently Mozilla have been trying to fix it (evidently not that successfully).

[simonlang]

15 tabs open, 172.112K memory usage. i'd say thats OK. however firefox is really a memory pig sometimes. if you install the wrong add on (which happens for me quite often) you are screwed. :no:

they absolutely have to do something against it.

[Udedenkz]

That's a great idea for an add-on

+1

[-KJ]

You've got way to much time on your hands!

*Looks at post count* :rofl: ;)

[ShamRocker1]

Just don't use it until there is a fix?

[mrk Reviews]

Why not try a Minefield nightly?

I use it as my primary (replaced Firefox with my current profile + extensions) and it's superb.

25 tabs open....

[Raa]

"We" ?

I don't :p

[Udedenkz]

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5

Theme,

Default

Addons,

bug489729

Adblock Plus

FlashGot

Glasser

GreaseMonkey

SkipScreen

Plugins,

Shockwave Flash

QUAKE LIVE

Java Platform SE 6 U17

Foxit Reader Plugin For Mozilla

Tabs Open,

4

RAM Usage,

78MB

It takes about 8 tabs to go above 100MB.

[Billus]

I don't even use Firefox and it's plain as day that add-ins cause more memory usage. Cache causes memory usage. What is the big deal if you are still able to browse? Non-used memory is wasted memory. It sits there doing nothing when it can be used to speed up your system.

Exactly. What's the point of having memory in your system then? The only issue I have with Firefox is when it loads pdf's or starts a download, it stutters and stops responding for a second or two (I use Foxit btw).

[Kirkburn]

I'd just like to echo the sentiment here that it's almost certainly a plugin, extension or JS.

I often have Fx open for days on end in various windows with many tabs - it's my primary method of work. I also have a multitude of addons installed.

I very rarely have issues with high mem usage, and every time it has basically been a badly coded site that causes it.

Now, this is not to say nothing can be done to help the issue (e.g. more process isolation perhaps) - and reporting it is still a good idea, because the cause can be identified and passed on.

Finally, you are never going to see a browser with tiny memory usage. It's just not possible. Rendering the various elements of a page, caching their contents and running code are very complex. Closing tabs won't release all the memory usage, because it will still cache stuff. It does not know that you will never go back to the site on that tab again.

[Subject Delta]

Exactly. What's the point of having memory in your system then? The only issue I have with Firefox is when it loads pdf's or starts a download, it stutters and stops responding for a second or two (I use Foxit btw).

Like I stated, when applications leak, they don't always release the memory back to the system when they are closed, which means the occupied memory won't be available again till you restart your computer. That is bad, regardless of how much memory you have.

[XerXis]

Like I stated, when applications leak, they don't always release the memory back to the system when they are closed, which means the occupied memory won't be available again till you restart your computer. That is bad, regardless of how much memory you have.

that's just untrue, it was true in the days of windows 95. Never has been the case for the nt line, osx or linux. Stop living in the past

[ShamRocker1]

that's just untrue, it was true in the days of windows 95. Never has been the case for the nt line, osx or linux. Stop living in the past

Seriously? Do some research. Memory leaks are well documented. Do a simple search.

[Azusa]

this is how my monster fox set setup and i don't have much of an issue with memory.

[mrk Reviews]

Seriously? Do some research. Memory leaks are well documented. Do a simple search.

In Win Vista and 7?

Win7 will certainly release memory....what sites have you been reading.

[iamawesomewicked]

this is how my monster fox set setup and i don't have much of an issue with memory.

I'd say 79% of your physical memory being used up mostly from firefox is an issue with memory.

[Azusa]

I'd say 79% of your physical memory being used up mostly from firefox is an issue with memory.

well it dropped to 66% when i closed FX.

[shihchiun]

Exactly. What's the point of having memory in your system then? The only issue I have with Firefox is when it loads pdf's or starts a download, it stutters and stops responding for a second or two (I use Foxit btw).

The problem isn't that Firefox is using all this memory, it's that it eventually grinds to a halt because of it.