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

[boogerjones]

Of course, what people claim to be "the memory leak" isn't actually a memory leak, it's just Firefox storing all the data it has to manage in memory.

So, you're saying Firefox has to manage 640 MB of memory for three open tabs? It's runaway extensions causing the problem.

Chrome is faster and uses less memory, but I don't care. Firefox is more usable and functional. Those things are more important to me.

[soldier1st]

if you've got the memory then you might as well use it as thats what you bought it for and it is true that some extensions have issues and the ones that do you should avoid till they get fixed,if you list your extensions perhaps we can help you.

[PreKe]

It's interesting how tests these days generally seem to show Firefox with a lower memory usage than other browsers.

[iamawesomewicked]

if you've got the memory then you might as well use it as thats what you bought it for and it is true that some extensions have issues and the ones that do you should avoid till they get fixed,if you list your extensions perhaps we can help you.

It's an issue when firefox slows to a crawl because of the memory leak.. videos end up chugging along.

[Udedenkz]

It's an issue when firefox slows to a crawl because of the memory leak.. videos end up chugging along.

Firefox can't do videos.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Firefox can't do videos.

A lot of you guys need to stop complaining and start actually reading what people are trying to tell you...

The memory leaks are not from Firefox itself, but from the add-ons people make for it. I use 1 additional add-on, continuously have 10-15 tabs open, and it almost never exceeds 200mb of memory.

The key here is that I don't use add-ons. If you have unusually high memory usage, maybe do some research instead of just bitch about it.

I'll repeat, it's not Firefox's fault, it's YOUR fault for using 100 add-ons. If you want to fix it, like 300 people have already said, shut off add-ons one by one until you find the one that causes it. It's not that damn hard...

[iamwhoiam]

A lot of you guys need to stop complaining and start actually reading what people are trying to tell you...

The memory leaks are not from Firefox itself, but from the add-ons people make for it. I use 1 additional add-on, continuously have 10-15 tabs open, and it almost never exceeds 200mb of memory.

The key here is that I don't use add-ons. If you have unusually high memory usage, maybe do some research instead of just bitch about it.

I'll repeat, it's not Firefox's fault, it's YOUR fault for using 100 add-ons. If you want to fix it, like 300 people have already said, shut off add-ons one by one until you find the one that causes it. It's not that damn hard...

Well, not completely true. When I first switched to FF, and I had no extensions at all, the browser would eat close to a gig of memory after a few hours of usage and steadily climb. I've also opened the browser and had a blank page displayed and watched the memory count climb in taskmanager. Extensions may make the issue more pronounced, but there is a definite memory leak without them.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Well, not completely true. When I first switched to FF, and I had no extensions at all, the browser would eat close to a gig of memory after a few hours of usage and steadily climb. I've also opened the browser and had a blank page displayed and watched the memory count climb in taskmanager. Extensions may make the issue more pronounced, but there is a definite memory leak without them.

Hmm that's interesting. I still don't know if we can say it's a definitive memory leak since it works perfectly fine for most people.

[Salgoth]

For those who care to read a recent and relevant comparison:

March 2010 - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-chrome-opera,2558.html

For more historical comparisons:

February 2010 - http://dotnetperls.com/browser-memory

February 2009 - http://xtreview.com/...ison-chart.html

June 2009 - http://www.rarst.net...mory-benchmark/

June 2008 - http://blogs.zdnet.c...ardware/?p=2024

So stop all the whining and look first to your add-on, extensions, etc and then look at the sites you are going to to find whatever is causing your memory to skyrocket. I posted my own test results using 60 open tabs in a different thread and even showed the extensions I had running and then mirrored the same test in FF under Linux for comparison.

If it was a memory leak in the program we all would have it - since that is NOT the case it is something on your own local configuration.

[elantheros]

If it was a memory leak in the program we all would have it

With a statement like that, I'm not sure how much more ignorant you can get. What makes it worse is that you try to pretend you're knowledgeable and mislead people.

Please learn some basics on how software programming works, or at least read the Wikipedia page on memory leaks. And if you're still convinced that your claim is correct, please come back here and explain why.

[Jebadiah]

There certainly is a memory leak in Firefox. I use only one Add-on. I have experienced significant sluggishness after I have opened and closed about 70-80 tabs. It just pauses for 2 seconds and moves on then pauses again and moves on...this continues until I restart Firefox. Whenever this happened, the memory reaches around 600MB with just 5-6 tabs open, at which point I have no option but to restart Firefox. I "save and quit" and reopen Firefox, and everything works great again at around 80MB memory with all those the previously open tabs.

I have seen Chrome experience similar problems, but not at this magnitude.

I also dislike the fact that Firefox is still not multi-threaded for even the basic things such as History search. The entire browser hangs while it searches for pages in my two year long history. That's just seems like bad programming to me.

[Salgoth]

With a statement like that, I'm not sure how much more ignorant you can get. What makes it worse is that you try to pretend you're knowledgeable and mislead people.

I posted five links to memory use articles on web browsers - none of which discovered or identified a "memory leak" in firefox. There are many more similar articles available via Google - again, none that I can find have identified that there's a memory leak.

I conducted my own memory test here if you'd care to check.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=849836&st=15&p=591905014entry591905014

I even began my post with the statement "For those who care to read a recent and relevant comparison"

In short I presented facts while you have responded by hurling insults and inflammatory statements - yet provided no contraindicating facts of your own.

For some reason the Tom's Hardware article link isn't pasting right so here it is again:

www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-chrome-opera,2558.html

[elantheros]

In short I presented facts while you have responded by hurling insults and inflammatory statements - yet provided no contraindicating facts of your own.

Your facts are about as relevant as the story of the five blind men trying to find out what an elephant looks like. They're facts, all right, but they're also completely useless because they do not take into the account of the nature of how memory leaks may be triggered. It's entirely possible for a program to have memory leaks, yet never become visible to user X because of his/her usage patterns.

Arguing that "I don't see memory leaks, hence they don't exist" is nothing but sheer ignorance. It's like someone trying to act knowledgeable about differential equations when the truth is that they don't even understand basic calculus principles.

Have you at least tried a bare-basics attempt at educating yourself by reading the Wikipedia page on memory leaks yet? If you're still convinced that your "I don't see memory leaks, hence they don't exist" argument is correct, why?

[MikeChipshop Member]

What it all comes down to is that no one 'has' to tolerate it, there are other options out there.

[.Neo]

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

Are you being forced to use Firefox?

[Growled Member]

Are you being forced to use Firefox?

No, and I rarely do any more. I find Chrome and Opera more than does what I need.

[neufuse Veteran]

Stop using addons in FF

I have been using FF since the Thunderbird days and have never had leak issues, but then again I only use base addons

Eh? I have zero add-ons in FF and I get ridicilous memory usage also

[Astra.Xtreme]

Your facts are about as relevant as the story of the five blind men trying to find out what an elephant looks like. They're facts, all right, but they're also completely useless because they do not take into the account of the nature of how memory leaks may be triggered. It's entirely possible for a program to have memory leaks, yet never become visible to user X because of his/her usage patterns.

Arguing that "I don't see memory leaks, hence they don't exist" is nothing but sheer ignorance. It's like someone trying to act knowledgeable about differential equations when the truth is that they don't even understand basic calculus principles.

Have you at least tried a bare-basics attempt at educating yourself by reading the Wikipedia page on memory leaks yet? If you're still convinced that your "I don't see memory leaks, hence they don't exist" argument is correct, why?

It's pretty hard to make that statement when Firefox works fine for most people... You can read all the articles you want on memory leaks, but you'll also find out that they can be triggered from any other external source on your system (ie drivers, applications, etc.)

So pointing the finger at Firefox when it doesn't work for you compared to it working for everybody else is also "sheer ignorance".

If you want to argue the point, show some facts instead of insulting others and making yourself look like an a*shole...

[elantheros]

So pointing the finger at Firefox when it doesn't work for you compared to it working for everybody else

If that's the basis for your argument, I don't think it's even worth the trouble of trying to show how very wrong you obviously are. This thread is already doing a pretty good job of that.

[Astra.Xtreme]

If that's the basis for your argument, I don't think it's even worth the trouble of trying to show how very wrong you obviously are. This thread is already doing a pretty good job of that.

What do you keep rambling on about? Honestly the only thing you have said so far is that we are all wrong because it doesn't work for you. How about YOU show some proof that it is all Firefox's fault.

You clearly don't understand that there are hundreds of other factors as to why it leaks for some people. Unless you can prove something, your accusations don't mean sh*t.

[careless_monkey]

I've been using Ffox a lot over the past year. On my 2gig Macbook it uses up about 250MBs for just 3-4 tabs.

I switched to Chrome recently and it uses just about ~80MBs for about 10-11 Tabs open.

I'm happy using Chrome, only thing I don't like about it is there is NO SUPPORT for inline PDFs :argh:

[elantheros]

What do you keep rambling on about? Honestly the only thing you have said so far is that we are all wrong because it doesn't work for you. How about YOU show some proof that it is all Firefox's fault.

You clearly don't understand that there are hundreds of other factors as to why it leaks for some people. Unless you can prove something, your accusations don't mean sh*t.

Ah yes, the typical rage of people who get angry at things they don't understand...

Now now, I'm sure it's not Firefox's fault at all that Firefox is leaking memory. It's most certainly some underhanded tactic by Microsoft and Apple to sabotage competition to their browsers.

[PreKe]

Firefox can't do videos.

Say what?

[Astra.Xtreme]

Ah yes, the typical rage of people who get angry at things they don't understand...

Now now, I'm sure it's not Firefox's fault at all that Firefox is leaking memory. It's most certainly some underhanded tactic by Microsoft and Apple to sabotage competition to their browsers.

Okay, take it as you'd like... Still waiting for you to even attempt to show anything besides senseless comments.

It would seem you have nothing, so you can leave now.

[Udedenkz]

The interesting thing is that no-one pointed to the bugzilla # (#s?) of the memory leak....

@theextict,

That is impossible, unless you have heavy websites open in FF and text in Chrome. Did you add up all the instances of Chrome? I did extensive testing with Chrome (concluding that Chrome < Chromium < SRWare Iron in terms of webkit browsers, among other things). Overhead per process will account for 40MB at least.

@PreKe,

Flash Player plugin is necessary, or WMP plugin, is necessary for H.264 playback. Therefore an argument mentioning a 3rd party plugin fails.