Firefox using too much memory

[Zarathustra]

This problem just started recently. I only have a gig of RAM, but this has been sufficient for me, and I haven't changed anything. I've always had the same number of tabs, and I've always used the same programs. Lately, however, I've been getting warnings that my virtual memory is too low. I've checked Task Manager, and FF is using something like 500 MB of memory!! Holy crap, that's half my RAM. For one program.

How do I change my settings to that FF uses less memory? I've tried changing the size of the cache, but that didn't have any effect.

Why is my system paging 2 GB when I've only got one program running?

[Kinslaughterer]

I've had a similar problem, something like "leakage". On task manager it show several copies/open programs of FF and if you close all but the original it seems to do the trick. I don't know how to change the cache size however. You might do a search of "low virtual memory" with firefox. I think it may be an issue with xp and vista that they haven't fixed.

[Waddley]

Use Google Chrome. According to this site it uses less memory and in my own opinion, it's a better browser.

I know it's not what you're askin for, but it's something!

Edit:
There's also this!!
And this!

[[Syl]]

I used Chrome for a while and liked it well enough, but it caused way too much lag and crash when switching between it and full screen application.

But concerning that screenshot, I'm running firefox with at least 5 addons (though most are flash/ad/cookie block stuff), 6 tabs, two of those streaming video, and I'm not exceeding 180,000K

[Zarathustra]

My Firefox is up to 700 MB!! Holy cow. I can just sit here, doing nothing but watching Task Manager, and it just keeps going up. I've run a full system scan, and I've got no viruses. I may have to try another browser.

Syl, you don't think 180 MB is a little high for a browser? What do other browsers require?

[Waddley]

What do other browsers require?

Check out my links... one even gives a handy-dandy little bar graph to compare different browsers.

Edit: I'm at 186 here at work on FF. Wish I had Chrome to compare, but I don't.

[Cail]

I'm at 98,000 on my Firefox.

[matrixman]

I didn't realize Firefox was - or has become - such a memory hog. But then, I'm running WinXP with 2 GB of RAM; maybe that's why I've not (yet) had my computer complaining about low memory, even with hogs like Firefox. Since memory can be had at bargain prices right now, I think it's really worth it to get another stick of RAM. That's the "brute force" solution to your troubles, Malik. Well, it doesn't really "solve" the memory hogging problem, it just sidesteps it. But it's always good to have more memory!

Alternatively, you could try these little programs:

FlashBlock: flashblock.mozdev.org/

RAMBack: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5972

I've never used them myself, so, um...use at your own risk.

This article discusses Firefox's memory leak problem and what FlashBlock does:

www.noheat.com/2006/10/09/firefox-using ... s-the-fix/

Firefox is a great browser but if you are power user and end up with many extensions and plugins loaded you can end up with a very large and growing memory footprint.

One day I got fed up and began to look for the cure and it led me from site to site in my quest to find a cure for this “memory leak” in Firefox. What I was able to glean from the information I collected was that the leak was not in Firefox itself, it was in the Flash plugin for Firefox. You see I use Firefox with a lot of tabs, and every one of those flashy banners loaded in those tabs take up memory and processor cycles.

The problem is that Firefox does not release the memory once the flash plugin no longer needs the memory for the flash object you were playing. Is it a bug in Firefox? Not really. Firefox is allocating the memory that the Flash plugin needs and the Flash player is using the memory it is given, it just isn’t communicating with Firefox to tell it is done with the memory. So the solution? The solution for now is to get a plug-in like flashblock. It doesn’t cure the problem but because you choose what flash plays you decide how much your memory will grow. The ultimate solution is for the good coders of Firefox and Flash to get together and work on the communication between two very important players on the web.

[Avatar]

With just a couple add-ons, my Firefox is running at 50mb. This is an old version though...2.0.0.14...my favourite add-on isn't properly compatible with later versions yet, so I haven't upgraded.

--A

[[Syl]]

My Firefox is up to 700 MB!! Holy cow. I can just sit here, doing nothing but watching Task Manager, and it just keeps going up. I've run a full system scan, and I've got no viruses. I may have to try another browser.

Syl, you don't think 180 MB is a little high for a browser? What do other browsers require?

Yeah, that's high, but I tried recreating the conditions stated in the screenshot. With only a few tabs open for normal browsing stuff, it's only about 115, which is just about the same as explorer.

But then, I'm also using the flashblock ap that MM posted.

[Zarathustra]

MM, yes I have planned on getting more RAM for a while, since it's so cheap. I can easily bump it up to 4 GB. But I've never had a need to do so until now. That's the main reason I'm perplexed. I've had this computer for three years, haven't changed my computing habits, and now this is suddenly a problem. I don't understand what has changed.

I thought at first that my hard drive was getting too cluttered for my page file to work properly. I ran a defrag and it was REALLY cluttered. I've only got about 11 GB of free space left, and that was chopped up into tiny slices all over the HD. So I managed to create larger, contiguous areas of free space by defrag. That seemed to help a little.

I wish my computer would make use of my graphics card when I'm not running a game, for just normal surfing and stuff. That would add extra processing power and memory. I wonder why no one has written any programs to make this happen. I've got all that power and memory just sitting there doing nothing unless I pop in a game.

[Menolly]

Malik, it may not be anything you've done, but possibly the flash banners on the sites you are visiting have changed in some way..?

[High Lord Tolkien]

It happens to me every once in a while.
I'll notice my laptop is slow as molasses and Firefox is using a gig and half of memory.
I'll just shut Firefox down via Task Manager, restart it, it will ask me if I want restore (I forget the term) to the previous session, I say yes and the same windows are open but I'm just using 80 meg.
I've never bothered to find out why.
I just assumed one of the multiple sites i'm on had a clusterf#ck of little sh#t running.

[Avatar]

The post I thought I was putting in this thread.

--A