I can't believe firefox is eating 1.1G of RAM!!!

by Adie
23 replies
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If chrome, opera, or IE can only provide what firefox ca, I will certainly dump FF. My RAM was 1G and FF was eating around 480MB at most. I upgraded and add another 1G (total of 2G now) and I can't believe firefox is eating 1.2gig now.. shocking...

Has anyone experiencing the same problem? I al;ready optimized my firefox and even changed the settings after an hour of research. After restarting my machine, I got around 200mb, but if my PC runs whole day, it is increasing and increasing... need to knock-off through task manager and start over... I don't use any addon other than google toolbar and seo quake, and search status... horrible....

  • Profile picture of the author John Henderson
    I hear you, Adie. It's a strange quirk of Windows machines that when you add more memory modules to your PC, your apps suddenly use more memory. It kind of defeats the object of upgrading.

    On the Mac, FireFox can also be quite memory hungry -- but not as much as 1.1Gbytes!

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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by John Henderson View Post

      I hear you, Adie. It's a strange quirk of Windows machines that when you add more memory modules to your PC, your apps suddenly use more memory. It kind of defeats the object of upgrading.

      On the Mac, FireFox can also be quite memory hungry -- but not as much as 1.1Gbytes!

      Do you REALLY think it takes like 300+MB for a ********SIMPLE********* word processor? NO WAY! My old apple with 32KB did better than the earlier word products that used much more. THEY were better than what we have today.

      They used to have LITTLE memory, like the 32KB I mentioned, and higher end systems had REAL VM to emulate memory, WHEN NEEDED!!!! Well, M/S came out with what THEY call VM, and decided to use it for EVERYTHING! EVEN the O/S! That is why you could upgrade computers so much and they still often ran SLOWLY!

      Anyway, it is INCREDIBLE! Just yesterday, I argued with a jerk in "Tech support". An item didn't show up in a customers production run. So they said that I should set the amount of cache higher. OH, it took maybe 5 MINUTES longer(to do a 2 SECOND task), and the chance of a crash is GREATLY increased but "at least it works".

      MY solution? Read the last occurance of each item, and read when needed. It displays ALL relevant info, and takes like 2 seconds!

      THEIR solution? Read EVERYTHING! Since that is IMPOSSIBLE, you have to set a LIMIT! So read everything up to the limit! It truncates relevant info, and could literally take FOREVER! Imagine if that number needed to be 20,000. HECK, Imagine if it had to be 2000000! The client would probably just CRASH, without showing any info!

      THEY saw NOTHING wrong with that! If they had programmed this for an old apple, it would be FAR more efficient.

      I once worked at a place where there was a person that I guess was an IDIOT!

      A normal check program has like two buffers. If each were say 100bytes, that is about 200bytes total. Whether the check has 1 line item, or TRILLIONS! A line is read into one buffer, processed as needed, and added to another to print the check.

      Well, SHE created a set of buffers that had to be as large as the largest number of objects on the check. They had SO many that that COMPUTER(YES, a FULL MAINFRAME COMPUTER) meant to run the entire COMPANY was brought down to single user. One of the LARGEST computers IBM made at the time. When asked what would happen if they had MORE charges? She said "NO problem, just increase the size of the buffer!

      Such is the thinking iof the average windows programmer.

      BTW some of the firefox memory is for plugins, data handled by them, graphics, drop down boxes, dlls(like for activeX objects), etc.... That stuff REALLY adds up!

      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author John Henderson
        Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

        Do you REALLY think it takes like 300+MB for a ********SIMPLE********* word processor? NO WAY! My old apple with 32KB did better than the earlier word products that used much more. THEY were better than what we have today.
        I used to use a word processor on my 32kb 8-bit home computer (Acorn Electron), but to be honest, it was a little too basic. However, MS Works for DOS on my old IBM PS/2 Model 30 (8MHz, 640kb) was great. I used that for years and was quite happy.

        It's a cozy little arrangement that the computer industry has; the software companies make apps that bog down the latest computers, so the hardware guys can sell us bigger machines, at which point the software guys bring out new versions of the apps which bog down the machines again.

        That's one of the things that makes open source so appealing; you can download the latest version, or if it's working just fine, you can stick to the version you've got. But no big corporation can come along and declare that your current software is "obsolete".
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        • Profile picture of the author seasoned
          Originally Posted by John Henderson View Post

          I used to use a word processor on my 32kb 8-bit home computer (Acorn Electron), but to be honest, it was a little too basic. However, MS Works for DOS on my old IBM PS/2 Model 30 (8MHz, 640kb) was great. I used that for years and was quite happy.

          It's a cozy little arrangement that the computer industry has; the software companies make apps that bog down the latest computers, so the hardware guys can sell us bigger machines, at which point the software guys bring out new versions of the apps which bog down the machines again.

          That's one of the things that makes open source so appealing; you can download the latest version, or if it's working just fine, you can stick to the version you've got. But no big corporation can come along and declare that your current software is "obsolete".
          well, the last version of wordprocessor I used on my apple, whether wordstar or wordperfect WAS better than the first version of word I saw.

          And Microsoft is WORSE than most software companies, as they create buggy and hoggy compilers that others often use. I liked borland. Better programs, and LEANER! Anyway, the compiler ends up affecting ALL users to some degree.

          Steve
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          • Profile picture of the author QuickSurf
            FireFox has been known to have a massive memory leak issue for a long time.
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          • Profile picture of the author John Henderson
            Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

            well, the last version of wordprocessor I used on my apple, whether wordstar or wordperfect WAS better than the first version of word I saw.
            It doesn't surprise me. You can't beat the old 8-bit home computers for speed of boot-up (almost instant) and the responsiveness of the programs. With only 32 or 48kbytes of total memory, those programmers had to write efficient code.

            Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

            And Microsoft is WORSE than most software companies, as they create buggy and hoggy compilers that others often use. I liked borland. Better programs, and LEANER! Anyway, the compiler ends up affecting ALL users to some degree.
            Somewhere in a box in my attic or under a bed, I still have complete, boxed copies of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C.

            I think I read somewhere that the release of Turbo Pascal caught Microsoft completely by surprise; they had to slash prices of their own crap compilers in order to re-gain some market share.

            So yeah, I liked Borland too. But merging with Ashton-Tate turned out to be a fatal mistake. In fact, somebody wrote a book about the Silicon Valley screw-ups of the 80s and 90s, which included that merger... In Search of Stupidity, over 20 years of high-tech marketing disasters
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            • Profile picture of the author seasoned
              Originally Posted by John Henderson View Post

              Somewhere in a box in my attic or under a bed, I still have complete, boxed copies of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C.

              I think I read somewhere that the release of Turbo Pascal caught Microsoft completely by surprise; they had to slash prices of their own crap compilers in order to re-gain some market share.

              So yeah, I liked Borland too. But merging with Ashton-Tate turned out to be a fatal mistake. In fact, somebody wrote a book about the Silicon Valley screw-ups of the 80s and 90s, which included that merger... In Search of Stupidity, over 20 years of high-tech marketing disasters
              Yeah, Microsoft had compilers that cost over $1000. I once bought a C compiler, BEFORE they had VB, and it was a normal C compiler. It cost over $400, as I recall. When borland, their ONLY real public competitor, came out with Turbo Pascal, prices dropped. TODAY, you can buy low end compilers. WITH graphics and database handling, for under $200!

              Borland made a few mistakes. Ashton Tate WAS, IMO, a piece of JUNK! I had to modify a program written in it once, and YIKES! I hate to admit it but M/S access seemed to be a bit better. And Borland got a HORRIBLE attorney to handle the lotus suit. I would have wiped the floor with them! And KYLIX COULD have been sold in stores at a cheaper price. They wasted a FANTASTIC opportunity. That was ESPECIALLY odd since corporations wouldn't TOUCH borland! Just ONE good move, like making Kylix more popular, could have saved the company, and made corporations buy it!

              I once worked for the New York Office of mental health, and they had an almost new version of borlands delphi product. UNTOUCHED! UNOPENED! I asked them why they weren't using it. They said that they didn't know how viable the company was and couldn't depend on support.

              BTW they were bought by Micro Focus, in 2009. That is a nice company, with a good record, and they are known for selling good products at a cheap price. Knowing THAT, maybe I will look at borland again! I am not getting any younger, so I don't want to get involved with something that might be gone tomorrow.

              Microfocus doesn't seem to have pascal on their website, and borland doesn't either. :cry:

              Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    within 2 to 3 hours after I reboot, it is taking around 300MB, after 6 hours, it starts to eat around 800MB.... can't really think of any countermeasure... its sooo frustrating....
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  • Profile picture of the author John Henderson
    I'm a Chrome user myself. I'm pretty sure that SEO Quake is available for Chrome -- so that might be worth a try....
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    • Profile picture of the author Adie
      Originally Posted by John Henderson View Post

      I'm a Chrome user myself. I'm pretty sure that SEO Quake is available for Chrome -- so that might be worth a try....
      The problem is, chrome has no google toolbar which is very important for me...
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  • Profile picture of the author zoobie
    Yes I experience the same thing. So don't know why.
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Have any of you who have these problems tried disabling the browser cache?

    I just turned it on Firefox...and mine is using like 52mb of memory. That is because I don't have much stored in the browser cache atm.

    Under privacy settings there is a setting telling you how many days the browser stores your 'history' for....try setting that to zero, and see what happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adie
      Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post

      Have any of you who have these problems tried disabling the browser cache?

      I just turned it on Firefox...and mine is using like 52mb of memory. That is because I don't have much stored in the browser cache atm.

      Under privacy settings there is a setting telling you how many days the browser stores your 'history' for....try setting that to zero, and see what happens.
      I actually set my cache and cookies to "off" so there is nothing in there.... I used to work as dsl tech support for verizon and everyday, customers are asking why their PC are so slow.. I used to tell them "use IE"... LOL
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  • Profile picture of the author Evolve91
    It is also a mystery to that FireFox takes so much memory after running for awhile. There is also the ccsvchst.exe from Norton that comes on and hogs all the memory. I think I need a bigger machine
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    BTW some of the firefox memory is for plugins, data handled by them, graphics, drop down boxes, dlls(like for activeX objects), etc.... That stuff REALLY adds up!
    I try to lessen addons as much as I can. Only the most important I have. Searchstatus, Google Toolbar, and AVG safe Search - nothing more... One window with maximum of 5 tabs at most....
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  • Profile picture of the author Joshua Rigley
    Banned
    Huh. I've never had this problem with FF. It's only using around 250megs, which is about average. But it's 5 times as much as Chrome, and more than twice as much as IE even.

    Still though, not a big deal. My laptop has 4 gigs of ram.
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  • Profile picture of the author microunique
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    I cant believe that Firefox took so much space
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  • Profile picture of the author AlPaxum
    I have like 20 tabs open in my Firefox and it's using 315mb of RAM. There are times though where it's using well over 1gb. If you're browsing/using anything that's using flash in Firefox you will see a jump in memory usage from what I've noticed.
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by AlPaxum View Post

      I have like 20 tabs open in my Firefox and it's using 315mb of RAM. There are times though where it's using well over 1gb. If you're browsing/using anything that's using flash in Firefox you will see a jump in memory usage from what I've noticed.
      Because of the plugin, and the huge memory use to cache the data.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adie
      Originally Posted by AlPaxum View Post

      I have like 20 tabs open in my Firefox and it's using 315mb of RAM. There are times though where it's using well over 1gb. If you're browsing/using anything that's using flash in Firefox you will see a jump in memory usage from what I've noticed.
      This a rare news. I can only open upto 10 max tabs... Aside from smaller screen, the change od speed is noticeable..
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  • Profile picture of the author Jim Westergren
    I have an article with a solution that has been working well for me and many others: Make Firefox run up to 4 times faster
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    Jim Westergren
    JimWestergren.com | TodaysWeb

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  • Profile picture of the author IM Business
    You can use the AFOM addon for FF, which recovers memory leakage.
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