Firefox = Titanic Memory Leaker

[ManagerJosh]

Eeish this is insane. I've been messing around with Firefox and i pulled up a resource window to see why my computer is slowing down and I realize that with 5 tabs open, I've been using 148MB of memory. I close all but 1, and I'm still using 128MB...

EEISH!

And what's worst was I let Firefox idle for a bit, doing nothing to it, and I watched the memory usage start climbing for no particular reason.

[Dave#]

Try an OS with proper memory management

[Zachery]

You are aware that linux's memory modle is based off of the windows NT one correct?

Windows memory managment is actually not that bad, firefox has inheirent memory leaks.


Windows seems to grow bigger and bigger over time due to the fact that it precaches more and more program files.

Today my Windows (stock) load takes as much memory as it did when I frst installed the OS several months ago due to some steps I took to disable cacheing.

[Dave#]

You are aware that linux's memory modle is based off of the windows NT one correct?

The Linux Kernel is based on the NT Kernel? You are seriously suggesting this?

Anyways, from linux insider

That difference in design philosophy shows up everywhere. In memory management, for example, Windows NT 5.0 and its successors use clustered paging, a working set memory analogue and a free memory manager that fires up exactly once per second, while Unix uses an adaptive page specific algorithm -- often least-recently used -- to control paging. In Unix, there is no working set equivalent, and the free memory manager runs when needed.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/33089.html

[MrNase]

I have installed Firefox on my new iMac and it takes 55MB of memory FRESHLY started without any tabs open..

Safari with 7 tabs open needs only 60MB of memory.

Firefox with 7 tabs open needs 88MB and its counting! I mean.. You can practically see that it's using more memory the longer you have it open
And, what is also quite interesting: it takes up 9% of the processor's power even when idle..

Something must go wrong there

[TruthElixirX]

I have multiple tabs open all the time and I've had a firefox eat my memory like... three times.

[MGM]

Currently using 37MB of memory with one tab open...

MGM out

[Floris]

No problems here.

[Scott MacVicar]

Firefox on Linux uses the same memory on Windows but this is down to inaccurare results.

Linux uses shared libraries that are loaded once into memory like X and Pango, but are shown in the memory usage of every process that uses them.

Anyway
Linux Firefox usage = 87mb Virtual Memory, though 25mb Resident and 16mb shared
Windows Firefox usage = 35mb

Also some extensions eat memory!

[Floris]

If you load like 50 tabs, the memory goes up (virtual) quite a bit. But this does not really bother me. The system performs as it does with 1 tab and I notice no decrease in overall system performance. I just stress tested it and went to all my subscribed threads and used a greasemonkey extention to load all links on the page into new tabs. After reaching 800 mb virtual memory and 256mb real memory it started to get slow and needed quite a bit of time (up to a minute) to complete the task. But then I could simply and quickly switch between the 250+ tabs. Which btw did increase real/virtual memory again - but not experiencing a slowdown. I closed firefox and started it up, surfed to my web site and checked memory, it was 20mb in virtual memory and 19mb in real memory.

[Zachery]

The Linux Kernel is based on the NT Kernel? You are seriously suggesting this?

Anyways, from linux insider



http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/33089.html

Windows 2000 (NT5) was the first to be using a flat memory module, linux followed suite shortly after.

[DirectPixel]

Try an OS with proper memory management

This isn't an OS problem. It's a Firefox problem. There are several known memory bugs (that are still unfixed).

Internet Explorer nor Opera use as much memory as Firefox with multiple tabs open. Heck, it's using almost as much as Photoshop!

[Dave#]

Firefox on Linux uses the same memory on Windows but this is down to inaccurare results.

I didn't say Firefox used lewss memory on Linux, I just suggested getting an os with better memory management means it becomes less of an issue for the end user

[ManagerJosh]

I sincerely doubt you can do anything on enduser side Dave. Mozilla has to fix those Memory leaks. Ha...the irony. If our computer don't die because of security and stuff, it's gonna die because of Firefox itself, killing our PCs.

[breaksguy]

I have never had this problem. I do have problems with some sites not working in firefox