What is Digg?124 Comments
- spotmonk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23I was going to say something about firefox eating my memory... but I forgot
- ReRunx5, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17add it by right-click New, Boolean, type "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to True in about:config
- ReRunx5, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Memory Usage Upon Minimize
There is a pref that enables trimming Firefox memory usage when you minimize all Firefox windows. This pref is for Windows only. To enable it, set config.trim_on_minimize to true using about:config. - Tufriast, on 10/12/2007, -9/+22Just close, and reopen it every couple of hours...it's that simple. You can bookmark everything you are looking at in two clicks. Right click the tab bar, and click bookmark all tabs. Done. Good resource though.
- LouisC, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Too bad maxthon uses IE's engine and doesn't really fix any of the vulnerabilities.
Not to mention all the standards incompliance. - Thorpe, on 10/12/2007, -13/+24Firefox always eats my memory. :(
- akinder, on 10/12/2007, -20/+29Can anyone tell me why Firefox eats 200mb of memory after 8 hours with a few tabs open, and they can blame it all on extensions and plugins, and Opera eats 40MB with a few tabs open for the same amount of time, but it's a mail client, RSS reader, etc etc all in one?
Paint it anyway you want, Firefox's memory usage is absurd and needs to be dealt with, which by the looks of the bug fixes, they are dealing with it. This is a lot better than blaming it on a 'feature' and other things.
I'm more than prepared for the FF fanboys to digg me down. - tempusrob, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Did you actually RTFA?
"When Firefox is finished with memory, it releases it to its heap. However, operating system reports this memory as being in use, even though Firefox is not using it for anything. " - cg0def, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9yes this helps every time but the whole point is that you shouldn't have to do that. Some very poor design decissions right there ...
- Jonty, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Or use SessionSaver, you can save your session with that.
What it contributes to the problem, however... - jgclark123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@TempusRob
Does it matter that it's been put in the "heap"? Either way, that memory is unavailable to other programs.
Even with 1 GB of RAM, Firefox can slow things down. (But, then again, I have way too many extensions, including the three that they list as known to leak memory.)
By the way:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060114 Firefox/1.5.0.1 - Build ID: 2006011404 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Don't forget that some extensions simply take up a TON of memory. For example, there's one extension that shows the country flag of the IP address of the page you are on in the corner of your browser status bar. That extension takes up 27MB. Not really FireFox's fault.
I'm not really sure how all these people are seeing these problems. I don't doubt that they're happening, but I run FireFox 1.5 on OSX 10.4.5, Solaris 8,9,10, JDS, Debian, Windows XP and even Windows XP 64 and while sometimes I see it consume a lot of memory (up to 150mb with about a dozen extensions and a dozen tabs opened after a few hours) , I rarely have it crash. FireFox probably crashes on me a couple times per month and that's with at least 16 hours of use every day of the week. - jeff1943, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Good tip. I generally reopen Firefox after I use a plugin like Adobe Reader, Java, or Flash.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5doesnt exist in my firefox 1.5...
- TVarmy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6This stuff was all over the web, that's true. But it's nice having it all in one place. So many little tweeks I would have missed are here.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It's not because of extensions. You can easily prove this by running Firefox in safe mode (which loads no extensions), and just navigate to Google, and leave the browser on overnight. You'll come back to see it's consuming 300+ megs.
- creoleplane, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8right on, thank you. I've never had any memory issues with opera and i love not needing to download any extra extensions. Opera is by far the best solution to all the firefox problems out there.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I keep hearing that it's really good, but unfortunately it's based on IE components. No, not using it.
- Edgen22, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I agree, I have never liked the memory usage of Firefox, but I've just dealt with it. I like absolute minimalism when it comes to my computer ( http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2218/desktop23wl.jpg ), and Firefox allows me to easily configure it that way.
Currently Firefox is taking up 40 MB of memory.
- Two tabs open (This page, and about:config)
- 4 Extensions (Adblock, Adblock Filterset.G Updater, Dictionary Tooltip, SearchPluginHacks)
- Default theme, no others installed.
Hopefully things will get better in future versions... Oh, and as a side-note, iTunes takes up way too much memory as well (35 MB), if I could find an alternative player to iTunes (with similar interface) I'd switch. If anyone has any suggestions.. that would be cool. - pt4117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ whitesanjuro
Why would someone photoshop this? It's not like it would be hard to get FF that high. Right now my FF is taking up 155,00 with just two Digg tabs open.
For the record I just closed and opend FF with session saver on and I am now at about 33,000. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5lame... if every1 codes with ur mindset... wed all need 4gb minimum ;|
- diafel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Yeah having 99% of all webpages work properly is an annoyance.
- spin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Ive got 2GB of ram, the memory usage does not bother me that much. What does bother me is how incredibly slow it is on Linux! And, it does not look like the QT version is going to ever come out of 'experimental' stage. Meanwhile, me and every other Linux user is stuck with an almost unusably slow GTK app that is much slower than it should be, thanks to GTK! Using another browser is not much of an option because I am a web dev, and must use the Firefox webdev toolbar. Im also addicted to my extensions and Live bookmarks.
Give us Firefox QT or the cute little bunny gets it! - Yogurth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Lots of angry FF users on mozilla forums, that thread has been shut down. No wonder, You cant go around and tell people that is the way(huge memory consumption, described as fast forward/backward feature ~month ago) FF is supposed to run and get away with it.
Good to see though that they started the real evaluation process on what is causing the leaks, just that there is so many leak bugs most of which are related to FF core not the extensions. We will have to wait and see if that can be fixed at all. - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3its not a CPU problem, it's the way flash works. flash uses vector graphics that require the processor to process each frame of mathmatical computations (vectors). the more complex, or higher framerate, the flash animation is, the more CPU power itll require.
- Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -13/+16solution: use opera 9.0 tp 2 with alot of the firefox extensions already built in and tested....you can even use your greasemonkey scripts in opera :)
- 511pf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Google Safe Browsing was a HOG (for me). If you're running Google Safe Browsing, check your Firefox memory usage, uninstall and check again. Google Safe Browsing was using 30-40MB of memory on two of my systems. It was also noticably slowing down the browser.
- jgclark123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Most of these keys must be added manually. Right-click and select "New -> ".
- masterofshadows, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4theres no reason to justify having a big memory footprint by saying "well you should have 1-2GB of ram" The average windows user doesnt do much besides go online and read email, now if your suggesting that something that can be done on an embedded device with TONS less memory needs 2GB your insane. 512 is the max the average user needs. gamers might need more, but they are hardly average.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3that minimize tweak is incredible! i had to add it to about:config because it wasn't there. once i added it, restarted firefox, FF only uses 3 MEGS when minimized and also decreased firefox usage when maximized to 12 MEGS!!
i have just this page open, 16 extensions, and 6 themes (1 greasemonkey script) - Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38 tabs, 27 extensions, 130 MB RAM being used.
I think it's fair, especially because I do use Session Saver, which is a leaky extension.
Please people, the poster of this digg provided you access to lots of information on how to fix most of the issues. The others are being dealt with. Don't just flame people if you don't intend to help fixing the problem.
All said, I do think the Mozilla devs need to come up with an installer that will let the average user set the memory usage right from the beginning, and not through the about:config. - Edgen22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Takes up about 50 MB of memory at kept the CPU usage at a steady 10% (compared to iTunes' 2-3%). Too many folder options on the side also, and built-in internet browsers to any application is redundent, and sort of stupid.
But it's just proof-of-concept right now. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6>"Memory Usage Upon Minimize
There is a pref that enables trimming Firefox memory usage when you minimize all Firefox windows. This pref is for Windows only. To enable it, set config.trim_on_minimize to true using about:config."
What the... I'm not seeing this in about:config using FF1.5, unless we're supposed to add it or something. - ByteGuerilla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3if it doesn't exist, create it! :D
- Smoov, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4My FF 1.5 is always the biggest hog in my system. Right now with 3 tabs and 3 extensions installed it is using 147 Mb. Compare that to SQL Server--which I run on the same machine for work--which is currently using 102 Mb. An entire database server in less RAM than a browser?
Something is terribly wrong with Firefox. I have never seen IE go beyond about 35 Mb, Opera even less (right now my Opera is using 4 - that's right FOUR megabytes!). I love FF but they have to fix this or I will chuck it.
Blaming extensions is pointless. Mozilla created the extension API in the first place. If they were responsible they would have limited the amount of leakage extensions can cause (don't tell me it cannot be done - it can). - Metal_Guru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow! That knocked off nearly 90MB or mem usage! Hope it stays like that.
Ya, some people have to create it, mine didn't have it either. - Edgen22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For me it went down to 4 MB, then when I maximized it went to 20 MB.
- himey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Firefox's memory "issues" just simply need to be fixed.
I don't care if it is a bug or if it intend by design, it is a problem. There is no reason that I should an application should retain so much memory after it should have been released.
If I open a bunch of tabs, surf to a bunch of sites and then close the tabs, the memory should show as not in use by the system. Don't blame Windows....Opera does it....IE does it. Firefox needs to do it.
After and hour or two of surfing, and only one tab freshly opened to my homepage, Firefox should not be using 200+ MB for what amounts to an HTML parsing application.
If this is by design, then it is a piss poor design and should be THE TOP priority for 2.0. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31 tab, 1 window, 2 extensions, 102 MB
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3kinda sad seein my fav browser needs a page dedicated to memory usage ;(
says alot................. - Mysk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Firefox's memory usage is insane:
http://www.shadowsinmotion.com/firefox-mega-memory-usage/
Darn near 300 MBs of memory being used. It soon crashed.
After that happened I switched my default browser to Opera. There are a lot of things about Opera that I don't like, and you can find those thoughts on the 'ol blog as well if you're so inclined. It's not my favorite browser, but it usually works well enough and doesn't bog the system down.
Opera is still my default browser even though I prefer FF. - Zephyrspecial, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wish session saver had been available with Firefox 1.0 - or if it was I wish I'd known about it. Compared to 1.0, 1.5 is much better. With 1.0, I would be surfing with multiple windows, some of which would have 20 tabs open. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I would have no chance of finding some of the links again if I had to start over. Somewhere in there, Firefox would start using 99% of the processor, constantly. It would always crash shortly thereafter, and lose all the history information when it did so. I haven't been quite so hard on 1.5, but I've never had it munch on the processor like 1.0 did.
Anyway, my point is that it is improving, and I'm sure with all the attention being paid to memory usage the issue will be a high priority for the Firefox team.
One more thing I found in reading the thread - they say Adobe Reader uses lots of memory. I'm using Brava! Reader to open PDF files, and I find that it not only uses less memory, it is *way* faster. - stalinvlad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Great stuff, but what about the Flash plug-in's CPU usage problem?
- cg0def, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Man this is the dumbest solution. just throw money at it ... dude this exactly the point of OSS projects ... a lot of people look at the code so bugs get fixed faster. Only in the case of Firefox the leadership kinda sux and it's really starting to show. What really bugs me is that every once in a while I look at my memory usage and I am amazed at how much firefox is sucking. For my style of surfing it is not uncomon that firefox will use about 450mb and sometimes even more. Now even with a gig of ram this still starts to be a problem for me. Nowhere in the hardware requirements for Firefox does it say that it might eat up to 500mb ram. After all it's a damn browser and most modern video games use about the same amount. ( bf2 excluded ) It's really sad that this problem has been going on for so long and I think that the Firefox code needs a major audit and a major bughunt before the next release. Only I doubt that this will ever happen.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Does it matter that it's been put in the "heap"? Either way, that memory is unavailable to other programs. "
That's your Operating System's fault. Heap Allocation can be done in any number of civilized ways, if your Operating System decides to be archaic about the way it Heap Allocates (and not allow that application to release memory back to the Heap while executing, "Heap Protection" as it is often called/included as part of), then it's the Operating System's fault, and there's nothing more that program can do. - mousky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31 window, 5 tabs, 14 extensions, 5 greasemonkey scripts, 77 MB
- eklitzke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3AFAIK, the Qt build of Firefox is being ported by KDE developers, not Firefox developers. See this bugzilla thread: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=297788
Also, it was my understanding that GTK is the official toolkit used for Firefox, and that if a Qt build ever comes out it will be an unofficial port. I'm not sure why you have a problem with this, considering that GTK is very fast, and that everything in Firefox is internally handled by XUL, not GTK or Qt. - Mysk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Mr Tea - I've turned off the option to cache pages in memory. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to or not, but figured I'd mention it.
@ mousky - the profile wouldn't have crossed my mind. Luckily the crashing rarely ever happens. As far as dumping Firefox completely, that won't happen any time soon. There are too many things about Opera that annoy me. I would say that I use the two 50/50 or so (give or take).
It's explained in depth on the blog, but the short of it is Opera is speedier and consumes fewer resources so it works great as the default browser (loading clicked links from chat, and the like). Firefox is still used for writing blog posts and for comfortable viewing of sites that would otherwise annoy me through javascript (running the NoScript extension).
...and so on. :) -
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