Firefox memory drain?

On 2005-01-30, Alvaro G. Vicario <> wrote:

> *** SCraig escribió/wrote (Sat, 29 Jan 2005 17:22:31 GMT):
>> I notice that Firfox 1.0 uses a lot of my memory, about 100K or more at
>> times, while IE used to use a lot less. Is there something that I can do
>> to reduce the amount of memory that Firefox uses? And why does it use so
>> much?

> My Firefox (under Windows XP with 512MB of RAM) uses 16MB with a blank page
> loaded. If I open, let's, say, www.microsoft.com, www.mozilla.org and
> www.google.com, it uses to 23MB.

I'm showing FireFox with 61MB resident and 15MB shared memory here on
linux, with 9 tabs currently open.

> As they've already told you, it's almost impossible to know how much memory
> Explorer uses, but definitively, 100MB for Firefox seems too much. In any
> case, I don't know what you're doing with it when it uses 100MB.

Lots of tabs? Complex pages?

--

-John ()

John Thompson

On 2/1/2005 2:47 AM Moz Champion exclaimed
> SCraig wrote:
>
>> "Alvaro G. Vicario" <> wrote in message
>> news:y4l1p656g1z8$....
>> *** SCraig escribió/wrote (Sat, 29 Jan 2005 17:22:31 GMT):
>>
>>> I notice that Firfox 1.0 uses a lot of my memory, about 100K or more at
>>> times, while IE used to use a lot less. Is there something that I
>>> can do
>>> to reduce the amount of memory that Firefox uses? And why does it
>>> use so
>>> much?
>>
>>
>>
>> My Firefox (under Windows XP with 512MB of RAM) uses 16MB with a blank
>> page
>> loaded. If I open, let's, say, www.microsoft.com, www.mozilla.org and
>> www.google.com, it uses to 23MB.
>>
>> As they've already told you, it's almost impossible to know how much
>> memory
>> Explorer uses, but definitively, 100MB for Firefox seems too much. In any
>> case, I don't know what you're doing with it when it uses 100MB.
>>
>>
> Right now I have one version of Firefox open and I'm looking at the Google
> newspage. Firefox is currently using 117MB of memory. Since I only have
> 512 MB of memory that does seem like a lot. Also, occasionally, and for
> know reason that I can figure out, Firefox will suddenly jump to about
> 150MB. If someone could give me some hints about how to reduce the amount
> of memory Firefox is using I'd appreciate it. I use Zone Alarm firewall
> and
> virus protection and Ad-aware so I know I don't have any viruses or spammer
> programs. I use Windows XP SP-2. So what should I do?
>
> Thanks,
> Craig
>
>
> Sorry, your response is cut and pasted above, you need Quotefix for your
> program.
>
>
> 117MB as reported by what (program/utility) as each program/utility may
> be different in what it 'sees' as usage.
>
> Um, modern systems assign memory to the programs that require it, its
> there to be used, so why worry about if a program uses 117 or 150 MB, as
> you state, its not even a third of your total.
>
> A specific web page can easily increase the memory requirements,
> dependent on how many images there are on the page. In this day of
> broadband, its really not unusual to see sites with 5 or even 20MB of
> images. Load a few sites, and your memory can get used up quite quickly.
> Windows will allot memory to the program as the program requires it, and
> it may add in 'chunks' - i.e. if memory usage is assigned (by Windows)
> to be 120 MB then when it hits 118 mb Windows may assign 30mb more in
> one go - resulting in a 'jump' to 150MB.
>
> Explorer doesnt report this, becaue many of its caches/utilities are
> subsumed within the system as noted.
>
>
> Memory reporting utilities can be quite misleading. For example (this is
> from a Macintosh but it may be similar on Windows):
>
> Using 9x or earlier on the Mac.
> Assign 30mb to a program (Browser type)
> Open the program and go to 2 web pages
> Usage shows 24mb in use.
> Close the program, re-assign memory to 48mb
> Start program and go to the same 2 web pages
> Usage shows 36mb in use!
> Do the same with 100mb assigned
> Usage goes up to 76mb!
>
> Obviously, the program ISNT using any more memory, because the two pages
> are the same!
>
> Okay, the above example is from a non memory management system (and an
> old system), in which the user assigns memory, but it does show that
> usage is NOT reported accurately at all.
>
>
> Unless you are getting out of memory messages from Windows, I suggest
> you turn off the display showing usage and let Windows manage the memory
> for you. Its really quite good at that.
>
I agree with Moz Champion. (Even if he IS using a Mac )

Please describe the steps you are taking to arrive at the memory usage
that you are reporting here?

If I do a 3 fingered salute and look at firefox.exe on the "Processes"
tab with 2 firefox windows open, 1 with 10 tabs and the other with 2
tabs, I show 97,492K Mem Usage and a peak of 98,224K. This is with
XP-Pro SP2.

pd