firefox huge memory hog?


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Thread: firefox huge memory hog?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
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    firefox huge memory hog?

    i kept firefox 1.5 running for 2 days, with at most 9 tabs. when i opened up a abiword document, the computer started skipping badly. gkrellm showed that i had 1M swap free. i closed abiword, and it was still the same. then i closed firefox, and after some 100% cpu usage, i got 600MB free (490+ ram, rest swap).

    any of you guys with the same problem? what does top show for firefox 1.5 mem usage?

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    there is a "bug" where certain plugins will cause firefox to request RAM and then not give it back when it is done. there are simple "fixes" available for this if you google for it.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    I'll have to agree, despite being full featured, Firefox is a memory and CPU hoard. On my Pentium 1 Laptop I use Dillo mostly. On my Pentium 2 I use Opera. Yeah I know its not open source but it runs smoother on these lower resource machines (plus they have debian repositories so I'm happy). There's my 2 cents.
    "If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it." -Linus Torvalds

  4. #4
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    there are simple "fixes" available for this if you google for it.
    couldn't find it yet. could you give a link? all i found was this:
    http://i.cmpnet.com/pipeline-shared/.../ff_memory.jpg
    http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=175007152

    and does anyone else have this problem with version 1.5: when you drag and drop tabs (in linux, gtk2), the browser freezes and you cant click on anything inthe screen? i have this problem in both slackware and fedora in 2 pcs. doesnt happen with 1.0.7
    -------------------------

    1.7 Ghz Pentium IV
    128MB RD-RAM
    40GB 5400 RPM HDD
    Creative Live! Sound Card
    Geforce 4 Ti4400 gfx card

  5. #5
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    Jan 2006
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    UK
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    This doesn't happen on my SuSE 9.2 distro.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
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    As a workaround you could try installing the Sessionsaver extension and closing then restarting Firefox every once in a while to free up some RAM. Sessionsaver can save what you were doing and restore all your tabs the way they were when restart Firefox so you won't lose anything.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
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    half a year past, and they still haven't fixed this memory problem. instead of spending so much money on silly ads, they should pay programmers to fix this major memory leak.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
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    suomi
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    I haven't had any memory problems with firefox on my laptop. It uses quite lot of memory (more than Xorg), but no matter how long i run it. It doesn't make a difference.

    Code:
    PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND            
     6534 ladoga    15   0  145m  67m  20m S  0.0  4.5   6:22.52 firefox-bin        
     6167 root      15   0  317m  51m 5032 S  0.0  3.4   2:46.43 Xorg
    I think the memory leak problem has something to do with flash plugin. On my other system I used to get the exact same problem you are mentioning (or atleast something very similar) firefox memleak would cause it run out of memory, then swap and cause system to nearly freeze. After i apt-got a new version of flash plugin the problem went away.

    Have you tried to see if it happens without extensions (just a wild guess) and flash plugin installed?
    ladoga

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    65
    I, from time to time, have the same problem with firefox. Have for sometime now. It doesn't seem to be at the top of their list to fix soooooo I have learned to live with it. It happens on windows as well. I have just learned to close firefox when I walk away from my computer. Earlier it was eating over 300MBs for 3 tabs.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
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    the developers have been able to find and fix a healthy number of memory leaks -- like 19 or so in whats the trunk now and will be a part of firefox3 as best i can tell.
    they have also fixed about 12 other leaks that are done earlier upstream and will be in firefox2.
    the testers have some leak tools now so hopefully less new leaks introduced.

    they can't do anything about leaky plugins and extensions however
    Last edited by dark_moon; 05-04-2006 at 12:08 AM.

  11. #11
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    Dec 2003
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    I've gotten ff on my windwos machine to use approx 800 mb of ram, fortunatly I have a gig on the machine. But running iTunes in conjuntion, which also tends to need a lot of memory but not leeks I've noticed yet, tends to cause issues when needing to open an email client...Oh well, viruse free, adware free, so forth, so a mem leak isn't going to kill me right now.
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