Firefox keeps using extreme amounts of memory - very slow too

[tankman1989]

I don't know what to do with Firefox any more. It seems to be using cumulative amounts of memory when I browse. I'll use it all day and check it and it will be 2GB of memory and I'll end the process in task manager, restore the session and the amount of memory needed to restore the session is about 10% at just above 200MB. This seems to be an ongoing problem that I've noticed at least since FF 15 (could be longer, but never noticed it before that).

None of the fixes I've found have done anything and most say to upgrade to the newest version which has done nothing to fix the issue.

If anyone is using FF you should close your browser every few hours (with heavy browsing) with "end process" and not just closing with the red X or quitting - this doesn't seem to always clear the memory usage and when you close it this way you can open FF back up and restore all your open tabs (complete with history for all tabs) when you open it backup.

I'm interested not only in a fix but why it is doing this and what it is doing if anyone has any idea about this.

Thanks.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Used to be a heavy firefox user until Google Chrome came out...since then..made the switch and never looked back.

However, firefox can tend to be hungry for RAM. Due to so many extensions and themes, and how poorly it does at keeping plugins updated.

So start firefox in safe mode to run without themes and extensions and see if the memory still peaks the same. If not...now you know at least one of those is the culprit.

2 gigs of RAM though..depending on how many tabs you have open and what content is in there...not a big deal these days with systems having 4 or 8 gigs of RAM.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM IMO, I paid for it..I love to get my moneys worth and use it! Wish Chrome would use more...have had it open for 4 or 5 days straight, half a dozen tabs...sitting at ~450 megs.

 

[brandonkick]

If your using a older version of firefox (not sure why you would be, just throwing this out there I guess), they were very bad with memory leaks.

Try updating to the newest version if you haven't already. Google chrome is a great alternative.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Used to be a heavy firefox user until Google Chrome came out...since then..made the switch and never looked back.

However, firefox can tend to be hungry for RAM. Due to so many extensions and themes, and how poorly it does at keeping plugins updated.

So start firefox in safe mode to run without themes and extensions and see if the memory still peaks the same. If not...now you know at least one of those is the culprit.

2 gigs of RAM though..depending on how many tabs you have open and what content is in there...not a big deal these days with systems having 4 or 8 gigs of RAM.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM IMO, I paid for it..I love to get my moneys worth and use it! Wish Chrome would use more...have had it open for 4 or 5 days straight, half a dozen tabs...sitting at ~450 megs.

I use FF daily and heavy usage does use a lot of RAM and always has as far back as I can remember. OP didn't say what specs he had, but a machine with only 2GB of RAM and moderate to heavy FF usage will bring that machine to it's knees with the amount of page outs it eventually will be doing. I look at it as expected behavior with FF. It's a trade off I'm willing to take for a solid stable browser. But I have 8GB of RAM and it's there for me to use and can still run FF with multiple tabs and 5 other apps open and still have half of my installed RAM at my disposal.

Chrome on the other hand is driving me crazy with the CPU usage. Google Chrome renderer is using at the very least 33% of my available processing power just sitting idle even when it had no extensions running and only one installed extension. But on the other hand Chrome isn't using much RAM.

 

[James_S]

Chrome on the other hand is driving me crazy with the CPU usage. Google Chrome renderer is using at the very least 33% of my available processing power just sitting idle even when it had no extensions running and only one installed extension. But on the other hand Chrome isn't using much RAM.

Not sure about CPU usage, but I find Chrome starts using lots of RAM when many tabs are open since each tab is running in its own process. Lately I find Chrome using more RAM than Firefox even with 20-30 open in each since newer versions of FF unload inactive tabs from memory.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Not sure about CPU usage, but I find Chrome starts using lots of RAM when many tabs are open since each tab is running in its own process. Lately I find Chrome using more RAM than Firefox even with 20-30 open in each since newer versions of FF unload inactive tabs from memory.

Yeah, I just started playing around with Chrome trying to view some training videos for required testing to service the late 2012 iMacs and couldn't load the training videos through either Safari or FF and Chrome actually worked fine for that. Otherwise FF and Safari have served me fine. Does make wonder based on your statement about lack of "housecleaning" that even though I've long closed those video tabs in Chrome maybe it's still holding onto the processor since it was still the same browser session?