Firefox issues

liah

I've been using Firefox since its inception, but lately it's been driving me nuts.

It's using a LOT more memory than it should, and it seems to be a progressive thing. If I start up the browser cold (tabs pre-loaded) it bumps up my RAM to about maybe 2-3% used. As the hours pass (I leave it open pretty much 24/7) it gets to about 80-90%, in which case I restart the browser and then it goes back to 2-3%. That is a ridiculous amount of RAM used for a browser.

What I'm curious about is why on earth would it progressively increase, despite me only having 4 tabs open at any given time, usually all the same things? Gmail, facebook, random site (usually boards, digg, or youtube), and last.fm. Very rarely will I have any other tabs open.

It could potentially be one of my plugins, I do have a lot, but I've only really noticed it since the latest 2 updates.

Regardless, my plugins are:
Adblock Plus
PDF Manager
Greasemonkey
NoScript
XMarks
FireFTP
FlashGot
IE Tab
TabMix
WebOfTrust
ImageTweak
Flagfox
Fast Video Download
Download Statusbar
Anycolour

Any help would be appreciated, I really don't want to have to switch browsers.

Overheal

i just rebooted mine after a few hours and from 350mb im running at 75mb now. Im blaming much of that on catch/fetch data.

Adblock+
Download Satusbar
IE Tab
Forecastbar Enhanced (okay thats probably meaty, with its popup weather radar)
.NET Framework
Norton Toolbar and IPS
ReloadEvery
Skype Extenstion

Whatever floats your boat. I dont know what half the stuff youre running does though and im arsed to google it.

Hagar

Not a direct answer to your question but I have a little program call memdefrag.exe which I downloaded for free. I run it when my memory starts filling up. It does what it says it defragments your memeory - dramatically.
It even has a huge effect if you run it just after start up before you run any programs.
There's probably a better/more up-to-date version out there but give it a go first.
HTH

liah

Hagar wrote: »

Not a direct answer to your question but I have a little program call memdefrag.exe which I downloaded for free. I run it when my memory starts filling up. It does what it says it defragments your memeory - dramtically.
It even has a huge effect if you run it just after start up before you run any programs.
There's probably a better/more up-to-date version out there but give it a go first.
HTH

Thanks, sounds pretty useful actually, is there a safe place I can get it from?

Overheal

remember using memory isnt necessarily a bad thing. used memory is useful memory. if you only ever run your machine at 50% of ram, when are you getting the potential out of it?

Podman

I just downloaded the memdefrag.exe program, it's part of Glary Utilities (googled the exe and went here: http://www.glaryutilities.com/processlibrary/process/memdefrag.exe.html)

Once installed, go to the Modules tab and select "Optimize & Improve" from the left side. You'll see the memory optimizer there.

It seems to work ok so far, friendly little program, no crashes yet. If i have any problems with it, I'll post them.

edit to include:
It does speed up the browser a little, I have a few addons myself: minimap, adblock, etc

The program comes with an "ask.com" toolbar, and includes some very good system tools. I'd recommend it.

liah

Overheal wrote: »

remember using memory isnt necessarily a bad thing. used memory is useful memory. if you only ever run your machine at 50% of ram, when are you getting the potential out of it?

It's the fact that it's a browser using so much RAM that's bothering me. I use this computer for other things, and when a browser on its own with nothing else running is taking up 80% RAM, something isn't right.

Overheal

liah wrote: »

It's the fact that it's a browser using so much RAM that's bothering me. I use this computer for other things, and when a browser on its own with nothing else running is taking up 80% RAM, something isn't right.

On the contrary its very right. Vista, yes?

This explains it very well

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

liah

Overheal wrote: »

On the contrary its very right. Vista, yes?

This explains it very well

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

No. XP. Why the hell would anyone use Vista?

And no, it's not right, because the RAM starts low and consistently builds over hours until it finally gets to 100% and crashes. I usually stop it at 80% and restart the browser. It's never done this to me before, like I said I've been using this combination for years, this is new.

I know my way around my computer, I always have monitors on display on my taskbar for my RAM and CPU. It's just Firefox that does this.

Podman

liah wrote: »

No. XP. Why the hell would anyone use Vista?

LOL

liah wrote: »

I always have monitors on display on my taskbar for my RAM and CPU. It's just Firefox that does this.

Maybe there's just a lot of extra stuff running?

I recommend that program (post #6), it's good for me so far.