HUGE firefox ram hogging

[invictius]

Ok, I have 30 tabs open, but hear me out. When I start up, it can only be 150mb ram usage (previously about 60mb with about 20 tabs open). This number, in 2 days, has gone up to almost 500mb. Gee, how would people with only 1gb RAM go? If it's a 1.x bug, I haven't upgraded, 2 Very Important plugins won't support v2 or higher. Maybe it's something else - having history kept for 30 days, too many bookmarks, FWIW I have 10 extensions installed and some search bar extensions, but it was a ram hog back when I had only 3 or so exts.

[thideras]

You say that you are on 1.x....that may be the issue. You can use "Nightly tester tools" to force the plugins to work regardless of the version or there may be alternatives.

[jivetrky]

I would definitely recommend version 3.0. It is muuuch better with ram management. But if you have a ton of plugins or a ton of tabs, you are going to have a lot of RAM usage regardless. But 3.0 seems to be about the best so far regarding RAM usage. It's just been released a day or two ago (and is already the most downloaded software in history, there was like 8 million in the first 24 hours!)

[rainless]

Ok, I have 30 tabs open, but hear me out. When I start up, it can only be 150mb ram usage (previously about 60mb with about 20 tabs open). This number, in 2 days, has gone up to almost 500mb. Gee, how would people with only 1gb RAM go? If it's a 1.x bug, I haven't upgraded, 2 Very Important plugins won't support v2 or higher. Maybe it's something else - having history kept for 30 days, too many bookmarks, FWIW I have 10 extensions installed and some search bar extensions, but it was a ram hog back when I had only 3 or so exts.

This is the most insane post I've ever seen before:

1. WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE 30 TABS OPEN?!?!
2. Same as 1.
3. UPGRADE. You say two VERY important plugins won't work (probably the cure for cancer and stop world hunger plugins) but there's actually a plugin to MAKE plugins that don't work work. UPGRADE
4, Same as 1.
5. Even version 2 was a ridiculously inefficient memory hog. (Just try SAVING something on v2 with a laptop with only one gig of ram and ten... not your customary THIRTY tabs open: there'll be a pause as long as if your entire Windows directory was being scanned for malicious content.)

Let's get all of the obvious no-brainers out of the way first: Don't open thirty tabs. Bookmark the pages you're not using and just come back to them later. Upgrade to 3.0 for better speed and memory usage. Find Oni's post about the Nightly Plugin Tester plugin that allows you to override version checks for plugins.

Then say nice things about me to all your friends. :beer:

[benj1290]

well i dont know if its true for your plug-ins or not but for me when 3.0 came out i had to update my plugin's manually....

if you want to try the step's are as followed

1. find the link to the plug-in on firefox's website or the website that you can install it (right click and save as)

2. then find the .xpl file you downloaded, right click... open with... and open with winrar
if you dont have WinRAR or a RAR file download... http://www.rarlabs.com to download (dont know if new members can post links but ya let me know)

3. there should be a .uif file with the folders. extract that and open with notepad / wordpad.

4. at the bottom of the uif or w/e file it should save something about compatibility and 1.5.x.x.x to 1.6.x.x.x or something along the lines to it... if you see this change the 1.6.x.x.x to 3.0

5. save the text file and drag and open it into the .xpi file. and then open the .xpi file with firefox...

like i said above ive done this with 2.0 plugin's going to 3.0 but i dont know if it will work with 1.5...

and btw i tab alot also... but 30 TABS?!?!?!? bookmark 20 and call come back to it xD

edit: yayay i got a star :D

[ShadowPho]

Just an example. I got FF3.

I open fresh firefox: 28MBs used. Then I go to google, type in 'blah' and click on actual first 30 links (middle mouse click = new tab). Right now I got 32 tabs open. RAM used by firefox jumps to 150 MBs. Then as flash and random junk and crap loads on those pages RAM goes up to 175MBs and stays there. Then down to 172.

[rainless]

Just an example. I got FF3.

I open fresh firefox: 28MBs used. Then I go to google, type in 'blah' and click on actual first 30 links (middle mouse click = new tab). Right now I got 32 tabs open. RAM used by firefox jumps to 150 MBs. Then as flash and random junk and crap loads on those pages RAM goes up to 175MBs and stays there. Then down to 172.

Why would you click on 30 links? Drugs? OCD? Why wouldn't you click on ONE link... see if what you were looking for was THERE... hit back... and click on the next link?

[ShadowPho]

Why would you click on 30 links? Drugs? OCD? Why wouldn't you click on ONE link... see if what you were looking for was THERE... hit back... and click on the next link?

Just as an experiment to compare with the OP :)

but sometimes I too have about 3/4 firefox window's open with about 10 different tabs in each. Deathly useful for programming.

[invictius]

Why would you click on 30 links? Drugs? OCD? Why wouldn't you click on ONE link... see if what you were looking for was THERE... hit back... and click on the next link?

Really, it's stuff I visit often such as this page, and others where I'm kept logged in, and it's easier to leave tabs open instead of bookmarking, and opening those bookmarks EVERY time I open FF.

[jivetrky]

Why would you click on 30 links? Drugs? OCD? Why wouldn't you click on ONE link... see if what you were looking for was THERE... hit back... and click on the next link?

I sometimes have several tabs open at once. Say for instance browsing OCF. I will click the "Get New" link and then go through those and find the threads I want to view. But I will go down the list and middle click each one and open each thread in a separate tab to view them later.

Or say I'm browsing for "Pictures". I will open several tabs for each site/"picture"

I've definitely seen ~150-180MB for firefox. I'm at 99MB right now and only have 3 tabs open. But I've had several open and closed and I have 4 extensions installed right now (usually have way more but haven't gotten around to it yet)


So I can see why someone would want to have many tabs open. I think I wouldn't definitely NOT like the clicking back method you described. That kind of goes against the whole idea of TABS, which I think was a very awesome idea.

[rainless]

I sometimes have several tabs open at once.

Several... THIRTY... Several... THIRTY. *I* like to keep "several" tabs open. Having several tabs is nice. THIRTY tabs however...

Really, it's stuff I visit often such as this page, and others where I'm kept logged in, and it's easier to leave tabs open instead of bookmarking, and opening those bookmarks EVERY time I open FF.

Well to get back on topic Firefox isn't hogging ram... YOU'RE hogging ram. If you don't want to upgrade... and you wish to have ram free... STOP OPENING THIRTY TABS! Problem solved.

It's the old patient's complaint about his head hurts because he keeps banging it against the wall.

[Enablingwolf]

Firefox 1 and earlier. Had a pretty bad memory leak. They fixed it in later builds.

benj1290,
Yes that method works. It is just easier to get nightly tester tools.
Nightly Tester Tools Lite (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1391)
Almost all extension, minus a few. Can move to FF2. There is a few extensions that if forced from an old extension build will break the newer Firefox's. So if you get rid of an old vulnerable Firefox build. When you start to migrate the extensions over. Do them one at a time. Themes will be the biggest pain for you. Most of if not all of the themes for FF1 will easily migrate over to FF2 and higher. FF3 has enough significant changes where a lot of the older stuff, cannot work with it. Even with the help of the tester tools. A bonus is. There might be a whole new type of plug in that fixes your issue. Or is now built in. Most of the finest extensions are part of Firefox now.


As for the op. Might I suggest:


Speed Dial (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810)

Or

Snap Links (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4336)
With
My Portal (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1217)

Both of these options could cut your ram usage down a lot. Plus having the advantage of giving you all your favorite pages in one spot.

[benj1290]

benj1290,
Yes that method works. It is just easier to get nightly tester tools.
Nightly Tester Tools Lite (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1391)

ya i didnt see your first post until i posted.... or i wouldn't have said anything :o
sorry :/

[Enablingwolf]

ya i didnt see your first post until i posted.... or i wouldn't have said anything :o
sorry :/

I only posted the one time. :beer:

You posted nicely what you thought would help. No need to apologize for that. :D It might be old info, but it was accurate.

Since the Tester Tools and extension automatic update came out. It kind of eliminated all that work. I used the older method myself. More than once.