Why are Firefox programmers making it a memory eater?

[Pengwuino]

My LORDY LORD, I'm running firefox right now with Gmail up, facebook, and a random website up. On facebook I am playing one of the stupid flash 10 games. I go to check my task manager and firefox.exe is taking up 600MB OF MEMORY! Seriously? I even check out process explorer and yes, 600MB.

Have all the idiotic programmers in the world seen that memory prices have gone down substantially over the last few years and decided that they must make sure their programs take up as much memory as humanly possible? This is unbelievable! I have actual PC games that take up less memory while in use! IMA BOUT TO SLAP A FOOL!

PENGWUINO EAT PROGRAMMERS![/size]

oh yah... uhm... I guess I don't really hvave a question... just venting...

Wait i have a question, where do I find where these programmers live?

 

[phyzmatix]

...a random website up...

Random hey? That what you call 'em?

Maybe it's watching movie clips in HD that does it

 

[Pengwuino]

Random hey? That what you call 'em?

Maybe it's watching movie clips in HD that does it

"No, baby, it's spyware, I didn't want to see that hotter younger version of you take her clothes off".

 

[martharon]

I got to agree firefox just eats the memory and causes lots of trouble. the current problem i am facing with firefox is it crashes very often.

 

[Pattonias]

What is your temporary stash set to? How many add-ons are installed?

 

[JasonRox]

I never used Firefox because even after the first time it was evident that it was no good.

People just started using them because of some trend and people want to be "different".

America founder of pseudo-individualism.

Anyways, are you still using it now?

 

[Pengwuino]

What is your temporary stash set to? How many add-ons are installed?

I have no idea, what is it and how can I control it? :)

I disabled all the add-ons that didnt seem crucial. I left stuff like AVG's part of it, java crap, flash crap, etc, but turned off all the nice little addons like download helpers and such. Anything that seemed necessary to actually run content I might normally run across was left on. I'm amazed that other people have this problem and i tisnt just some massive memory leak on my computer (read as : not amazed at all)

 

[turbo]

Try Google Chrome. Very low overhead, comes up fast, and unlike IE or FF, it doesn't keep booting me out of PF chat. It's pretty bare-bones, as browsers go.

 

[Saladsamurai]

I never used Firefox because even after the first time it was evident that it was no good.

People just started using them because of some trend and people want to be "different".

America founder of pseudo-individualism.

Anyways, are you still using it now?

I use it because I like it. To a non-computer geek, the choices are usually between the browsers we have heard of. This leaves IE or FF and to me, clearly FF is superior (at least in comparison too whatever edition of IE we have at work).


But now that you mention it, are lots of people using it? 'Cause if so, I need to switch to something less popular 'cause I'm like a non-conformist and stuff...

 

[Pattonias]

To check if it is a memory leak, you can restart the computer and then restart firefox. If firefox is not using the same amount of memory that it used doing the same things as before then it could possibly be a memory leak.

To check for spy-ware you can use spy-bot (http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html" ) it is free and very reliable. Once you download it let it scan your system. It will tell you what, if any, spy-ware you have and allow you to remove it.

If none of this works, let me know and I can tell you how to check your internet cache and see if that is the problem.

 

[mgb_phys]

Firefox by default caches the last 8 pages for each tab bar you have open, and it pretty much never releases memory that it has grabbed for this. Apparently this isn't a bug it's a 'feature'.

The argument is that most users aren't using the memory for anything else anyway, if your new home computer has 4Gb of Ram and you are only browsing the web - why not speed up the browsing by using as much ram as possible. when you start another program the Firefox cache will be swapped out to disk anyway.

If you use your computer for real work just restart firefox to clear it's memory, or there are a bunch of complex tweaks you can do see http://www.thinktechno.com/2007/10/...on-how-to-reduce-the-memory-usage-in-firefox/

Or you could just use Opera like all us cool kids ;-)

 

[Santa1]

Opera for windows and firefox for linux. :)

 

[FredGarvin]

I think Firefox is great. Granted it is a memory hog, but then again, I am not of the ADD generation that has to have 15 tabs going with my 3D shooter game, i-tunes and movie player all going at the same time. Also, I can count the number of times FF has crashed on me on one hand and those were due to pages with heavy scripts written for IE. Once I restarted and opened them in an IE window in FF (a very cool add on by the way) there were no issues.

With all of the customizations and flexibility Firefox gives you, I'll take the memory suck up any day over using IE or the like. I still have to try Chrome or Opera though.

 

[Chi Meson]

What's this "crash" people talk about? do your computers fall over?

 

[DaveC426913]

Try Google Chrome. Very low overhead, comes up fast, and unlike IE or FF, it doesn't keep booting me out of PF chat. It's pretty bare-bones, as browsers go.

Yeah. So was [strike]Netsc[/strike] ... er ... Firefox when it first started. Until it realized that mere goodwill and warm fuzzies from its loyal following weren't going to keep it competitive...

 

[Dembadon]

... Or you could just use Opera like all us cool kids ;-)

I prefer Links.

 

[vociferous]

Firefox tends to keep a lot of memory cache, so the more tabs you have open and the more history of the current session, the more memory it eats. A couple of things that help are tweaking firefox's settings (pretty much their equivalent of the registry) or creating a new profile (I had to do that because on my old profile, which I have used for many years on many different re-installations of windows, the memory usage would often top 1GB, and even with tweaking, there was nothing I could do). Now Firefox uses less than 500MB most all the time.

 

[martharon]

What's this "crash" people talk about? do your computers fall over?

Crash means all of a sudden you will get an error report saying firefox has encountered an problem and needs to close. if you in the middle of some work you can even have time to bookmark it or you cannot proceed further unless you give ok for that crash report pop up and the firefox will close. we have to start another firefox browser to do our work.

does anyone else have encountered similar problem?
how did you rectify it?

 

[FredGarvin]

What's this "crash" people talk about? do your computers fall over?

Crash means all of a sudden you will get an error report saying firefox has encountered an problem and needs to close.

Main Entry: sar·casm
Pronunciation: \ˈsär-ˌka-zəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: French or Late Latin; French sarcasme, from Late Latin sarcasmos, from Greek sarkasmos, from sarkazein to tear flesh, bite the lips in rage, sneer, from sark-, sarx flesh; probably akin to Avestan thwarəs- to cut
Date: 1550

1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b : the use or language of sarcasm

 

[Santa1]

I prefer Links.

Yes Lynx/Elinks uses very, (very, very) little memory. =)

 

[sganesh88]

@Saladsamurai
Lol.. :-D (I don't like the grin smiley in PF. Should i convey my grievance in the feedbackforum? )

 

[Chi Meson]

Main Entry: sar·casm
Pronunciation: \ˈsär-ˌka-zəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: French or Late Latin; French sarcasme, from Late Latin sarcasmos, from Greek sarkasmos, from sarkazein to tear flesh, bite the lips in rage, sneer, from sark-, sarx flesh; probably akin to Avestan thwarəs- to cut
Date: 1550

1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b : the use or language of sarcasm

3: a knee-jerk reaction from Mac users when conversation drifts to topics of Windows problems.

 

[Pythagorean]

3: a knee-jerk reaction from Mac users when conversation drifts to topics of Windows problems.

 

[Mk]

Updating you about 10 years, Pythagorean:

 

[Dembadon]

Updating you about 10 years, Pythagorean:

This graphic doesn't always indicate a crash. I can count on one hand how many times a program has completely crashed in the past year of using Macs.

The following error is experienced by me and many co-workers on a (sometimes) weekly basis:

 

[Chi Meson]

Updating you about 10 years, Pythagorean:

"The Spinning pizza cutter of DEATH!"

OK, it happens. Now and then. Occasionally. With MS applications mostly, and that's a "freeze," anyway, isn't it?

 

[Chi Meson]

I almost miss that one. A crash was never so cute!

 

[Evo]

This graphic doesn't always indicate a crash. I can count on one hand how many times a program has completely crashed in the past year of using Macs.

The following error is experienced by me and many co-workers on a (sometimes) weekly basis:

In the past 20 years using Windows, numbers of crashes...ZERO.

I'm absolutely serious. But I don't download questionable crap on my home computer that might not work right. At work, everything is made to run on Windows, so no problems. So, it's not Windows, it's the poorly written apps that cause problems with other apps.

 

[Dembadon]

In the past 20 years using Windows, numbers of crashes...ZERO.

I'm absolutely serious. But I don't download questionable crap on my home computer that might not work right. At work, everything is made to run on Windows, so no problems. So, it's not Windows, it's the poorly written apps that cause problems with other apps.

The error I posted happens when performing things as trivial as changing one's IP address or navigating 'Control Panel'.

I must say that I am quite envious of your Windows experience.

 

[turbo]

I have used CP/M, DOS (all kinds!) Apple, Mac, Windows, etc, etc, and have been the IT specialist in a large medical practice in which DOS and Windows had to coexist on a Novell network (no mean feat!). All hardware and OS combinations have their strengths and weaknesses, including costs, compatibilities, available applications, etc.

The sniping (usually Mac vs MS) reminds me of guys with pickup trucks who buy window decals featuring a urinating cartoon brat. The only difference is in which TM decals are at the receiving end of the insult (Chevy, Ford, Dodge...). Sad.

Disclaimer: I am running XP SP3 on a Dell that is pushing 5 years old. It is protected with AVAST, and I never see a BSOD. The biggest hassle I have (maybe a couple of times a month) is that I have to shut down Chrome because some bogus alert will come up when visiting a web-site telling me that I need to have my system scanned. The "alerts" are designed such that ANY response results in mal-ware trying to install itself. As a musician, I often seek out tablature, lyrics, etc, and it seems that music fan-sites are frequently contaminated with hijack-software.