Firefox Browser Memory

[engine]

I use FF as my default, but I also use other browsers for different purposes, depending upon the project.

I have noticed with recent iterations of FF it's becoming a memory hog. I know it always was, but to me it seems worse of late.

Any tips and ideas to help with the settings?

[graeme_p]

The simplest thing to try is to restart daily.

There are some settings in about:config that can help, and there is a page on this in Mozilla

What extensions do you use? Some may be memory heavy. Conversely privacy extensions, ad blockers and No script might reduce memory usage.

I have found all browsers have become more memory heavy. I think the assumption behind it is that the average user uses the browser more heavily and is willing to trade off memory for performance.

[engine]

Thanks
I haven't added any new extensions in ages, and I tend not to use them because of all the potential issues.

I just ran about:memory to see if that retains the lower usage.

I'll monitor the performance and then test some of the other options in due course. One an a time and then i'll have a better idea of what's causing the problem.

[Kendo]

I use Firefox on our Windows server to test code locally to get the error messages. Earlier today I had to shut down Firefox even though it only had one tab open... it was consuming 2.5 Gb of memory just sitting there and and had only been used to test one page.

[RhinoFish]

Both Chrome and Firefox are doing this on my PC now, for the last few weeks, getting much worse.
The amount of memory that Chrome and Firefox now take up, is unbelievable, it does not match the size of the pages and the processes being executed.
Something is wrong, maybe malware within the browser software itself.

[tangor]

My FF ran perfectly fine up until version 59 or so ... after that if it remains open, on ONE site only, continuously for 8-10 days it gobbles up all available memory and commits suicide (crashes).

I suspect the virtual sandboxing has something to do with this and there does not seem to be many methods to corral the problem.

Never ceases to amaze me that the "It ain't broke, so let's fix it!" crowd keeps rolling out changes not asked for or desired. Sigh.

[not2easy]

An update was just announced here: [webmasterworld.com...]
Thanks to aristotle ;)

[tangor]

Time will tell if the memory problem has been fixed (and already updated!).

[engine]

I'll be monitoring this closely, although I can't see any details of what was changed. Version type suggests minor bug fixes. 69.0.2

[tangor]

Okay ... you can control this significantly. (Been running it most of the day and pleased with the results).

See: [trishtech.com...] among many other pages dealing with the same thing.

My FF had defaulted to 8 processes ... I set that to 4 on my "big" machine. One the other (described above) it had defaulted to 4 (only 2 core processor) and I set that to one (1) as that machine is fixed on only one (1) site and not used for anything else, other than email. What a difference!

YMMV as these performance things are based on the number of open tabs. On the "small" machine I have only one (1) tab. On my "big" machine I rarely have more than three (3).

Memory usage on both machines dropped to 60% to 80% LESS. Whew!

As always, TEST, TEST, TEST!

[martinibuster]

Aside from the restarts at the end of the day, you may also try using CCleaner for cleaning out the gigabytes of data all your browser tabs acquire. I notice a significant increase in speed after cleaning out the crud with that app.

Good luck!

[tangor]

One other thing I do is keep the cache "small" at 160mb. FF would take 2gb if I let it and perhaps leave me with potentially outdated pages... Even so, I periodically clear the cache on general principles. My cookies are more harshly managed ... usually only 30 or so that I "white list" and the rest get nuked every day.

That said, I haven't experienced any SPEED problems, even under worst conditions (either bloated or under austerity) ... I just like to keep things lean and mean---and thereby reduce anything "outside" getting in the way of work.

Will give this reduction in processes a week to see if it performs as I hope. So far I can't see any difference in performance, but I DO see a difference in MEMORY USAGE!

[tangor]

One last note ... if you play with the settings noted above, you will have to shut down the browser and restart it to take effect. Sometimes we forget the obvious. :)

[tangor]

Okay ... the more I play with this the more I like it ... FASTER responses, even with 8 tabs open. Memory/CPU use 50% to 80% less. Have been beating the browser up and so far, well, happy results. Test it out yourself!