Firefox using too much memory? Here’s the fix.


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Firefox is a great browser but if you are power user and end up with many extensions and plugins loaded you can end up with a very large and growing memory footprint.

One day I got fed up and began to look for the cure and it led me from site to site in my quest to find a cure for this “memory leak” in Firefox. What I was able to glean from the information I collected was that the leak was not in Firefox itself, it was in the Flash plugin for Firefox. You see I use Firefox with a lot of tabs, and every one of those flashy banners loaded in those tabs take up memory and processor cycles.

The problem is that Firefox does not release the memory once the flash plugin no longer needs the memory for the flash object you were playing. Is it a bug in Firefox? Not really. Firefox is allocating the memory that the Flash plugin needs and the Flash player is using the memory it is given, it just isn’t communicating with Firefox to tell it is done with the memory. So the solution? The solution for now is to get a plug-in like flashblock. It doesn’t cure the problem but because you choose what flash plays you decide how much your memory will grow. The ultimate solution is for the good coders of Firefox and Flash to get together and work on the communication between two very important players on the web.

So what did I accomplish on my own machine? I regularly see memory usage at over 100Meg after a full day of work on a highly modded Firefox. Of course your mileage will vary and I am sure there are actual memory leaks in Firefox but this solution has worked for everyone I have recommended it to. Let me know it works for you.

Read more posts by Christopher Carey

October 9, 2006 | Filed Under Life Tip, Software, Web 2.0 

Comments

20 Responses to “Firefox using too much memory? Here’s the fix.”

  1. WeirdGuy3 on MyAvatars 0.2 March 9th, 2007 4:03 pm

    Well Firefox still takes up more memory than god but at least it sucks up less that 100% of my processor now. Now I can multitask again praise be noheat.

  2. k n on MyAvatars 0.2 June 19th, 2007 11:24 pm

    k n…

    shit-happens 3042233 Latest k n news…

  3. phil on MyAvatars 0.2 July 23rd, 2007 7:43 pm

    I went to download flashblock and it wouldn’t download.

  4. wiseassoffice on MyAvatars 0.2 July 23rd, 2007 7:52 pm

    Works fine for me, here’s the link…

    http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

  5. Bohdan on MyAvatars 0.2 November 22nd, 2007 9:23 pm

    I have been using flash blockage for some time, but my FF still soaks up 100mb+ .
    After reading your comments, I opened task manager, set it off to the side and started FF. (29mb) I then started clicking away, randomly going from page to page while I watched FF’s consumption rise to 80. I then went to my homepage to see if it would return to the original usage. It held at 80 then continued to climb as I surfed through more pages.

    Is this from storing visited data?
    Cashing issue?
    Im just a clueless photographer.

  6. wiseassoffice on MyAvatars 0.2 November 30th, 2007 5:37 pm

    Here’s another if killing flash doesn’t cure your Firefox memory woes…

    Go to browser.cache.memory.capacity - For RAM sizes between 512M and 1GB, set it to 15000. For RAM between 128M and 512M, set to 5000. I have set mine to 10000. See what works for you.

    Go to browser.sessionhistory.max_entries - Mine was something like 80, I set it to 10.

    Go to browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers - which by default is set to -1.

    When set to this value, Firefox calculates the amount of memory in the system, according to this breakdown:
    RAM Number of Cached Pages
    32MB 0
    64MB 1
    128MB 2
    256MB 3
    512MB 5
    1GB 8
    2GB 8
    4GB 8

  7. Grant Glendinning on MyAvatars 0.2 December 7th, 2007 1:00 am

    wiseassoffice, surely that solution will only make firefox *think* there is only XYZ amount of actual RAM,therefore firefox will see itself bottlenecking the ram - and causing the browser to hang. I’ve got a lot of problems with Firefox - usually when I close the browser it is still in the background hogging memory - but I wouldn’t even consider using Internet Explorer or Apple’s $$$afari.

  8. Fahad on MyAvatars 0.2 January 11th, 2008 6:34 am

    Nice trick indeed. My slow computer will definitely love this. lol.

  9. seocontest2008 on MyAvatars 0.2 February 17th, 2008 1:37 pm

    this is one of my problem, i’m also a web developer and firefox really eats lot of memory that may affect you and make your computer slow..

  10. Dui on MyAvatars 0.2 February 19th, 2008 1:32 am

    Yeah, I have been having a problem with this 2. Glad to see you figured out a “patch”. I wonder if the coders are working on a real fix yet?

  11. Lordvader on MyAvatars 0.2 February 21st, 2008 12:12 pm

    I´ll try it, my firefox like eats too much RAM

  12. redtube video on MyAvatars 0.2 February 22nd, 2008 8:01 am

    nice finds, worth a try.. Firefox must be lightweight!

  13. Tetsu on MyAvatars 0.2 May 13th, 2008 4:58 am

    I’ve had memory consumption issues with Firefox too. And I’m a person who tabs everything. Even deep, inner pages! So what happens is that my laptop usually hangs or suddenly turns itself off. I really have to fix that.

    And I think this article would help me a bit. I’ll give it a try.

    I have Firefox problems but I would never ever switch back to Internet Explorer. Never. ever.

  14. Anonymous on MyAvatars 0.2 June 10th, 2008 9:54 pm

    Runnin several flash windows has gotten my firefox up to 250 mb. at that point i lose the ability to switch between tabs. go me!!

  15. Invicta Speedway II Stainless Steel Chronograph on MyAvatars 0.2 June 18th, 2008 7:51 am

    Thanks…I’ll try it because Firefox has been annoying me as of late because it’s such a resource hog!

  16. sapper on MyAvatars 0.2 June 25th, 2008 4:11 pm

    Here’s a link to a fix that will address some java issues
    http://thefoologs.com/useful-tweak-freeing-up-memory-when-using-firefox/

  17. Choppers Mag on MyAvatars 0.2 August 20th, 2008 7:23 pm

    For someone with 512MB of RAM and an addict of Flash games, this thing sure is handy. Thanks ;)

  18. Coin Tricks on MyAvatars 0.2 August 25th, 2008 7:07 pm

    That’s a handy trick there, thanks a lot :)

  19. anonymous on MyAvatars 0.2 August 30th, 2008 9:56 am

    those config tweaks never works for me . i mean i tried for example browser.cache.memory.capacit i set it like 32 mb max ( i have 1 gb ram btw ) but then firefox started to not to start . i mean firefox can’t load. so i guess the best thing to do is just : to use fewer tabs , extensions etc…
    this flash blocking method might be a good idea ……..

  20. Fahad on MyAvatars 0.2 September 2nd, 2008 11:42 am

    Wow, this is an old post indeed. 2006…………….

    But this problem is still here even with firefox 3………. any solutions?

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