Comments on: 4 Useful Extensions to Improve Firefox Memory Usage

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:04:00 +0000

firefox 3.6.18 - 522 tabs open …….memory using 193.971 kb (193mb)

By: Tan D

Tan D — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:10:00 +0000

After day 1 of using Memory Fox, it looks like it’s working well. So maybe I won’t have to stop using FF after all. I was going to maybe switch, not to Chrome (because you can’t trust google) but to the more privacy oriented adaptation ->> Iron Browser. Even so, I hate the minimalist interface approach – I don’t want my browser to have to look like a music player, I want to CONTROL things without searching for the controls, if they even exist.

Btw, Opera is a memory pig now, too – plus you sometimes have to actually kill the task (with Task Manager) when it won’t shut itself down.

Very helpful article, thank you.

By: Tan D

Tan D — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:14:00 +0000

each new version of FF becomes a worse memory pig than the last. Visiting any mozilla pages will tell you that’s it’s really all the users’ fault. After a noble beginning, they’re just another dimwit corporation now, focusing on the gadgetry while basic functionality goes downhill.

By: non-stuart

non-stuart — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:24:00 +0000

Nice job perpetuating the stereotype off IT guys being pr1cks. “If you don’t understand it like I do you then you are stupid and should quit.”

Thanks for contributing to the solution Mr. Helpful.

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Using Firefox 4 now, usually sit around 300 – 400MB, this with a few permanent tabs (webmail and such) and multiple (5 – 10) tabs I keep changing (quite often). Same for the beta of Firefox 5. On my main machine I still sit at Firefox 3.6.17 and rarely reach the 1GB mark, even when having 80+ tabs open. And yes I got multiple addons on both FF4 and 3.6.x, which include firebug, ghostery, adblock plus, tab mix, and some others… While the mem. usage could be lower in my opinion, other browsers aren’t much better either. They all have their pros and cons. I like FF because I’m used to it, and dislike some of the features of other browsers.

IE because it sucks at supporting the web-standards.
Chrome because it does things on the background I don’t like, e.g. auto update
Safari dislike the ui interface very very… very much.
Opera is my second choice, similar looks as Firefox 4, good support for web-standards and fairly fast.

By: RkaneKnight

RkaneKnight — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:59:00 +0000

I find that Firefox 4 in 32-bit mode on my mac starts up with 100MB less RAM usage. 356MB in 64-bit mode vs 258MB in 32-bit mode. That’s 28% less memory usage. I expeded it to be closer to 35-40% less just for the fact of the memory addressing used for 64-bit applications but I guess not. Either way I’m gonna continue to use Firefox 4 in 32-bit mode, 1 to save RAM, and 2 to keep from restarting it in 32-bit mode when something like Silverlight needs to run.

By: Alex Wibowo

Alex Wibowo — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:00:00 +0000

I don’t know what memory problems you guys have in FF4, i’m on a mac, and it takes 800mb of my RAM ( I have a stat monitoring tool istat). But on Chrome, it goes to 1.1GB, and both with just one tab, but ff4 with 4 extensions and chrome with 1 extension. The best I have so far is Opera with 750 mb

By: Sko

Sko — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:02:00 +0000

I understand your point. Although, you’re being a bit of a smart-a$$. ;-) People shouldn’t have to install extra extensions – that could easily have memory leak issues of their own – in order to plug holes that could, and *should*, have been fixed long ago.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan of Firefox and have been using it as my primary browser for as long as I can remember. However, after recently installing the new version, FF4, memory usage is out of control – not only for the browser but also for plugin-container. With only 9 or 10 tabs open, the total memory usage easily exceeds 600-700 MB’s within the first 10-15 minutes of opening the browser. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s unacceptable given all the changes they made since v3.5/3.6. Apparently, eye candy was more important to the Mozilla developers than deeper improvements in coding.

I still prefer FF over other browsers but am disappointed that end users are still forced to patch well-known, long-term holes with duct tape, super glue, masking tape and Spackle (extensions). They serve the purpose of a band-aid and merely cover up the problems instead of fixing them permanently.

I only hope the developer of BarTab releases an update very, very soon. It’s an invaluable extension but has severe compatibility issues with FF4.

On a side note, I enjoy the blog. Keep up the good work…

By: ABR

ABR — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:16:00 +0000

Actually Firefox 4 is far worse than 3.x on memory. It’s similar to WebKit-based browsers like Chrome, while the 3.x series was the slimmest out there.

By: mattcrwi

mattcrwi — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:51:00 +0000

I’m sure he meant KB which is ~.9 GB. Still way too much.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Will have to contact the developer to fix this issue. When this article is written, Firefox 4 is not yet available. It was a good extension then, but I guess the developer didn’t/haven’t upgrade the extension.

By: Jack Rahaim

Jack Rahaim — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:32:00 +0000

FYI, BarTab caused a problem on Firefox 4 for me. Every so many minutes, the tabs that contained sites that autorefresh (NY Times, Remember The Milk, etc.) would spawn a new, empty tab….they kept popping up. I disabled the addon…things cleared up. After reading this article, I enabled it again…and the problem reappeared.

By: mdm-adph

mdm-adph — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:10:00 +0000

Most of these tweaks involve installing a few extensions (and then, only if you want, tweaking a few settings). If that’s beyond your abilities, please stop using the Internet.

By: mdm-adph

mdm-adph — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:09:00 +0000

You say your instance of firefox was using ~100GB of RAM? Funny, a 32-bit program doing that.

By: RH

RH — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:44:00 +0000

When even leaving Firefox running overnight causes excessive memory usage, it’s not good. I just had to close Firefox; it was using 900,000 Mb RAM! I’ve almost made the switch away as well….

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:53:30 +0000

I switched to Chrome some time back, but I still need to go back to Firefox in many occasion, mainly because of the extensions.

Firefox 4 has better memory management than the current version of Firefox, so hopefully these extensions won't be necessary then.

By: stewartsavage

stewartsavage — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:21:47 +0000

It is a shame that Firefox does not do more to improve performance. Many of these tweaks are beyond the abilities of the typical user and a waste of time for the more advanced user. I fell in love with Firefox and tabbed browsing. I now use Chrome on a daily basis for the spartan interface and performance.