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why is firefox using so much memory?

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  • 26 have this problem
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  • Last reply by vrunka

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For the past several months, Firefox has been eating memory like crazy. Once I get more than 5 tabs open or have Firefox running for more than an hour or so, memory usage hits around one GB. If I keep letting it go beyond that, it'll hit 1.5-2 GB and it makes my whole desktop freeze up. I've taken to keeping Task Manager and every hour or so just kill Firefox and restart. That keeps it from crashing my whole desktop. It's definitely worse when I open Google products, especially Maps and Docs. GMail usually is OK.

I have tried disabling literally every Add-On and Extension (including Flash and Adblock).

I'm on Windows 7, I have 4 GB of RAM installed. I am on version 40.0 of Firefox, but this has been going on through a couple of updates now (I think the problem started around March or April). I also tried to back-rev Firefox and go to the last version I had before the problems started, but that didn't do anything either.

Chrome works fine on this machine without any similar problems -- but I prefer Firefox!

For the past several months, Firefox has been eating memory like crazy. Once I get more than 5 tabs open or have Firefox running for more than an hour or so, memory usage hits around one GB. If I keep letting it go beyond that, it'll hit 1.5-2 GB and it makes my whole desktop freeze up. I've taken to keeping Task Manager and every hour or so just kill Firefox and restart. That keeps it from crashing my whole desktop. It's definitely worse when I open Google products, especially Maps and Docs. GMail usually is OK. I have tried disabling literally every Add-On and Extension (including Flash and Adblock). I'm on Windows 7, I have 4 GB of RAM installed. I am on version 40.0 of Firefox, but this has been going on through a couple of updates now (I think the problem started around March or April). I also tried to back-rev Firefox and go to the last version I had before the problems started, but that didn't do anything either. Chrome works fine on this machine without any similar problems -- but I prefer Firefox!

Chosen solution

Separate Issue; Your System Details shows;

Installed Plug-ins

Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape "9.5.5" is out of date


Firefox uses too much memory (RAM) - How to fix This article describes how to make Firefox use less memory to make it run faster and prevent crashes.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding

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Chosen Solution

Separate Issue; Your System Details shows;

Installed Plug-ins

Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape "9.5.5" is out of date


Firefox uses too much memory (RAM) - How to fix This article describes how to make Firefox use less memory to make it run faster and prevent crashes.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding

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Hmm.. there wasn't an update available for that plug-in and I have it deactivated in any case. Still looking for a solution...