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Firefox consuming massive amounts of memory - up to 2GB! Frustrated. Newer system.

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Firefox is using 1GB - 2GB of memory on average. This is a frustrating issue as I am a graphic designer and frequently use programs like Adobe Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator, and every version of Firefox that I've used (up to 3.6.3) uses MUCH more memory then my graphic programs! As result my system always gets slow after 2 days of using Firefox.

Running a fairly new Quad-core desktop system with 8GB memory, Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and Firefox 3.6.3. The only extention I am using is the Google toolbar.

Since I surf the web a lot, I tend to leave Firefox opens for days before it consumes a healthy chunk of memory. The common websites that I visit are not flash-based and many of times are just simple forums. Nor do I have more than 5 tabs open at same time on average. I don't know why Firefox needs to use a full 2GB of memory when Adobe Photoshop caps out about 500MB with 10+ files open in it, and I leave Photoshop open for WEEKS sometimes.

After spending a little time googling this issue, I see that other people are having similar issues and the only real resolution everyone has is to constantly shut Firefox down and restart. Something I feel shouldn't need to be done and not real/permanent fix for the memory leak.

Looking to get a real permanent solution to this issue as it's causing me to go back to IE. I have actually been using IE8 much more lately and no matter how many websites I visit and how many days go by, the memory usage by IE stays below 200MB (not GB, MB!). So I feel *something* can be done. Help!

Firefox is using 1GB - 2GB of memory on average. This is a frustrating issue as I am a graphic designer and frequently use programs like Adobe Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator, and every version of Firefox that I've used (up to 3.6.3) uses MUCH more memory then my graphic programs! As result my system always gets slow after 2 days of using Firefox. Running a fairly new Quad-core desktop system with 8GB memory, Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and Firefox 3.6.3. The only extention I am using is the Google toolbar. Since I surf the web a lot, I tend to leave Firefox opens for days before it consumes a healthy chunk of memory. The common websites that I visit are not flash-based and many of times are just simple forums. Nor do I have more than 5 tabs open at same time on average. I don't know why Firefox needs to use a full 2GB of memory when Adobe Photoshop caps out about 500MB with 10+ files open in it, and I leave Photoshop open for WEEKS sometimes. After spending a little time googling this issue, I see that other people are having similar issues and the only real resolution everyone has is to constantly shut Firefox down and restart. Something I feel shouldn't need to be done and not real/permanent fix for the memory leak. Looking to get a real permanent solution to this issue as it's causing me to go back to IE. I have actually been using IE8 much more lately and no matter how many websites I visit and how many days go by, the memory usage by IE stays below 200MB (not GB, MB!). So I feel *something* can be done. Help!

All Replies (1)

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i have the same problem, please do something about it! I have 2gb RAM and after a few hours ff uses 80% of my RAM and additionally 1.5gb of virtual memory. This slows down ff, because of copying data from virtual memory to ram.

I know this is because of caching websites in RAM but it really slows down ff, here is my solution: 1. A user is able to specify maximum RAM to be used by ff 2. Website caches are sorted by last access datetime - now if firefox reaches the max RAM - it removes the oldest website from RAM.

Simple and effective. Damn it.