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belfrybat
22nd Nov 2009, 01:35
Currently using Firefox 3.5.3, and getting just slightly ticked off. It doesn't leak memory, it bleeds. Just starting it up has a 50+ meg memory impact and gets worse as it goes along. After a while I start getting all kinds of low memory warnings and the box gets slow as sub-arctic molasses. It's no help at all that lots of websites seem bent on locking it up for good with what seems to be a couple of megs of all kinds of scripts.

Is there some way of alleviating this, or some alternative browser with a lighter foot-print? IE doesn't count, I'd rather stay with FF but will consider a change if needed.

Running it on w2k with 256 megs. Old, but works fine with most everything but FF.

Load Toad
22nd Nov 2009, 03:26
Try 3.5.5.

I found some add ons were not compatible with 3.5.3 and I switched them off, switching them on one by one until it was running OK.

green granite
22nd Nov 2009, 07:17
As Load Toad says, if no better go to here and ask questions: Index page • mozillaZine Forums (http://forums.mozillazine.org/)

belfrybat
22nd Nov 2009, 09:57
Updated and most add-ons disabled. I'll report back on how it behaves.

vlieger
22nd Nov 2009, 10:14
I had a similar problem and even though I was always a big fan of Firefox, I decided the memory leaks (even in the latest versions) were unacceptable so I switched to Google Chrome. I have never looked back as it's by far the fastest browser around. Opera may be an alternative too.

belfrybat
22nd Nov 2009, 14:29
Had a look at Chrome. The download link appears to be disabled and says "For Windows XP, Vista, and 7". Oooops, running win2k on this machine.

four_two
23rd Nov 2009, 12:13
Not everyone thinks Firefox is a memory hog.This guy has done some testing and come to a different conclusion.

Firefox 3 Memory Benchmarks and Comparison (http://dotnetperls.com/browser-memory)

rgbrock1
23rd Nov 2009, 18:48
Have you tried Apple's Safari? It is quite fast and doesn't suffer from the same memory leaks that Firefox seems to be afflicted with these days.

mixture
23rd Nov 2009, 18:55
Have you uninstalled and re-installed flash ?

Use the Adobe uninstaller tool here ....
How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX control (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html)

I run something a bit better than w2k with 256MB RAM :E, but my FF started eating up RAM as if it were starved. Flash update didn't help but uninstall using the above tool and fresh install did the trick.

belfrybat
25th Nov 2009, 15:21
Upgraded FF, uninstalled and reinstalled Flash, general clean-up. Seems to be a lot better now. Still, it's running better than another machine with similar configuration except the processor is a 2 GHz P-4. Suspected reason for the slow-down is it's running XP.

Rossian
25th Nov 2009, 18:14
For a simple minded soul; what are "memory leaks" and how would I recognise if I had one?

The Ancient Mariner

Cacophonix
25th Nov 2009, 18:33
A memory leak occurs where a computer program allocates memory space for doing calculations, creating lists, data structures etc. using temporary named blocks or spaces of memory called variables or using memory pointers (e.g. as in C and C++). Once the action, calculation or whatever is completed, the program should register that the space is free to be used again.

A leak occurs when the program does not release this memory or the release fails and more and more memory is used. One symptom is that you eventually run out of Random Access Memory space when you try and run additional programs/applications and the computer needs to then page to disk. Symptoms are a hideously slow computer, out of memory warnings, disk light on almost full time and programs that simply won't run. Solution, shoot the programmer!

Keef
25th Nov 2009, 19:13
As he said.

A useful tool for spotting them - in later versions of Windows - is the Task Manager. It can with most versions be accessed by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del all at once (and once only!).

Then pick "Task Manager". Click on "Processes".

If you click "CPU" it will show you which processes are using most processor capacity, or on "Memory" ditto for memory. The click toggles from "largest first" to "smallest first".

If you see one process using more and more memory, that's one to suspect.

Every so often, I look at the list of what's running and stop the more obtrusive ones. MSCONFIG will allow them to be disabled - if they put themselves back after that, they usually get uninstalled. You do need to be a bit cautious doing that, not to remove stuff that is essential for running the machine. I find Apple and Google particularly keen on running all kinds of stuff without being invited. I've removed about 5 GoogleUpdaters in the past couple of weeks.