Hi, my Firefox (the latest public version 2.0.0.1) is leaking memory. I know that you think you’ve heard this before and that it’s extensions, or old version, but seriously this has to stop:

.

Yup, it’s using 623MB of memory. Opening a new tab is visibly sluggish. Closing a tab, clicking on links–every action takes seconds to perform on my Core Duo 2 6600 processor with 4 GB of RAM. Extensions? I’m running two: Firebug and an S3 attachment:

The secret Firefox memory cache page (about:cache) returns nothing out of the ordinary:

Number of entries: 1114
Maximum storage size: 28672 KiB
Storage in use: 75316 KiB
Inactive storage: 0 KiB

I have no idea what’s causing this behavior, so I’m going to ask for help. Digg this and let the world know Firefox *still* has memory management issue

iceberg Said :

Sorry about that, there was a left angle bracket in the text that caused the blog to clip it. Here it is edited to "less than":

To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox 1.5 implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last few session history entries. This can be a lot of data. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.

For those who remain concerned, here’s how the feature works. Firefox has a preference 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:

32MB - 0 cached pages
64MB - 1 cached pages
128MB - 2 cached pages
256MB - 3 cached pages
512MB - 5 cached pages
1GB - 8 cached pages
2GB - 8 cached pages
4GB - 8 cached pages

(lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/docshell/shistory/src/nsSHistory.cpp#161)

No more than 8 pages are ever cached in this fashion, by default. If you set this preference to another value, e.g. 25, 25 pages will be cached. You can set it to 0 to disable the feature, but your page load performance will suffer.

Related Posts

• How to reduce Firefox memory consumption
Hate to admit this but sometimes I really suspect the slowness of my browsing experience comes from ...
• Nokia webmasters leak N96 specifications
The Nokia N95 specifications have been posted on Nokia's German site. The Nokia N96 specificatio...
• Best of Free Firefox Themes
[photopress:news_6.jpg,full,pp_image]Sometimes you just can’t take that plain gray Firefox theme a...
• Firefox Speed Car
The folks at Mozilla Japan created this Firefox customized car for a competition in Nagoya...
• Firefox Extension: Morning Coffee
Everyone has a daily online routine: checking e-mail in the morning, sports scores after lunch, The ...
• Windows Vista Too Slow? ReadyBoost Can Help
Have a Windows Vista preloaded on your laptop, but the system is too slow? If you have Windows Ready...
• Turning Firefox to an Ethical Hacking Platform
Internet is an amazing virtual world where you can "virtually" do anything : gambling, playing, watc...
• Firefox Companion Aplha for eBay
If you use eBay and Firefox frequently, you have an opportunity to get in on “Firefox Companion fo...
• ITsVISTA Tip 35: Their’s a Memory Diagnostic Tool Hiding On Your Vista DVD
I've always got the Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic CD lying around. Anytime a computer acts unp...
• Cnet Youtube video How to Double Firefox Speed
Firefox is in my opinion the best browser ever made until now. It includes: -improved tabbed browsi...