Ron Schenone

Firefox 3.0 RC1 – I'm Still Having Memory Issues

Posted by on May 20, 2008 | 5 Comments

I downloaded the release candidate for Firefox last week, and over all I love the new browser. Sure some of my extensions don’t work with it yet, but that is to be expected. I’m sure the extensions will become compatible once Firefox 3 goes gold in June 2008. I won’t bore you with all of the new features since there are already a bunch of folks writing about the merits of the new browser.

I have mentioned this before with Firefox 2, other beta’s of version 3 and now once again with RC1. For some reason I am still using way to much memory on my system. I have four specific tabs I leave open all day long while I use the system. By the end of the day my memory is up around 130MB. I shutdown the browser, which is no biggie, and start over.

I am not writing about this to be argumentative. I’d like a real answer to my specific problem. Or is it just my machine?

Suggestions as always are welcome.

PS No I am not switching browsers thank you. :-)

[tags]firefox 3 rc1, memory issues, tabs,  [/tags]

  • Matt

    Ron – not sure if you’re aware of this, but you can disable extension compatibility checking by entering about:config, and setting ‘extensions.checkCompatibility’ to false (it may not exist and if so you’ll need to manually add it).
    If you do this your extensions will not be automatically disabled if the version number does not state FF3 compatibility – therefore you may get problems and need to manually disable some. In my experience there are only a few I’ve had to disable – most work fine (though thankfully more and more are releasing FF3 compatible versions now anyway).

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Matt,
    I’m using Mozilla’s Tester Tool to force compatibility.
    Thanks, Ron

  • http://asuh.com Micah

    I notice the same thing, but I have a feeling it’s a mix of the fact that I run lots of extensions and that my history for each tab that I leave open goes back a long way. That’s a lot of cache for the browser to open at once.

    Try decreasing the time Firefox holds cache in memory and see if that improves your problem.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Micah,
    I’ll give that a try. Thanks.

  • Eric

    Extensions are evil (Expect Adblock+Filterset.G).

    BUT otherwise, the RC1 is a HUGE improvement over beta5. beta 5 was the screwup build, this RC1 Ive only crashed once, which is MUCH better. Don’t drag beta5′s instability into RC1. Also, how about just decreasing memory usage?? Does it matter in this day when 2 GB RAM is the norm?? HOW ELSE are you going to utilize your system?? you paid good money for it right?? THEN USE IT! I do plea that many apps stay compact and minimalistic sure, but these days i hear an equal amount of almost complaints, that people don’t use more than 1 GB of their available RAM, so think about it.