I am currently doing some quick research for why Firefox uses so much memory - right now mine's at 115mb and is very common for alot of users to reach 100mb. I have read that it has to do with the caching of pages and the navigation. A feature firefox apparently has is that it cache's links you previously clicked on a site (for how long I am not sure) and when you click a link you've already clicked, it loads quicker. They do this because studies have apparently said that 39% of link clicks are links clicked in the past 10 minutes - in the end faster navigation. It was said that multi tabs can quickly load up your cache.

The above may be one reason, but I researched further and found some adjustments you can make to lower the memory usage and increase speed times. (Odd because I thought the more mem usage, the faster it would go because it can use data in memory rather than calling it from harddrive).

Heres for the cache feature I was talking about.
apparently this is a little hack that will allow firefox to use only 10mb ram when its minimized... guess well see.
[b]Note[b] that firefox will become slower (less responsive) if you minimize/maximize alot because the following 'hack' will make firefox suspend memory to the disk when minimized. So it will have to write/read memory every time.


This will allow tab browsing to be faster by allowing more than one page to be loaded at a time.
and this modifies the amount of time the browser waits before it does something with incoming info...|


There is a meta tag (i believe) that allows websites to prefetch webpages. It was said to (be known for) taking alot of memory.




And heres a little joke curtsy of signaturebar.com


Hope this helps everyone out. I'll post back in a bit and tell you if I notice any changes.

Sources
http://element14.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/...rove-mem-usage/
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?...24&from=rss
http://internetducttape.com/2006/12/02/how...k-firefox-hack/
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t103...mory-drain.html

Well, I have done those changes and prior to the Modifications, I loaded three pages into three tabs and browsed through all three sites a little bit, then did a cntl-alt-delete to check the size of the process. 140 Megs being used by the Firefox process.

After performing those mods, and restarting Firefox, another cntl-alt-delete to check the size of the process. 76 Megs being used by the Firefox process. Just about 50% reduction in process size. WOW!

Although this is not exactly a 'scientific evaluation' I will check this again a couple of times and report any serious issues that may crop up. So far, i have nothing to report that affects the functioning of the Firefox Browser after performing those changes. Good find.

Let it use 150+ mb, I got plenty more waiting. Since I do cruise around with the back and forward button a lot, this will come in handy. However, daredevils with 256mb (or less) might find this information more useful.

hope that helps alot... dont forget to browse a couple pages and stuff and check because checking right after a restart would have it fairly low. Mines sitting at 105MB and ive been running it for hours.

After 2 hours of using the Internet and Localhost, it is up to 104 Megs. Still better than the 140 reported earlier.

I think the configuration works well, I usually get more than 150 Megs after using firefox for more than 6 hours but now it's reduced to 80 Megs. Thanks a lot for the recommendation

ok, I will try on my ffox over linux, maybe can help, I need speed up my browser, its very lazy.

ha! thats pretty cool, if all seems to go well I just might do this, thats is.. if it truely does more good than bad

Let me join the bandwagon. The fixes in this post have saved me from throwing my computer out of the window. Not only did it stabilize and reduce Firefox's use of memory on my computer, but it appears to have gotten rid of the main problem i have been having for several months. At least, I think it has. Thanks for that scoop. It has really been a life saver for my computer.

I would like, however to get some feedback on the most persistent problem I have been having with this machine, in case the solutions presented here do NOT really impact it. The problem is so bad it appears to be spreading virally between computers, and therefore is an area of extreme concern. Here's what happens at least 10 times per day:

1. The computer stops responding
2. The hourglass replaces the arrow cursor
3. The screen goes white
4. The hard disk light comes on
5. I can hear the hard disk doing something like its scanning or seeking
6. The windows piano sound (for failure or something incomplete) chimes in
7. An Unresponsive Script Error message pops up.
8. Once the script stops the page contents become visible again
9. That whole process takes about 6 minutes and usually ends with a change in my Gmail to a "newer version"

Once all that ends, the computer functions normally until i either type something or open another window. Then the proccess repeats itself. It happens whether I am online or offline. Whether I am running internet explorer, firefox, or netscape, microsoft word 2007, excel, or any other office product, adobe illustrator, acrobar, or photoshop....

First, my wife's laptop was doing it. Hers is a vista machine with a P4 HT 3.0 2GB, with 100GB HD. I thought it was a flaw in Vista, but after about 2 months, whatever was wrong with hers started to affect mine. We are connected to a wireless network in the house with internet service provided by Comcast Cable. We have Comcast phone service on the network, as well as Vonage (4 lines). We use a double firewall on top of the built-in firewall in the Comcast modem. The worst thing is now, one of my business associates is having the same problem, as of Friday past (January 11th), and im worried that it could have been spread via gmail.

Can somebody please tell me what this is and how to get it to stop.