Firefox eating up all the RAM

[Bubble99]

I have 4GB of RAM and base on wikipedia, firefox minimum requirements is 512 MB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox

I did some reading on some message boards and people say firefox gotten really bloated and some saying even having memory leaks.

I have firefox open and 6 tabs, no video!! Base on activity monitor I have only 350 MB free!! Wow!!

With firefox not open I have now 2 GB free!!

If I open firefox with three tabs now it saying only 1.6 GB free

It clear firefox is eating up all my RAM and has some memory leak.

The computer OS is running fast and firefox is running fast, but my RAM is getting eaten up by firefox.

As a test to test for memory leak!! I open firefox and had it running for over weak and not closing for over a week!!! I had firefox open many tabs of HD video on youtube after many and many HD video cover 100 HD videos on youtube firefox starts to get slow!! Yes even when tabs are closed. To fix it you have to close firefox and reopen it.

How can I fix this problem with firefox? Can this memory leak be fixed?

I know firefox well but don't like what has become of it.

I hear that people are starting to move away from firefox.

 

[OLDCODGER]

Been a problem for a long time - and gets worse with extensions installed. Rather than worry about it, I restart Firefox every morning, which lets it automatically re-download any open tabs.

 

[chabig]

The computer OS is running fast and firefox is running fast...

I doesn't sound like you have a problem, then. Memory management is not a concern of the user. The operating system takes care of it. Quit worrying and enjoy using your machine.

 

[Rigby]

I have firefox open and 6 tabs, no video!! Base on activity monitor I have only 350 MB free!! Wow!!

Where exactly did you see the number? You are most likely misinterpreting a reading. Recent versions of MacOS do not show "free" memory for a reason, since the OS tries to use as much memory as possible for caching and other things that improve performance. "Free" memory is really wasted memory.

With firefox not open I have now 2 GB free!!

If I open firefox with three tabs now it saying only 1.6 GB free

It clear firefox is eating up all my RAM and has some memory leak.

Have you switched to the Memory tab in Activity monitor and checked how much memory the Firefox processes actually consume? I'm currently typing this in a Firefox window that has 5 tabs open, and there are two Firefox processes that together consume less than 500MB according to Activity Monitor.

 

[Stefan johansson]

Hmm...maybe cleaning up browser history will solve some of it?

 

[Phil in ocala]

Hmm...maybe cleaning up browser history will solve some of it?

The only thing good about Firefox are the extensions that permit U to download video files....its S L O W...vulnerable to infections like no other browser....does not remember User and Passwords....I use Canary Chrome for Mac ...its three times as fast as Firefox...remembers usernames and passwords and it FREE.

 

[campyguy]

Version 55 is coming soon…

https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/04/13/firefoxs-new-performance-tab-great-news-old-computers/

 

[Rigby]

The only thing good about Firefox are the extensions that permit U to download video files....its S L O W...vulnerable to infections like no other browser....does not remember User and Passwords....I use Canary Chrome for Mac ...its three times as fast as Firefox...remembers usernames and passwords and it FREE.

This is complete nonsense. Recent versions of Firefox are highly competitive in benchmarks (see e.g. here), very customizable, and it provides the best privacy (e.g. cloud syncing with true end-to-end encryption, which no other browser has). And of course it can remember passwords.

Regarding memory consumption, here's an interesting article:

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/11/firefox-chrome-ie-safari-memory-performance-in-2017/

 

[Bubble99]

The only thing good about Firefox are the extensions that permit U to download video files....its S L O W...vulnerable to infections like no other browser....does not remember User and Passwords....I use Canary Chrome for Mac ...its three times as fast as Firefox...remembers usernames and passwords and it FREE.

That is what he said the way OS X and firefox uses memory. You can think of hard-drive like file cabinet and RAM like desk or table. When you go and open apps and start to do work well it copy it from file cabinets to the desk. When you not working on it it, well it still keeps it on the desk thinking you may be still using it or may use it again.

It sorta of like when you doing biochemistry studies in you home and you bring your papers, binders, textbooks so on.

So what he saying the way OS X and firefox uses memory that when you open many tabs in firefox and close it it, well it still keeps in RAM!! Using RAM as like a cache.

Like if I gone to your home and you studying biochemistry and ran upstairs to get you textbook and put on table and read two chapters than needed other biochemistry textbook so you took this one back upstairs and bring other one down!!! And read some chapters and than needed other one so you go back up stairs to get it yes the one you had down the first time. Yes way to slow. Just keep all the biochemistry textbook we are working on the table.

When time do math and done with biochemistry now than you swap the biochemistry for the math books.

Where in old days and the way windows does it is you open tabs it eats memory and you close tabs and it clears the memory. When you go back to that web site well now it takes long time because it no longer in cache.

Well that why slower loading app the first time . When it in RAM and you load app again it faster because it is in RAM.
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The only thing good about Firefox are the extensions that permit U to download video files....its S L O W...vulnerable to infections like no other browser....does not remember User and Passwords....I use Canary Chrome for Mac ...its three times as fast as Firefox...remembers usernames and passwords and it FREE.

As for some firefox folks saying it become really bloated it because most operating systems and browser are more bloated thee days.

Firefox system requirements is 512 MB RAM.

Sierra 10.12 requires at least 2GB of RAM

Even Snow leopard 10.6 is bloated a system requirements 1 GB of RAM

I know people with Mac computers that have to run operating systems older than Snow leopard because their computer is way too old. Having only 2GB of RAM and only 80GB hard-drive

Windows 10 is even more bloated being worse system requirements 4 GB of RAM!!!

 

[HDFan]

Have you switched to the Memory tab in Activity monitor and checked how much memory the Firefox processes actually consume?

Make sure you've selected on the View menu "All Processes" when you do the search.

As above, if you run out of memory and are swapping to disk (Swap Used) that can slow things down:

I have seen problems in Safari, most often often with Macrumors tabs left open overnight, where Safari has crashed my system ("out of application memory") using 32+GB of memory, even though I still had free memory. Haven't been able to debug it, but it was suggested that I install an adblocker to see if that helped. Installed Adblock Plus and haven't had any problems so far.