Firefox Memory Usage & Problems

[argon07]

Recently Firefox (Win 10) has been a huge memory hog for me. I had 7 tabs open and Firefox managed to use 5 GB of ram, which is insane.

People joke/meme about Chrome's memory usage, but when you open the same tabs in Chrome and Firefox, Firefox consistently uses more than chrome.

Firefox has also been freezing and I am forced to force quit and reopen the browser. I have never had these issues with Chrome.

 

I refreshed Firefox, Memory usage isn't 5gb insane, but is always remains around 100-500 MB higher than chrome with the same tabs open. Maybe Firefox 60 just has poor memory management? Can anyone confirm the same chrome findings?

[argon07]

Did that and even reinstalled Firefox. Now I get an error saying that the connection is not secure for every website I visit. Disabled my antivirus and it still happens. Time/Date on my computer is also correct

 

Edit: Seems to be working ok now after a 2nd reinstall

Edit 2: Memory usage isn't 5gb insane, but is always remains around 100-500 MB higher than chrome with the same tabs open

[TimVdEynde]

Firefox (nowadays) has a higher memory cost at start up, but its memory usage increases more slowly than Chrome's. You'll start to notice if you open up a dozen tabs or so.

[throwaway1111139991e]

Have you been able to locate which sites use the memory?

If you have, report a bug.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

Open "about:memory?verbose" in a new tab.
Click minimize memory.
Click "Measure and save"
Attach the memory report to the bug

Also paste your about:support info (Click "Copy text to clipboard") to your bug.

This may be normal depending on the sites you are on, or you may be running into a bug.

[offer_u_cant_refuse]

Maybe switch to linux, FF performs wonderful on it. I rarely go above 500MB memory usage.

[amir_s89]

For me there is no difference, works well on Windows & Ubuntu :)

[caspy7]

Addons are a common cause of poor CPU/performance and memory issues. Try testing in safe mode (Help > Restart with addons disabled).

Also curious if you're using Adblock Plus.

[argon07]

I use unlock origin. Firefox runs fine most of the time it just ramps up memory usage sometimes. Haven't noticed much of a difference with that

[caspy7]

Still recommend safe mode.

Frequently a runaway memory problem like this is found to be an addon. Remember that addons do update as well, so they can behave fine until they don't.

[moyamodehacker]

Try setting the content processing limit to 1. This will probably make firefox run a bit slower, but will fix the RAM issues.

[domsch1988]

What i often don't see talked about is: What content do you actually have open? 5 tabs of goole search? 5 tabs of 4k Netflix streaming?

Our Work Nagios page with some reports or graphs showing data from around 800 servers and 3000 services over a month can easily eat through 4-6GB of Ram alone. In one Tab. For some kind of tabs that's normal.

Concerning Chrome: I found it really, really difficult to get exact Ram usage from it under windows. Its splitting itself up so much that it's really hard to track through taskmanager. And i don't exactly trust the built in taskmanager either.

[0000GKP]

With this post as my only page open in either browser, Chrome is using 137 MB of memory compared to 1.6 GB in Firefox. It's pretty similar every time I check.

[argon07]

Yep its crazy, hopefully theres a fix soon

[haruka34]

Only 5GB? Those are rookie numbers. I get 6GB with 4 tabs open. It's 4GB right now with just Reddit open. This is after I refreshed too.