4 ms·

Counterpoint: as a longtime Firefox user, I have to restart it every couple day. It still hemmorhages memory and just gets unusable after a while. Even if it's

Counterpoint: as a longtime Firefox user, I have to restart it every couple day. It still hemmorhages memory and just gets unusable after a while. Even if it's the extension fault, why they aren't sandboxed properly, or even why there eisn't basic reporting about the offenders boggles my mind. Maybe it's because of the API... I find it hard to believe it isn't possible to retrofit some of that on the current design to be honest. And now, because they couldn't handle it, we're getting extensions with crippled power, that are very (very) far away from feature parity with the old ones. I wasn't happy before, and I'm not happy now, albeit for different reason. The fact that I'm using Firefox of course means I'm not thinking too much of other browsers. The fact an extension in chrome can't add a frigging sidebar is a personal pet peeve of mine. I remember when Firefox was the lightweight alternative to Internet Explorer 6...

scottlamb 9y ago
Are you using Firefox nightlies? As I read the article, the Quantum improvements they're talking about are nightly-only today; they get released tomorrow. So I think when you say "now" you're still talking about pre-Quantum. That said, I don't know if Quantum fixes the specific memory leaks you have, adds (back?) the extension hooks you miss, or adds the reporting you're looking for.
- jibesh 9y ago
  Not "nightly-only" but also "beta" channel since weeks/months. The today beta version is in fact the tomorrow stable one (57.0).
srean 9y ago
This sounds genuinely odd, could you be using a add-on that is causing a problem ? I leave Firefox open for months on end without problem and with several hundred of tabs open, multiple windows too. I do use a tab unloader, that unloads an inactive tab after a while. Its precisely because of this that other browsers are not suitable for me
- lc5G 9y ago
  Could you link the tab unloader addon you are using, and is it compatible with new firefox? I have exactly the same problem as the one you replied to. It seems like some resources never get cleaned up, so if I in the span of a day open 100 tabs and close them then I will not end up with much higher memory usage than initially. I have investigated this with about:memory and while not seeing something conclusive I did sometimes see domains taking up memory which were not loaded in any tab (ghost windows) or high amounts of memory used for "media". I will try disabling the handful of addons I use beside uBlock Origin which is too essential to disable.
- philliphaydon 9y ago
  I loaded up Firefox 56, went to Engadget website, on a Friday, at work. Then was called away from my desk. Came back Monday morning and Firefox ballooned to 3.5gb of memory... Never had such an issue with Chrome, but man FF57 is my new default. SO FAST. I don't care if I need to restart it this thing is awesome.
grayrest 9y ago
The about:memory display is pretty easy to read and can force memory collections across the app. Should be fairly easy to track down the cause. I run the developer edition and tend to restart weekly or so to pick up new updates but I don't notice excessive RAM consumption.

scottlamb 9y ago

Are you using Firefox nightlies? As I read the article, the Quantum improvements they're talking about are nightly-only today; they get released tomorrow. So I think when you say "now" you're still talking about pre-Quantum. That said, I don't know if Quantum fixes the specific memory leaks you have, adds (back?) the extension hooks you miss, or adds the reporting you're looking for.

jibesh 9y ago
Not "nightly-only" but also "beta" channel since weeks/months. The today beta version is in fact the tomorrow stable one (57.0).

srean 9y ago

This sounds genuinely odd, could you be using a add-on that is causing a problem ? I leave Firefox open for months on end without problem and with several hundred of tabs open, multiple windows too. I do use a tab unloader, that unloads an inactive tab after a while. Its precisely because of this that other browsers are not suitable for me

lc5G 9y ago
Could you link the tab unloader addon you are using, and is it compatible with new firefox? I have exactly the same problem as the one you replied to. It seems like some resources never get cleaned up, so if I in the span of a day open 100 tabs and close them then I will not end up with much higher memory usage than initially. I have investigated this with about:memory and while not seeing something conclusive I did sometimes see domains taking up memory which were not loaded in any tab (ghost windows) or high amounts of memory used for "media". I will try disabling the handful of addons I use beside uBlock Origin which is too essential to disable.
philliphaydon 9y ago
I loaded up Firefox 56, went to Engadget website, on a Friday, at work. Then was called away from my desk. Came back Monday morning and Firefox ballooned to 3.5gb of memory... Never had such an issue with Chrome, but man FF57 is my new default. SO FAST. I don't care if I need to restart it this thing is awesome.

grayrest 9y ago

The about:memory display is pretty easy to read and can force memory collections across the app. Should be fairly easy to track down the cause. I run the developer edition and tend to restart weekly or so to pick up new updates but I don't notice excessive RAM consumption.