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Why is Firefox Using Too Much Memory?

  • 3 replies
  • 8 have this problem
  • 22 views
  • Last reply by Dr Genius

familyresearch
familyresearch
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Been having this problem for a while with firefox, seems like an update last summer and the past upgrade things have changed. Task Manager shows multiple tabs open in firefox, I had two tabs open, one for my homepage and another for a website I was visiting, firefox shows a lot of activity on one tab and thing there's 3 other tabs open.

This causes my computer to lag and be unresponsive, everything application, every function, the task bar, everything lags and slow to respond and responds in a choppy way. This has been going on for sometime and is a real headache, I do my work and use firefox considerably, I open multiple tabs and work on certain websites, Firefox uses 500-1,000+ MB and 80-90% memory, why is that?

Been having this problem for a while with firefox, seems like an update last summer and the past upgrade things have changed. Task Manager shows multiple tabs open in firefox, I had two tabs open, one for my homepage and another for a website I was visiting, firefox shows a lot of activity on one tab and thing there's 3 other tabs open. This causes my computer to lag and be unresponsive, everything application, every function, the task bar, everything lags and slow to respond and responds in a choppy way. This has been going on for sometime and is a real headache, I do my work and use firefox considerably, I open multiple tabs and work on certain websites, Firefox uses 500-1,000+ MB and 80-90% memory, why is that?
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

You can try to modify multi-process settings to see if this has effect.

  • set number of content processes to 1 if it is currently set to a higher value (4)
    Options/Preferences -> General -> Performance
    remove checkmark: [ ] "Use recommended performance settings"
  • disable multi-process windows in Firefox

You can disable multi-process windows in Firefox by setting this pref to false on the about:config page.

  • browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false

Note that the previously used opt-in pref browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 is no longer supported in Firefox 58+. You can reset browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 via the right-click context menu to the default value to have this this pref removed on the next start.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

You can try to modify multi-process settings to see if this has effect.

  • set number of content processes to 1 if it is currently set to a higher value (4)
    Options/Preferences -> General -> Performance
    remove checkmark: [ ] "Use recommended performance settings"
  • disable multi-process windows in Firefox

You can disable multi-process windows in Firefox by setting this pref to false on the about:config page.

  • browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false

Note that the previously used opt-in pref browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 is no longer supported in Firefox 58+. You can reset browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 via the right-click context menu to the default value to have this this pref removed on the next start.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

familyresearch
familyresearch Question owner
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Thanks Cor-el, looks like that worked, not much of a headache anymore.

Dr Genius
Dr Genius
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Why on earth is the default setting so clunky then? seems absurd that we all have to tweak settings for Firefox to function in an acceptable fashion. :-(