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HUGE RAM usage for what, "address-space" (700MB???)

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Hello! I have illustrated the problem in this video: video hosted at youtube.com there.

As you can see there firefox uses 3.5 times more memory than chrome!

Also, running the gc, cc, minimize memory usage - at about:memory had no noticeable results.

Did I understand correctly that 700Mb are used for some address-spacing? ( screenshot at 1:12 in 1:12 video

Under about:performance the firefox tabs show up an adequate ammount of RAM usage (50Mb, most even less, one 100 Mb, but that is not the mystical 500 Mb!!!).

So the question is - what for is the huge ammount of RAM wasted for? If judging from the about:performance the actual usefull required minimum is just a small part of RAM being abused by firefox?

Are there some distributed computing processes going on? Are you abusing simple users computers for some computing needs?

Do you happen to know whether (there exists or is planning to relaunch) - something similar to the MemShrink project I mention at the end of the video?

I also tried setting the "multiple content processes" at settings to 1 and modified the browser.tabs.remote.autostart (at about:config) to false. Now it uses 760 Mb for 6 tabs which is less, but still not even close to the actual minimum shown at about:performance nor what chrome is able to save (compared to firefox)... Besides, I do not wish to turn off concurrent processing just to save some RAM.


When trying to remember the names of the settings I just mentioned I noticed that there is an advice to install firemin plugin. I think I will give it a shot but meanwhile I am totally interested in what you may answer - especially about whether the 700 Mb are used for.... address spacing??? (although I read at some posts an opinion that 1.5 gigs is "not much" for a 4Gb RAM... But still I hope and am waiting an answer! :) ) Best regards, Oskars

Hello! I have illustrated the problem in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKRtf0CRpcg video hosted at youtube.com] there. As you can see there firefox uses 3.5 times more memory than chrome! Also, running the gc, cc, minimize memory usage - at about:memory had no noticeable results. Did I understand correctly that 700Mb are used for some address-spacing? ( screenshot at 1:12 in [https://youtu.be/uKRtf0CRpcg?t=72 1:12] video Under about:performance the firefox tabs show up an adequate ammount of RAM usage (50Mb, most even less, one 100 Mb, but that is not the mystical 500 Mb!!!). So the question is - what for is the huge ammount of RAM wasted for? If judging from the about:performance the actual usefull required minimum is just a small part of RAM being abused by firefox? Are there some distributed computing processes going on? Are you abusing simple users computers for some computing needs? Do you happen to know whether (there exists or is planning to relaunch) - something similar to the MemShrink project I mention at the end of the video? I also tried setting the "multiple content processes" at settings to 1 and modified the browser.tabs.remote.autostart (at about:config) to false. Now it uses 760 Mb for 6 tabs which is less, but still not even close to the actual minimum shown at about:performance nor what chrome is able to save (compared to firefox)... Besides, I do not wish to turn off concurrent processing just to save some RAM. When trying to remember the names of the settings I just mentioned I noticed that there is an advice to install firemin plugin. I think I will give it a shot but meanwhile I am totally interested in what you may answer - especially about whether the 700 Mb are used for.... address spacing??? (although I read at some posts an opinion that 1.5 gigs is "not much" for a 4Gb RAM... But still I hope and am waiting an answer! :) ) Best regards, Oskars

All Replies (1)

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Well firemin DID reduce the memory usage dramatically! It diverges arounf 40 mb to 10 mb with 4 tabs open!!!!! That is just installing the firemin and launching. However these default settings of release every 500 ms if over 20 Mb is way too agressive imho, although it gives a strong first impression :)... so I guess I will just play around with the firemin settings to find some balance.

Besides when I opened a youtube startpage with all the video suggestions, scrolling down and then quickly back to top resulted in white unloaded thumbnails flicker for a moment. So I guess some part of the memory usage had its reasonable basis. However, I still strongly doubt the huge numbers.


Although the firemin seems like the solution, are there any plans known for mozilla to do anything about the memory leaks? Besides, I would really be happy to see answers to my previous questions here at the initial post. God bless you and keep you! Oskars