Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Este fío arquivouse. Faga unha nova pregunta se precisa axuda.

plugin container necessary in Firefox 4?

  • 4 respostas
  • 5 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Xircal

bdinger4
bdinger4
more options

Is plugin container still necessary when using the latest version of FF4? I'm aware of the posts about the memory issues of this program when running FF3.6.4. The thing is that the values of dom.ipc which were recommended to change back then using about:config are not the same at this point (at least on my machine). So i can't go that route.

Currently, plugin container is taking up around 164k and Firefox is taking up around 212k but that is because I'm listening to some music (Pandora). Normally, it's less. Plugin container required to listen to music?

I'd like to free up this memory if I could. So the question still is: Plugin container necessary on FF4? If not, how do we responsibly get rid of it?

Thanks!

Is plugin container still necessary when using the latest version of FF4? I'm aware of the posts about the memory issues of this program when running FF3.6.4. The thing is that the values of dom.ipc which were recommended to change back then using about:config are not the same at this point (at least on my machine). So i can't go that route. Currently, plugin container is taking up around 164k and Firefox is taking up around 212k but that is because I'm listening to some music (Pandora). Normally, it's less. Plugin container required to listen to music? I'd like to free up this memory if I could. So the question still is: Plugin container necessary on FF4? If not, how do we responsibly get rid of it? Thanks!

All Replies (4)

Xircal
Xircal
more options

My understanding of plugin_container.exe is that it runs as a kind of sandbox so that if a plugin crashes, it's contained within that module rather than having the whole browser crash.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can disable the plugin-container process, but in that case Firefox will crash in case of a problem with the plugin. The plugin-container process isolates plugins from the Firefox process to prevent plugins from affecting Firefox.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plugin-container_and_out-of-process_plugins

bdinger4
bdinger4 Question owner
more options

Right. Thank you Cor-el and Xircal. Sounds like it wouldn't be a good idea for the present. I realized the memory used I stated in my first post was missing an integer. Should have been 1,640 k for plugin c and 2,210 for FF. Anyway, doesn't matter. We've just got to live with plugin container for now it appears.

Xircal
Xircal
more options

Your welcome.