Firefox 7, fixed memory leak.

By | September 28, 2011

Everyone knows firefox has a notorious memory leak issue, and it drove me crazy as a web developer. Yes, I know Chrome exists, but it doesn’t have vimperator plugin!

So, Mozilla has released firefox version 7. This particular release claims it drastically improved memory handling for certain use cases. Good news, and I went for a trial.

After using the new version for the whole morning, with currently 6 tab open, memory usage is 254MB.

The verdict?

Yes, it is fixed, at least seems it is so far.

7 thoughts on “Firefox 7, fixed memory leak.

  1. Poppeye

    Just had to close 7.01 AGAIN because it used 1.2GB RAM and rising…

    Reply
    1. james_lin Post author

      hm… what kind of plugins are you using? I am using vimperator and firebug (well known memory eater) and still having okish memory usage.

      Reply
  2. errrr

    same for me, I’m using 7.01 and the it is unbelievable the memory use can reach even 2GB. it seems to me, they made it worse.

    I also use firebug, but no vimperator .
    I have the following plugins, do you know any that might be responsible for memory problem?

    – Add-on Compatibility Reporter 0.9.2
    – Battlefield Heroes Updater 5.0.31.0 (Incompatible)
    – Battlefield Play4Free 1.0.53.2 (Incompatible)
    – BlockSite 0.7.1.1
    – DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 2.1.2.126 (Incompatible)
    – DivX Web Player 2.0.2.039 (Incompatible)
    – Exif Viewer 1.70
    – Extension List Dumper 1.15.2
    – Firebug 1.8.3
    – FireDiff 1.1.4
    – FireFTP 1.99.5
    – Flashblock 1.5.15.1
    – FoxClocks 2.9.35
    – HP Smart Web Printing 4.60 (Incompatible)
    – Java Console 6.0.26 (Incompatible)
    – keyconfig 20110522
    – Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.2.1 (Incompatible)
    – Move Media Player 7 (Incompatible)

    – Personas 1.6.2

    – RightToClick 2.8.7
    – Save Image in Folder 1.3.6
    – TVersitybar Community Toolbar 3.8.0.8
    – TVU Web Player 2,5,3,1 (Incompatible)
    – User Agent Switcher 0.7.3

    Reply
      1. errrr

        lol, ok true there are a lot of plugins and after posting this I disabled several of them, still firefox was unbelievable, memory usage increases rapidly., i even have flashblock in place to stop flashes from hogging the memory (as they used to do), yet the latest firefox 7 is eating the memory too fast.

        I have a lot of plugins in chrome too, yet it is not causing issue, I decided to switch to chrome recently, the only thing I miss in firefox the interface of firebug in firefox.

        after disabling plugins I only have the following, I believe that incompatible ones don’t run at all and therefore shouldn’t take any memory;

        – Add-on Compatibility Reporter 0.9.2
        – Battlefield Play4Free 1.0.53.2 (Incompatible)
        – BlockSite 0.7.1.1
        – DivX Web Player 2.0.2.039 (Incompatible)
        – Exif Viewer 1.70
        – Extension List Dumper 1.15.2
        – Firebug 1.8.3
        – FireDiff 1.1.4
        – Flashblock 1.5.15.1
        – FoxClocks 2.9.35
        – HP Smart Web Printing 4.60 (Incompatible)
        – keyconfig 20110522
        – Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.2.1 (Incompatible)
        – Personas 1.6.2

        – RightToClick 2.8.7
        – Save Image in Folder 1.3.6

        many of these plugins are simple, they are mere javascript code that do simple task upon request, .

        Reply
        1. james_lin Post author

          hmmm, I do agree the firefox still leaks memory, but more slowly now. I have not restarted my firefox for a few days, as a web developer I open/close tabs often and constantly have multiple tabs open, bear in mind that I use firefox to run pages have development javascript code, so chances of memory leaks are pretty high, and yet, it is occupying 800+MB RAM.

          I agree Chrome is more stable, and I would love to switch to Chrome, if vimperator and firebug available in Chrome. I know there are alternatives plugins in Chrome, but they are just not good enough 😀

          Reply
          1. jrodriguez1982

            I’ve been experiencing the same issues with the latest version of Firefox, 7.01. The worst part is that this is newly installed Firefox (No Addons) on a newly installed Windows 7 machine. FF was using 1.5GB of RAM just now so I had to close it out.

            I’ve been using Firefox since FF .8 was available but now I think I’m going to have to switch. I can’t stomach Chrome, or IE, so I think I’m going to try Opera.

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