Hey guys, according to the Activity Monitor the Firefox eat almost 1GB of ram. I just wonder is this right? or is there something wrong with my Mac. Also sometime my Mac eat almost 5GB of Ram, but I'm not running much. Please advise me.
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Why Firefox eat so much Ram?
- Thread starter thevisualbasic
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You don't say what OS you're running, but my early 2009 Mini, running SL, uses no more than 500MB on Firefox, and 2 - 2.5GB overall.
I did read that ML is a ram gobbler.
I did read that ML is a ram gobbler.
Firefox uses up quite a bit of memory as your usage progresses. I've since switched to chrome. Much faster.
Since I updated to 10.8.3, Firefox has become an insatiable memory hog! Especially on Youtube!
I'm using Safari now, vast improvement on memory use.
I'm using Safari now, vast improvement on memory use.
Very outdated information. Firefox now has the lowest memory usage and Chrome one of the highest (according to several tests by different parties). However, any web browser will eat up memory when you use it to browse around the web, especially if you browse large pictures (say wallpapers). Large wallpapers will drive up the memory usage. I've actually been able to crash browsers this way
Memory should be automatically given back. You can also restart the browser to do this manually. Works with any browser.Switching browser for speed results in almost no increase whatsoever. The differences are very small now. If you want to switch browsers then it's better to switch because of features since that seems to be the only real and notable difference between them.
Very outdated information. Firefox now has the lowest memory usage and Chrome one of the highest (according to several tests by different parties). However, any web browser will eat up memory when you use it to browse around the web, especially if you browse large pictures (say wallpapers). Large wallpapers will drive up the memory usage. I've actually been able to crash browsers this way
Switching browser for speed results in almost no increase whatsoever. The differences are very small now. If you want to switch browsers then it's better to switch because of features since that seems to be the only real and notable difference between them.
WebKit ala Safari and Chrome suck ram like vampires. Opening a 8KB text file in WebKit can take up to 20 MB ram? WTF?
Sucks when you buy a MacBook Air that you can't upgrade ram.
Also, Chrome won't let the user limit the browser cache so Chrome eats up 5-7 GB of my MBA SSD if I don't quit it every day. Why? so google has more info to track me? Nice trade off? Why would any web browser need 5GB of cache if it wasn't trying to track me and sell data?
I've never seen Firefox eat that much RAM, or Safari or Chrome for that matter. 750Mb is probably the max with several tabs and streaming video too. My problem with Firefox is it's visibly slower than the other 2 and I don't care for the interface. I also miss the print preview in the Mac version... Windows has it, Safari and Chrome have it, so why do I have to print to PDF to see if a web coupon or shipping label is correct?
My own benchmarking actually has Firefox 21 as the least RAM hungry running 1 tab and just browsing for an hour, hovering under 500Mb. But it's also consistently the slowest and weakest performer. All things being equal, I prefer Chrome's UI and feature set, but it also runs my MBA 20-30 degrees hotter and cuts my battery time almost in half.
My own benchmarking actually has Firefox 21 as the least RAM hungry running 1 tab and just browsing for an hour, hovering under 500Mb. But it's also consistently the slowest and weakest performer. All things being equal, I prefer Chrome's UI and feature set, but it also runs my MBA 20-30 degrees hotter and cuts my battery time almost in half.
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Firefox does the same thing on my Windoze system plus it gets into fits where it sucks so much CPU that the system literally crawls. I go into process monitor and kill all Flash and Shockwave and it comes back, but eventually Firefox gets so big that it crashes.
Firefox isn't perfect, but it has gotten better somewhat. I do tend to leave browser windows open for a few days. It seems to get worse over time without opening many new, if any, pages...
Firefox isn't perfect, but it has gotten better somewhat. I do tend to leave browser windows open for a few days. It seems to get worse over time without opening many new, if any, pages...
I have noticed that the past couple releases have seemed progressively less nimble. Thought it was just my natural impatience
I fit were not for Firefox's ability to prevent auto-refresh, I would dump it in favour of Omniweb, Roccat or Maxthon.
Just for giggles, I checked RAM usage on my MBA 4Gb with Weather Underground animated radar, Facebook, Twitter, MacRumors forums tabs, and a separate window with iHeart Radio playing:
Firefox 21 - 533Mb (FF, Shockwave)
Safari 6.0.4 - 496Mb (Safari, Safari Web Process, Flash)
Chrome 26 - 902Mb 8 processes, 2 copies of PepperFlash running?
Chrome also made my fan come on and WU's animated radar quit cycling even with a forced reload of that tab. I noticed the Chrome process alone running around 40% CPU. I usually don't run this many tabs and a Flash feed all at the same time. I use Safari 90% of the time and I cannot remember it ever heating up to the point the fans come on.
Firefox 21 - 533Mb (FF, Shockwave)
Safari 6.0.4 - 496Mb (Safari, Safari Web Process, Flash)
Chrome 26 - 902Mb 8 processes, 2 copies of PepperFlash running?
Chrome also made my fan come on and WU's animated radar quit cycling even with a forced reload of that tab. I noticed the Chrome process alone running around 40% CPU. I usually don't run this many tabs and a Flash feed all at the same time. I use Safari 90% of the time and I cannot remember it ever heating up to the point the fans come on.