Firefox is bloating up
Firefox turned 5 recently, I have been using Firefox since version 1.5 and now that it stands at 3.5.6. Version 4 is close by and I am wondering if my favorite browser is slowly getting old.
Mozilla says :
In just five years, Firefox has over 330 million users worldwide; almost a quarter of Internet users worldwide choose Firefox. Today, Firefox ships in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to help customize their browsing experience.
No doubt, firefox has matured into a very functional product and is secure but what happened to the “light” keyword? Firefox’s memory usage is no longer confined to a few megabytes, instead within a few minutes of browsing the system memory usage shoots beyond the 100MB mark!
Here is a screenshot of Firefox after 3 mins of using Gmail :
On one hand, RAM is getting affordable so someone with 2GB + memory will not have to worry about such measly requirements but what is a matter of concern is that once light Mozilla Firefox is no longer content with little memory. A lot of people still use older systems with memory close to the 512MB mark.
Memory! What Memory? Who has less than 2GB these days?
The Netbook craze that has hit the office/home user who generally prefers to surf the net and does the usual word processing uses a machine that often has 1GB of RAM. The average Joe among us does not have the ‘privilege’ of 3GB DDR3 RAM @ 1000Mhz+, for a user who uses his computer to surf the web, I think this matters.
If Firefox’s usage escalates so much that it is no longer able to satisfy itself with < 200MBs then I think after leaving the memory for the Operating System itself, there isn’t much one can do!
In low cost netbooks that run on Linux distros like say Ubuntu Netbook remix or say the new Cloud Computing concepts of Cloud OS, one would definitely need a browser and Firefox being Open Source + Free is readily available on these underpowered machines. What would happen if Firefox grows exponentially?
Addons and extensions , gimme more!
Not only is Firefox bloating up, even the number of useful extensions are increasing.I use a handsome number of addons for Firefox to satisfy my appetite for convenience, these addons also add a few megabytes a usage and thus contribute to the increasing memory demands of the once “light” browser.
Firefox still is my best browser and I am not going to leave it any time soon. I just hope Mozilla looks into the same and comes up with better memory management.
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well said Vaibhav … even i feel firefox is really getting more into a memory sucker … but i also admire it a lot … for designers and developers its a boon and can be very handy with tons of addons.
Let’s call it a necessary evil!
It is really true. Not even memory hungry, sometimes it takes more than 90% of my CPU. Initially I thought it was due to add on and on removing all add on, the same story repeats.
Meaning the same feature similar to Google Chrome? I hope things materialize soon
And here, it eats up about 174,000+ K of memory with no more than 8 tabs open and a couple of extensions installed. FF turns out to be Vista’s very own son.
I completely agree Joseph but I think what @Arpit pointed out is something we should look forward to and maybe things improve for the better.
Finger’s crossed!
Guess what? After this article, I checked my on Firefox usage with only 3 tabs open(1 gmail + 2 of Programming Kid articles ). Yes i do have 12+ add-ons installed. I saw my Firefox usage is 108+ MB..(whoooaa) !! Vaibhav is right, average Joe like me doesn’t even have a 1GB memory. I use a simple, very old 512 MB RAM (256 * 2 sticks). No wonder my firefox crashes / freezes uncountable times a day. And my RAM is very old style, i guess. I dont understand what is DDR1 / DDR2. But mine is, I guess, DDR1. Still I am able to use my firefox along with a 2+ Hour WMP playlist running in parallel.
I hope Firefox does something about it. I hope this one-process-per-tab thing works well when firefox comes out with it.
Firefox has already been a memory hogger especially when lots of tabs have been opened. And the funny part is that the memory usage just keeps increasing with time even if the same tabs are open. Another issue with firefox is the load time especially on windows. Firefox 3 seems to have corrected that problem to some extent.
But I still prefer Firefox as it is one of the best browers around and it’s addon feature is a great help to customize the browser as per our needs.
I am migrating to Google Chrome and was on a look out for Chrome extensions which give me functionality of Firefox. Although, I did find some extensions I still can not find the full blown Firebug and GreaseMonkey for Chrome. EasyComment is also not available in Chrome.
If my quest ends successfully, I’ll write a post on the same. For now, I’ll use Chrome as my main browser and keep firefox for some time. I’d suggest you to give Chrome a try. Chrome is very memory efficient in comparison to Firefox.
I would also like to thank you for your active participation at Programming Kid. Good to see your comments
migrating to google chrome is not the solution…..
I tried the same solution but found that chrome(with 5 addons installed) was hogging even more memory than FF(54 addons installed
)….
according to ACID test FF is still best in memory management
That is there but what I like about Chrome is the fact that every new tab generates a new process. So, it does not hog a giant block in the memory, at-least its a new process each time a new tab is opened.
Let’s hope firefox 4.0 fixes these issues
I think it might be prevalent in the netbook category, but netbooks might soon disappear considering most computer manufacturers are not reporting big revenues in netbooks inspite of good sales.
I see your point Aditya and that’s a new perspective. Netbooks are a low profit making segment as there is not much scope due to the already low price of $300-$400, it may take some time for the Netbook craze to ween off but what will trigger it would be the consumers longing for performance and bigger sizes. 10 inch is very small from usability angle.