Memory usage

[OntarioVanMan]

I am using my older laptop that has a smaller memory (Ram) and one thing I noticed of late when using Firefox is that the usage escalates during time....what starts off at 58,000k goes up to over 100k of power and EO slows down accordingly...it is not the site nor my ISP... it is me!! So now I am in the habit of shutting the browser down and restarting it...Viola...Problem solved.

 

[greg334]

Two things, since Mozilla decided to go after the bells and whistles, the browser has some "issues" that they need to review and fix. Memory usage is one thing and the termination of the program is another.

The other issue is memory usage with images, it seems the more images a page has, the exponentially more memory it uses.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

2 or more windows/tabs open it grows enormously....

 

[bcordell70]

Only things that come to mind that you could try would be to switch to another browser such as Google Chrome, I dont have an older laptop with me to test this with or you could rent or buy a newer laptop..lol..I rent to own one from Arron's and they know its in a truck.

 

[Turtle]

I rent to own one from Arron's and they know its in a truck.

You know about Arron's having installed stealth keylogger software on the computers, right? And they'll even surreptitiously take pictures of you if your laptop has a Webcam. If yours has a Webcam, I'd sure put a piece of masking tape over it.

Suit against PC renter raises privacy questions - Yahoo! News

OVM, make sure you have the latest version of Firefox, and that you have it set in the Privacy options to clear out the cache when closing Firefox.

 

[highway star]

OVM, make sure you have the latest version of Firefox, and that you have it set in the Privacy options to clear out the cache when closing Firefox.

Would that be setting it to "never remember history"?

 

[Turtle]

Would that be setting it to "never remember history"?

No, setting it to "never remember history" will have it delete traces of Web sites previously visited. You might certainly want to do that if someone else uses your computer and you don't want them to know which Web sites you've visited in the last month or so, but for most out here in a truck that's not an issue. It is often nice to have a full history of your browsing at your fingertips in order to go back to some Web site you stumbled upon a week or two ago and can't remember at the moment.

Clearing the cache removes various and sundry images, scripts and other parts of Websites. Often these images, scripts and other stuff get loaded into memory even if they are not needed. Plus, old items in the cache sometimes interfere with current browsing and can cause problems with some sites.

 

[highway star]

O.K... I found the box to "override automatic cache management" and it's unchecked. My cache is using 193mb. That's all I've found so far. I'm running Firefox 4.

 

[Turtle]

O.K... I found the box to "override automatic cache management" and it's unchecked. My cache is using 193mb. That's all I've found so far. I'm running Firefox 4.

That's just for how much disck space you want to allot to the cache. You can leave that unchecked, or specify an amount. It used to be that it would default to 50MB, and then it went to 250MB, but because of videos and stuff it defaults to automatic cache management and can be up to 1GB of space.

The important one is TOOLS|OPTIONS|PRIVACY and then click on "Clear your recent history" and you'll be presented with a listbox of things to check. You want to have "Cache" checked (and anything else you like, but cache is the main one for memory). Once checked, the cache will be cleared out every time you close the browser. For the Time Frame: Select "Everything" if you want to have it all cleared out each time, or you can select "Last Hour" or whatever you like.

You can also go to TOOLS|CLEAR RECENT HISTORY and do the same thing to immediately clear the cache (and whatever else).

 

[highway star]

Thanks Turtle!