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I love Firefox for its add-ons. I have a lot of them installed, which obviously increases memory use. But it seems that some add-ons are better than others in that department. Does anyone know a way to figure out approximately how much memory each add-on is using? Obviously, I could disable them all and try them one at a time, but I'm hoping for an easier way...
tghw
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 854
17
I usually deal with Firefox memory issues by installing two different Firefox'es on my computer. The first one is the default Firefox and the other is portable Firefox.
I install all the addons I am ever going to use on the portable Firefox (FF) I install the addons which are used almost daily on the default Firefox.
This way I can use the addon just by switching over to the portable Firefox.
If this is not the solution you are looking for then try these addons
AFOM - AFOM recovers Memory Leakage within the Firefox application. (Windows only)
NOTE: This add-on has been removed by its author.
CacheViewer - Allows searching and sorting memory and disk cache files.
CacheViewer is discontinued please use CacheViewer Continued.
EDIT: I tried it, and it shows all the files used by Firefox in the cache which eat up precious memory.
bosskey - Add Boss Key, Minimize/Close to tray and memory auto cleaning to Firefox.
RAMBack - RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory that is otherwise held for performance purposes.
Rishi
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 896
Edit your post. Copy the url to the clipboard click on the symbol at the top of the edit window that looks like the earth with an arrow. Paste your URL into the box that pops up and hit okay. Repeat for all your url's save, put in the why did you edit this box something like "added hyperlinks to urls" – Move More Comments Link To Top – 2009-07-29T21:04:23.577
That is very very strange... What happened to the markup?!? – Ivo Flipse – 2009-07-30T11:13:49.203
3Aha, so the number of links still depends on the original author...? Let's see what happens as soon as Rishi gets enough reputation then. (@Larry, the first sentence says "i am new so the links are not urls" because new members are not allowed to create more than 1 link.) – Arjan – 2009-07-30T11:18:39.770
@ Arjan Thanks did not know that about that limitation. I assumed (as dangerous as that is) that he didn't know how. @Rishi +1 for fixing the links – Move More Comments Link To Top – 2009-07-30T13:51:16.707
@Rishi : don't be a "vote beggar", if your answer is worth voting, it will get votes, that's all. – Gnoupi – 2009-07-30T19:17:20.107
when i wrote the answer i had a single point and i couldnt even write the links as url , dont be so hasty, read the comments above you they say so. I have removed the statement now. – Rishi – 2009-07-30T19:19:33.800
@Gnoupi when i wrote the answer i had a single point and i couldnt even write the links as url , dont be so hasty, read the comments above you, they say so. I have removed the statement now. – Rishi – 2009-07-30T19:20:16.810
RAMBack doesn't seem to do anything, at least with Firefox 3.5 on Vista x64. CacheViewer is nice in that it shows you what is eating up memory, but deleting stuff doesn't seem to work. AFOM might work, but it's hard to tell. – tghw – 2009-08-05T15:56:20.860
Cacheviewer continued is no longer continued :( – YetAnotherRandomUser – 2018-02-28T20:47:13.447
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There's an extension called Leak Monitor that monitors add-ons for a certain type of memory leak...not exactly what you're looking for, but it's a start!
Andy Mikula
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 1 422
I just tried Leak Monitor and it didn't seem to solve the problem well at all. It just popped up 46 windows with cryptic messages and seized focus over and over. – abeger – 2011-02-18T17:40:53.253
Yeah, not quite what I was hoping for, though it'll be good for add-on development. – tghw – 2009-07-16T18:20:59.707
3
Only slightly less tedious:
Obviously this is probably a non starter if you have lots of plugins.
Searching for more information on those plugins might tell you something as well.
ChrisF
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 39 650
It's not all about memory - the CPU usage is oftentimes the biggest hog. – Artem Russakovskii – 2009-08-12T00:54:31.883
That's a slight improvement, but I feel like it also introduces more variables. – tghw – 2009-07-16T18:01:03.903
Fair enough. It's up to you. – ChrisF – 2009-07-16T18:03:22.400
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joe
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 11 615
0
Mozilla released Firefox 15.0 today which has huge memory management improvements that should hugely reduce the amount of memory Firefox uses, especially after closing tabs.
You can grab it from the main download site: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
STW
Posted 2009-07-16T17:52:13.487
Reputation: 1 676
1In all the releases Mozilla have said that it never actually seems to reduce the memory usage – Matthew Lock – 2013-01-13T06:25:37.057
FYI You can use firefox profiles which allow different ad on for each for testing reasons or if you want multiple different modes for firefox. Note: The history/cookies will be different as well. – None – 2010-02-11T12:07:24.990
1Not worth an answer because your mileage may vary, but personally, among my add ons, adblock plus seems to be the worst culprit speed wise. Unfortunately for me, it's the one plugin I'm least likely to get rid of. – Macha – 2009-07-29T19:55:05.793
@Macha, maybe you could use a local proxy-based alternative if Adblock Plus really fails you? I don't know if that uses less resources, but things like http://glimmerblocker.org/ (Mac) may help for Firefox as well.
– Arjan – 2009-07-30T11:25:10.957UGH please! And yes using memory is a bad thing. There's this thing called a limit. One of the goals of every application should be to be lean and efficient, especially for something so widely, frequently, and heavily used as an internet browser. – Andrew – 2017-10-15T21:05:42.563
Using memory is not a bad thing. – endolith – 2012-05-18T00:25:37.467