Mem use in FF or Flock!

General Topics
1

Users of FF or Flock browsers,

Memory use
The use of memory of Firefox is not being returned to Windows (not for users onLinux and MAC!) when the program is being minimized.

To ascertain that Firefox does return mem to Windows whenever it is being minimized, give in in the address bar about:config. Right click and choose New, Boolean. Call this new added value config.trim_on_minimize. Doubleclick the newly added value to mark it True.

polonus

2

I will give that a test drive as I have only had firefox running for about an hour and the RAM, VM Size is shown as just over 61MB and it does get much higher through the course of the day.

When you create the new Boolean item after naming it there is a pop-up window which allows you to set it to True (or False), so you should be able to complete the creation of the new item in one go.

OK I have just restarted FF and the VM Size is immediately at 40.5MB so fairly high to start with.

Well I have been on-line using firefox and slowly it has built up to 52.5MB VM Size and I minimised firefox and there was zero reduction in the VM Size.

So I don’t know if this is simply not working or that Task Manager doesn’t interpret it well. I can’t recall if it was Vlk or Igor that mentioned the VM size is a better indication of actual memory in use, so I will check the other task manager memory settings like Mem Usage

3

Polonus, I’ve read theoretically what David posted in practice. The windows state (maximized/minimized) does not change anything on Windows priority or RAM manager…
What will exactly change with your tweak?

4

Update, did a little test having built up mem usage (.swf load) To 55MB and minimised FF and the Mem Usage dropped right down to 6MB but in the short time it has taken to post this it has built up to 35MB.

So in this respect it works there is a difference in the reported Men Usage in task manager but no change in VM size which may be down to task manager.

5

Hi DavidR,

This is only part of all the mem issues with Firefox:
http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/memusage.html
I only choose this to feed the mem back to Windows upon minimizing FF or Flock.
There are other memory “monsters” that can eat away at your mem like AdobeReader for instance, etc.
There is a preloader solution, there are various other tweaks.
I posted this one just to start you folks contemplating these issues with your browser.

pol

6

And so?

7

Hi Tech,

It depends if you experience problems here. If you’re experiencing problems with the application consuming too much RAM (Mem Usage in the Windows Task Manager), you can try setting this preference to true. If you’re not experiencing any problems, it should be left at false to maintain application responsiveness.
There is another code-cure to both install the tweak I mentioned and reduce responsiveness after re-starting the browser: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=186265
So it is with all these browser issues, in a way “it is as you look upon it”, but the Mem Usage in Windows Task Manager is certainly going down. I think it has more sense where DavidR is concerned…

polonus

8

I was more interested in testing the functionality to see if it worked as I have 1GB of RAM, Mem Usage is really a concern for me. I regularly see firefox Mem Usage up around 150MB so although high for just a browser it is only just over 14% of my available RAM.

For those with less RAM then the steady build up of Mem Usage might well hurt system performance.