Comments on: Leaks? Memory? We never forgot about you. http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/ Ramblings from the mind of Stuart Parmenter Fri, 16 May 2008 00:05:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: Firefox 3 Memory Usage « Williamo’s Blog. http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-2996 Firefox 3 Memory Usage « Williamo’s Blog. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:31:36 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-2996 [...] things out of them. When we first released Firefox, few people were browsing with tabs or add-ons. I’ve written before about how web usage patterns have changed, so too have our strategies on how to effectively make [...] [...] things out of them. When we first released Firefox, few people were browsing with tabs or add-ons. I’ve written before about how web usage patterns have changed, so too have our strategies on how to effectively make [...]

]]> By: Firefox 3 Memory Usage « pavlov.net http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-2883 Firefox 3 Memory Usage « pavlov.net Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:15:26 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-2883 [...] things out of them. When we first released Firefox, few people were browsing with tabs or add-ons. I’ve written before about how web usage patterns have changed, so too have our strategies on how to effectively make [...] [...] things out of them. When we first released Firefox, few people were browsing with tabs or add-ons. I’ve written before about how web usage patterns have changed, so too have our strategies on how to effectively make [...]

]]> By: Justin http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-1175 Justin Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:20:03 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-1175 Just a quick post back to Pavlov for posting on my blog. I think it's a memory fragmentation issue as well. My usage starts fine but leave it running for a while and BAM it just starts creeping upward. I just un-installed all my extensions and themes and will see how things look. Just a quick post back to Pavlov for posting on my blog. I think it’s a memory fragmentation issue as well. My usage starts fine but leave it running for a while and BAM it just starts creeping upward. I just un-installed all my extensions and themes and will see how things look.

]]> By: Andrew http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-880 Andrew Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:34:14 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-880 Yes, anyone who doesn't follow my way of doing things is dumb. I can call you dumb too, what do you think? Saying no offense while calling people dumb is self-contradictory. The problem as stated is not even because of having too many tabs opened. I can open 100 tabs and memory usage is fine initially. The problem is the longer firefox is used, the more memory it consumes. This can happen with 1 tab or 100 tabs, it's just a matter of (usage) time. As explained, it's because of memory fragmentation, which some developers are trying to reduce. It's also stated that it's very hard to completely eliminate memory fragmentation, which as a software developer myself, I do agree. It's just that I prefer the inevitable restart of firefox to be less painful. Maybe I'll try to fix it myself if it bugs me enough to overcome my laziness =p Yes, anyone who doesn’t follow my way of doing things is dumb. I can call you dumb too, what do you think? Saying no offense while calling people dumb is self-contradictory.

The problem as stated is not even because of having too many tabs opened. I can open 100 tabs and memory usage is fine initially. The problem is the longer firefox is used, the more memory it consumes. This can happen with 1 tab or 100 tabs, it’s just a matter of (usage) time. As explained, it’s because of memory fragmentation, which some developers are trying to reduce.

It’s also stated that it’s very hard to completely eliminate memory fragmentation, which as a software developer myself, I do agree. It’s just that I prefer the inevitable restart of firefox to be less painful. Maybe I’ll try to fix it myself if it bugs me enough to overcome my laziness =p

]]> By: Robert http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-849 Robert Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:44:20 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-849 My goodness, some of these people are dumb (no offence). What kind of benefit do you get from having 100+ tabs open at once? The architecture (Windows, DOM, HTML, ...) just isn't designed for that kind of thing. Just from the GUI perspective I find it offensive! For your information, I run FF 2.0.0.10 on a 256MB RAM PC at work, and it is a little slow - but acceptable - with AdBlock, Netcraft and McAfee SiteAdvisor addons (security is a thing for me, as you can tell). However, I wouldn't try more than 8 tabs without some more RAM. At home I have a Core2Duo 2GB RAM PC and have no problem with 12 tabs. But - and this is the big BUT - I will usually avoid having more than that. Why? Because it clutters up my screen, and there's much more efficient ways of working/browsing than loading up a ton of pages at once. Instead of having to scan the screen every time you want to switch to another tab try the following: 1) Use a feed reader (Google Reader is a good example - just 1 FF tab) to aggregate all your latest news etc into one place - no more trawling dozens of websites for news. 2) Focus on just a few websites at a time. Probably 8 is too many. Try just 3-4 - you might find you're more productive as a result! Fact - we can only take in a few items of info at a time - can't read 20 tab titles in one glance. More importantly we can't think about more than 2 things at a time - don't tell me you think about the other 3 news articles on the other tabs when viewing the current one? 3) Use keyboard shortcuts - e.g. rather than middle-clicking everything you can find, just middle click a couple of them, and use CTRL+Tab to switch between them - then switch back to the original tab to middle-click a couple more links 4) When you are getting too many tabs (i.e. 12 of them) and you don't know which ones to close, use CTRL+Shift+D (or Bookmarks > Bookmark all tabs) to save your session for later. Then find the most important tab and use Close Other Tabs. Usually I don't even bother bookmarking, as when I think about it the other stuff really isn't that important! 5) If you bookmark a block of sites, you can then use "Open All in Tabs" to load them simultaneously to get back to where you left off. However, don't try this with 100 tabs as you will be sat there all afternoon waiting for the sites to download! 6) Manage your expectations. Modern websites aren't designed with RAM usage in mind. If you really want less memory usage, then turn off images and Flash etc. Due to the architecture of HTML/XML (inefficient scripting languages, dependency on text rather than binary data, etc) it is usual for a single webpage to take anything from 10-60MB depending on number of images. That means use a reasonably modern PC if you love 20-30 tabs, and for any more you need a blazingly fast Front Side Bus and DDR3 (I believe that's the bottleneck when an application uses over 1GB RAM - correct me if I'm wrong!). No magic bullet browser is going to solve these problems. 7) If you really need 100 websites at a time, you should probably be using a plain text web browser (Lynx - for 'multi-tabs' use XTerm console session tabs!). 8) Windows probably isn't designed to handle 100s of HTML pages in a secure browser. The GUI doesn't make it easy for a start! Perhaps someone needs to develop their own OS for the single (stupid) task of filling main memory with 1000s of web pages and flicking quickly and easily between them - how's that for a PhD anyone...? Personally I would use Bookmarks!! No axe to grind by the way - I'm just an IT worker who uses IE7 more often than FF, and I've never even tried a FF beta. My goodness, some of these people are dumb (no offence). What kind of benefit do you get from having 100+ tabs open at once? The architecture (Windows, DOM, HTML, … ;) just isn’t designed for that kind of thing. Just from the GUI perspective I find it offensive!
For your information, I run FF 2.0.0.10 on a 256MB RAM PC at work, and it is a little slow - but acceptable - with AdBlock, Netcraft and McAfee SiteAdvisor addons (security is a thing for me, as you can tell). However, I wouldn’t try more than 8 tabs without some more RAM. At home I have a Core2Duo 2GB RAM PC and have no problem with 12 tabs. But - and this is the big BUT - I will usually avoid having more than that. Why? Because it clutters up my screen, and there’s much more efficient ways of working/browsing than loading up a ton of pages at once.
Instead of having to scan the screen every time you want to switch to another tab try the following:
1) Use a feed reader (Google Reader is a good example - just 1 FF tab) to aggregate all your latest news etc into one place - no more trawling dozens of websites for news.
2) Focus on just a few websites at a time. Probably 8 is too many. Try just 3-4 - you might find you’re more productive as a result! Fact - we can only take in a few items of info at a time - can’t read 20 tab titles in one glance. More importantly we can’t think about more than 2 things at a time - don’t tell me you think about the other 3 news articles on the other tabs when viewing the current one?
3) Use keyboard shortcuts - e.g. rather than middle-clicking everything you can find, just middle click a couple of them, and use CTRL+Tab to switch between them - then switch back to the original tab to middle-click a couple more links
4) When you are getting too many tabs (i.e. 12 of them) and you don’t know which ones to close, use CTRL+Shift+D (or Bookmarks > Bookmark all tabs) to save your session for later. Then find the most important tab and use Close Other Tabs. Usually I don’t even bother bookmarking, as when I think about it the other stuff really isn’t that important!
5) If you bookmark a block of sites, you can then use “Open All in Tabs” to load them simultaneously to get back to where you left off. However, don’t try this with 100 tabs as you will be sat there all afternoon waiting for the sites to download!
6) Manage your expectations. Modern websites aren’t designed with RAM usage in mind. If you really want less memory usage, then turn off images and Flash etc. Due to the architecture of HTML/XML (inefficient scripting languages, dependency on text rather than binary data, etc) it is usual for a single webpage to take anything from 10-60MB depending on number of images. That means use a reasonably modern PC if you love 20-30 tabs, and for any more you need a blazingly fast Front Side Bus and DDR3 (I believe that’s the bottleneck when an application uses over 1GB RAM - correct me if I’m wrong!). No magic bullet browser is going to solve these problems.
7) If you really need 100 websites at a time, you should probably be using a plain text web browser (Lynx - for ‘multi-tabs’ use XTerm console session tabs!). 8) Windows probably isn’t designed to handle 100s of HTML pages in a secure browser. The GUI doesn’t make it easy for a start! Perhaps someone needs to develop their own OS for the single (stupid) task of filling main memory with 1000s of web pages and flicking quickly and easily between them - how’s that for a PhD anyone…? Personally I would use Bookmarks!!
No axe to grind by the way - I’m just an IT worker who uses IE7 more often than FF, and I’ve never even tried a FF beta.

]]> By: Andrew http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-811 Andrew Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:16:39 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-811 I'll like to share my experiences. 1 thing I really like in IE over firefox is the ability to have multiple process instances of IE running at the same time. When I used to use IE, I used to have >40 IE windows at the same time (horrible without tabs), but I never had memory problems. It's because I open new windows (and IE instances) and close existing windows, so any memory leaks or fragmentation goes away as I browse. Firefox has made my habit worse, I routinely have >100 tabs open across multiple windows. But the fact that I could not have multiple instances means that I have firefox running almost all the time. Over time firefox memory usage will grow until firefox starts becoming unresponsive at around 700MB, when I'm forced to close everything and reopen firefox (which is painful). Viewing images on firefox is especially bad, almost ballooning memory usage immediately. Now I know that the reason why multiple instances cannot be done currently is because of writing to the profile. I remember there were some articles about profile sharing, but I guess that didn't go anywhere. Although I'm not sure what's the big problem there; relational databases has been handling concurrent writes for a long time, and a profile is basically a database. Sorry if I went on a tangent. It's good to hear that memory fragmentation is being handled better in version 3, so that should alleviate my problems quite a bit. I’ll like to share my experiences.

1 thing I really like in IE over firefox is the ability to have multiple process instances of IE running at the same time. When I used to use IE, I used to have >40 IE windows at the same time (horrible without tabs), but I never had memory problems. It’s because I open new windows (and IE instances) and close existing windows, so any memory leaks or fragmentation goes away as I browse.

Firefox has made my habit worse, I routinely have >100 tabs open across multiple windows. But the fact that I could not have multiple instances means that I have firefox running almost all the time. Over time firefox memory usage will grow until firefox starts becoming unresponsive at around 700MB, when I’m forced to close everything and reopen firefox (which is painful). Viewing images on firefox is especially bad, almost ballooning memory usage immediately.

Now I know that the reason why multiple instances cannot be done currently is because of writing to the profile. I remember there were some articles about profile sharing, but I guess that didn’t go anywhere. Although I’m not sure what’s the big problem there; relational databases has been handling concurrent writes for a long time, and a profile is basically a database.

Sorry if I went on a tangent. It’s good to hear that memory fragmentation is being handled better in version 3, so that should alleviate my problems quite a bit.

]]> By: Javier http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-806 Javier Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:39:37 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-806 well.. I think that you are trying to justify yourself and your company, the truth is that firefox does an awfully job handling memory and it would be more respectfully for you and your company just admit it and say that you made a mistake. well.. I think that you are trying to justify yourself and your company, the truth is that firefox does an awfully job handling memory and it would be more respectfully for you and your company just admit it and say that you made a mistake.

]]> By: Tuesday Tabs http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-564 Tuesday Tabs Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:37:58 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-564 [...] Leaks? Memory? We never forgot about you. - Pavlov Thank you. The Firefox post that has brought the most optimism into my world for awhile [...] [...] Leaks? Memory? We never forgot about you. - Pavlov Thank you. The Firefox post that has brought the most optimism into my world for awhile [...]

]]> By: pavlov http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-510 pavlov Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:31:26 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-510 iNsuRRecTiON: Given that Opera isn't open source, it is hard to say why they are sometimes smaller than Firefox. My guess would be that their primary focus on mobile has taught them many things and that they've been able to use what they've learned with their desktop browser. They've probably done a bunch of the work that we're looking at doing now. That said, there are plenty of examples where Firefox is smaller than Opera after loading some set of pages. iNsuRRecTiON: Given that Opera isn’t open source, it is hard to say why they are sometimes smaller than Firefox. My guess would be that their primary focus on mobile has taught them many things and that they’ve been able to use what they’ve learned with their desktop browser. They’ve probably done a bunch of the work that we’re looking at doing now. That said, there are plenty of examples where Firefox is smaller than Opera after loading some set of pages.

]]> By: iNsuRRecTiON http://blog.pavlov.net/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-503 iNsuRRecTiON Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:41:23 +0000 http://pavlovdotnet.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/leaks-memory-we-never-forgot-about-you/#comment-503 Hi there, you must do something wrong.. Why does e.g. Opera Webbrowser every time uses fewer memory/have lower memory/RAM consumption/utiliziation as Firefox with the SAME webpages and tabs opened?! best regards, iNsuRRecTiON Hi there,

you must do something wrong..

Why does e.g. Opera Webbrowser every time uses fewer memory/have lower memory/RAM consumption/utiliziation as Firefox with the SAME webpages and tabs opened?!

best regards,

iNsuRRecTiON

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