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Question

FF Browser Eating Up Memoery

Apr 25, 2019 11:58PM PDT

When I open Firefox, just one window/one tab, the Task Manager shows that five instances of FF are open, using a total of nearly 900MB of Memory. After these initial 5 instances shown in the Task Manager, the Task Manger only shows one additional instance for every additional FF window or tab that is opened. Last I recall the Task manager would only show one instance of FF when only one window/tab was open. The systems performance doesn't seem to be any worse for ware, but I'm curious as to why FF would be eating up so much Memory - doesn't seem to make much sense. Any idea what may be causing this?

I am using Window 10 (64-bit) with a 64-bit machine. All MS, Windows, Windows Defender, Super Ant-Spyware and Malwarebytes Updates are current, and scans indicate the system is clean. The FF version is 66.0.3 (64-bit).

Lenovo recently downloaded and installed a 76MB update. I'm not sure what the update was about or if I really even need Lenovo and all it's apps. Sometimes the Task Manager shows about a dozen or so instances of ImController.PluginHosts and other Lenovo items.

I recently installed AMD DataRam freeware version 4.4.0.36 with 2046 MB memory set - and I'm not even really sure it is working, as the RamDisk drive folder indicates "Empty." Though programs and surfing over all is noticeably faster. Though not as fast as the vendors hype.

I would appreciate it if someone could give me some idea why FF is eating up so much memory.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Recently FF changed in very fundamental ways.
Apr 26, 2019 11:20PM PDT

They took on some of the concepts of Chrome as to threads and using more RAM to achieve speed. Today I see the base Windows PC to be 8 or more GB RAM. Just a few years ago you could get by on 4 GB.

Times change, and performance expectations rise.

900MB of RAM for the browser to hit peak performance doesn't seem excessive today.

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Recently FF changed
Apr 27, 2019 8:28AM PDT

Thank you for responding Bob.

I wish I could get pages to load as fast. Well, actually pages seem to load instantly, it just usually takes about 3-5 seconds to get there. A shame Verizon Wireless is the only high speed service I can get our here in the sticks without putting a big satellite dish out side. But my nearest neighbors tells me it gets pretty bad and sometimes no service during storms, even mild storms and even bird droppings. The only other service here is a few dial-ups

Sense the high mem usage doesn't seem to be causing any problems, guess I should just be happy with what I've got and leave it at that. Plain

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As if they read your mind.
Apr 27, 2019 4:32PM PDT

#1 on Imgur today:

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Nice one Bob.
Apr 27, 2019 4:57PM PDT

Sums it up nicely.
Dafydd.