Firefox v90 is a MEMORY HOG!
I just installed the latest v90 upgrade. I get at least 5 sometimes as many as 7 instances of Firefox running simultaneously. Look at my screen shot of the Task Manager...Holy Sh*t! I attempted to downgrade back to v89, but Mozilla has made this option unbearable ...have to recreate your profile, all your passwords, cookies and bookmarks, an incredible hassle. Stuff like this just shouldn't happen.
Definitely NOT a well-thought out release.
Guess I'll be migrating to Chrome sooner than I thought!?
All Replies (6)
More than one process is normal for the current Firefox. http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/22/multi-process-firefox/
Multi-process Firefox is codenamed "e10s". https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/multiprocess
Please explain the problem in detail.
What happens? What is/are the exact error message(s) ?
Good to learn that multi-processes are planned. That was part one of two issues I complained about. The other being MEMORY!
I did the same test on Chrome and Edge. They had multi-processes, too. So then I added up all the instances Memory requirements in MB. Firefox uses almost 3-times more memory than either of the other two browser's.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-ram
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-takes-long-time-start-up
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/quick-fixes-if-your-firefox-slows-down
MemTest LAST UPDATED : 12/04/2020
Could you please run a tool from http://memtest.org/
in order to check the integrity of your RAM?
You will need a thumb or disk drive to install it on.
Do you let Windows handle the page file or did you set a fixed size ?
Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings
If you use a fixed size for the page file then try the former and let Windows handle the page file. How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows {web link}
Thank you for your advice and responses. My RAM is working fine. Thank you. Actually, about 4-months ago I doubled my RAM to 16Gb and is working very well. When I measured resources between Firefox and Chrome, for example, it was during an IDLE state, displaying the home page. No downloads, no other "anything" being processed. Nothing other than basic background and anti-virus files/programs were running. Chrome was using approx. 260Mb and Firefox was using 681Mb. Almost TRIPLE the RAM. Windows 10 is determining/handling the size; Managing memory.
I guess I'm going to have to buy some feed corn to please this hungry hog?
So your one and only goal is to display a home page using a smallest amount of ram? Ok, you can lower a number of content processes to one in Settings.
Hi Phil, 681MB for just the homepage (about:home) is definitely not normal. When I test it here (Windows 10 Home 64-bit, Firefox 90.0.2) by going to a few pages in a few tabs then closing all tabs and only having about:home open, it's around 350MB.
From your original question, I get the impression that you read that creating a new profile is the first troubleshooting step. Don't worry, that's not true at all. ☺️ First, let's try refreshing Firefox. This will purge a lot of your Firefox files, while retaining most of your personal data. For instructions, check out the following article: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings