Monkey Raptor

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Firefox (57.0.4, 64 Bit) Takes Larger Memory (RAM) Than Earlier Versions

Here, I'm using Windows 7 as one of the operating systems, and the main hardware components are Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 as processor, Intel Eaglelake P43 for the mainboard chipset, with 4 GB of memory (DDR2 SDRAM, 400 MHz - PC 6400), and some other things like graphic card something GeForce GTS stuff. My power supply is good and stable, and mainboard is quite new. I really take notice at the voltages because of burned processor or chipset experiences back then. What's that smell?

This matter has been long discussed a while back, about the way Firefox does the caching. And recently, after the "Quantum" version release, the performance issue just getting more serious. Users (using OS with "intense" graphic user interface, e.g. animations and so on) need to have more memory (RAM) for their machine, at least 6 GB for regular browsing, e.g. opening many tabs, streaming, and so on, plus doing anything else like, running other browsers or applications. Just for doing ordinary "computing activities". The 6 GB because usually I use 4 GB. It's not occult numero related, well it is. We are all in it, well not all. Surpirise, well not really.

From my looky looky, it's not about the add-ons. Because I use the exact same add-ons prior the upgrade.

My looky looky is like this, I opened Firefox, and it's just a blank page, the first welcome screen, I set it to a blank page. Then I looked at Windows' task manager for around 5 to 30 minutes. For no reason, the memory usage of Firefox threads rose from 100 MB to 300 MB to 500 MB and more, just being idle. Not to mention when I started browsing. Like, whoa, what happened there? Sure I restart the browser without add-ons (safe mode), pretty much none happened, same result. I also looked at about:memory and measure it, many letters and numbers there, I don't have the references so I just closed it.

No, I don't have computer virus unfortunately. I decided to not have antivirus (Windows 7 has that "defender" built-in app) for more than some years now. Because of that decision, I "keep two eyes on" every connection and running processes manually. It's a "MacGyver" way of instead buying SSD (solid state drive) to speed up booting process, I watch TV. Boop. In most cases, computer virus is spread through internet browser, very minor cases via FTP/torrent or other network schemes. Who's "MacGybor"?
How to develop virus? Uh, the concept is, you point your program to the "weakness" of the target (operating system/other system) and exploit (that system) user's habit. That's it. Well, I'll shut up. Wait how to debug virus? Yeah, similar concept like other debugging method. Like what? Uh, like.... Boy that's lame having a virus with many bugs though. Funny too.

And yeah, I always compared Firefox to Chrome. Both are great. I have my own problem with Chrome on startup. But after that "gruesome" ~5 minutes of 50%-100% CPU jolt, Chrome has that neat memory management afterward.


Update Jan 31, 2018:

After recent update, version 58.0.1, the memory usage is still bloating to 1 GB and more when opening many tabs. Many tabs, as in less than 10. What I did was, whenever it was getting "weird", I terminated all the process tree of Firefox, then reopened it. Firefox has that auto tabs session resume something something for "hard" shut down, so it's fine, on my side. Usually after the "hard" shut down, then it became "normal", sort of. Very funky.


Update Jan 18, 2018:

I tested on two other systems, both are using Intel Core i5. One with 8 GB and the other with 12 GB RAM memory (DDR3), and there was no problem at all running Firefox (the latest Quantum version). Like, whaaaa.... hmm.

Now, two days after this post was posted, my (latest) Firefox is running normally. Whoahow, that was fast. Maybe there was something something. Who knows.


Is it a bug?

I dunno. But this post is labelled with bug.

Either on my "old" system, or the new Firefox.

Firefox (57.0.4, 64 Bit) Takes Larger Memory (RAM) Than Earlier Versions
https://monkeyraptor.johanpaul.net/2018/01/firefox-5704-64-bit-takes-larger-memory.html

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