Ask HN: How to use Firefox better?

[guojh0570]

  Recently I use Firefox for my web browsing, but it seems that Firefox "eats" a lot of memory.
  I am on Mac(10.8.2), sometimes it can take 400MB or more.I don't install much add-ons.
  And before I use Chrome.And I alse wonder why Firefox always take so much memory?
  because the memory management doesn't work well or something else?

[windsurfer]

Firefox is great when it comes to memory management. My Firefox instance is using 550 MB of RAM - and that's totally reasonable. I have some huge pages loaded, and around 20 of them, but Firefox remains very fast.

If you want it to use less memory, open less pages or open pages that use less memory. Other browsers won't help as they'll use around the same amount. Chrome hides it's usage in separate processes and threads, by the way.

[guojh0570]

thanks for replying, and I know Chrome separates its processes. And I just wander sometimes Firefox use the same memory when I open 4 or 8 pages. Even it uses more memory for no reason(e.g. I open 2 pages, but it will increases).

[sp332]

How much RAM do you have on your machine? Are you running out because of Firefox? Actually the memory management has been really tightened up over the last year or so. Type "about:memory" into your address bar and you can see exactly what's going on in there.

[guojh0570]

Yes, I always see "about:memory" and minimize memory usage. My machine doesn't run out because of Firefox, but yesterday it took nearly 1G RAM. I have 4GB RAM.

[sp332]

OK so if you're not hurting for memory, then I think it's using an appropriate amount of memory.

[guojh0570]

I just wander why Firefox always takes more memory for no reason-Even I keep the same pages.

[AbhishekBiswal]

The new version(s) doesn't "eat up" memory. I use it to test web design / apps, I have ~5 background running addons, and it's fast.