My browsers eat over 1GB of memory

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IE 11, Firefox 43, Chrome 48. When I go to a graphics rich page such as http://funnynhilariousgif.tumblr.com/ the amount of RAM used goes up fast. Right now on this page usage is 196MB.

I’ve started Firefox in safe mode, no change. I booted into Safe Mode with Network and no change.

I’ve scanned my system with Kaspersky Internet Security, Malwarebytes Premium, Spybot, AdwCleaner, and SuperAntiSpyware. The only thing found was a couple tracking cookies. I even uninstalled Firefox (every trace) except bookmarks which I’d exported. No change. Hardware acceleration on/off makes no difference. Even with no addons, no change.

I installed/ran Process Explorer and didn’t find anything that shouldn’t be running.

43461-rkzxnlm

TIA

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IE 11, Firefox 43, Chrome 48. When I go to a graphics rich page such as http://funnynhilariousgif.tumblr.com/ the amount of RAM used goes up fast. Right now on this page usage is 196MB.

I’ve started Firefox in safe mode, no change. I booted into Safe Mode with Network and no change.

I’ve scanned my system with Kaspersky Internet Security, Malwarebytes Premium, Spybot, AdwCleaner, and SuperAntiSpyware. The only thing found was a couple tracking cookies. I even uninstalled Firefox (every trace) except bookmarks which I’d exported. No change. Hardware acceleration on/off makes no difference. Even with no addons, no change.

I installed/ran Process Explorer and didn’t find anything that shouldn’t be running.

43461-rkzxnlm

TIA

I primarily use Firefox and will download videos from YouTube, frequently see it use over 500Mb after several hours so I use Task Manager to close it and then reopen [restore previous session/s] to clear that up. A clue when it’s time to do that comes with scrolling pages or erratic mouse behavior. It’s mostly due to my browsing [or call it habit] so it’s more me than the computer. Or in other words, I take responsibility for that particular issue.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Typically, the more browser windows open the more memory used regardless of the client running.
I currently get >600MB with 9 IE tabs open. Memory should diminish as you close tabs.

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I guess I wasn’t clear enough. LOL When I hit that page I linked above, it only takes about 2 minutes for RAM usage to go up. To hit 1GB takes less that 5 minutes (I keep scrolling down so other images load). And I only have 1 tab open. As for YouTube, 3 tabs open (plus 1 for here), playing 3 videos and usage is 400MB or so.

When I hit a thread in a different forum (music) and there are multiple vids posted, the browser will hiccup until all are loaded. Then it scrolls with no problem and RAM usage is fine.

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I guess I wasn’t clear enough. LOL When I hit that page I linked above, it only takes about 2 minutes for RAM usage to go up. To hit 1GB takes less that 5 minutes (I keep scrolling down so other images load). And I only have 1 tab open. As for YouTube, 3 tabs open (plus 1 for here), playing 3 videos and usage is 400MB or so.

When I hit a thread in a different forum (music) and there are multiple vids posted, the browser will hiccup until all are loaded. Then it scrolls with no problem and RAM usage is fine.

I just got Firefox upgraded to 43.0.4 then to 44.0, the linked page works fine and its memory use topped out at 253MB. Win10 Home 64-bit

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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If I just open the page and don’t scroll, memory use was about 250MB (sitting with page open for 5min). It’s when I start scrolling down the page that the memory usage goes up.

Win8.1 64-bit

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Just a badly coded page (or browser), imo.
Here with Pale Moon x64 (latest Beta), 24 tabs open/active ~700MB, opening that page adds ~100MB (the x86 version would likely use 10-15% less).

43462-page2

Left arrow indicates the initial page load, moderate CPU activity and slight memory jump, right arrow shows continued page loading as I scrolled down.

The latest PM version delays full page loading until you scroll, this might mitigate against a prolonged CPU hit from loading heavy pages (some browsers might fully load the page and then refresh).

(The TaskMan image is over several minutes, unlike the 60 second limit that appears to be the limit in some later Windows versions.)

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It’s not the only tumblr page that does it. Just updated to Firefox 44 and no change.

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I just installed Firefox, the ESR (stable, for Enterprise) current 38 version, that page peaked at ~825MB and I never saw a gif. The page is badly coded, it behaves pretty well in IE11 though it’s slooooow loading. Report it to the site, it’s probably some recent change they’ve made, it happens.

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Page worked fine for me on PM, was headed to 1GiB after a few seconds. Back down to 1/2 GiB now that it is closed. Maybe it all those moving GIFs.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Page worked fine for me on PM, …

Version might be useful for comparison.

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I’ll note that the OP doesn’t post a question, so this is more of an observation?

While I didn’t know that memory consumption is high with this many browsers, neither does it surprise me. Internet Explorer is a big memory hog and Chrome has a reputation for that as well. I rarely use FireFox but it’s competitive generally speaking and that’s what this is all about. They all want high performance numbers and one way to get that is to use large amounts of RAM to cache content. RAM is inexpensive and plentiful these days so this is a reasonable approach to take.

What I really want to know is, given my browser is a memory hog, why is browser performance still terrible? I don’t know whether to blame my security software, the ad networks, or the browser itself. However I note that a lot of web pages seem to stall on a partial update, with content missing in a box for several seconds. Some of the sites I use abruptly update as I’m reading and it interrupts my reading. I hate that!

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… However I note that a lot of web pages seem to stall on a partial update, with content missing in a box for several seconds.

Do you have an adblocker installed?
I use Adblock Plus in Firefox and never see that behavior.
When I test a “safe” setup on customer’s machines turning Adblock Plus on and off for demonstration I see these delays regularly when the page loading “waits” for the always(?) slow loading ads.

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Version might be useful for comparison.

25.8.1

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Yes, ad-blocking will make a big difference on many sites (not sure that the site in the OP is one of them or not), without DNS calls going out to advertising servers there will be less for your security software to do, less lag getting the page loaded and the page will be lighter, using less memory and less network activity.

My setup includes ad/malware site blocking at the System level (hosts file controlled by HostsMan):

43504-HostsMan

And uBlock₀ in my browser:

Yes, there’s bound to be a relatively high level of overlap/duplication with that number of blocks (HostsMan will remove dupes in the hosts file) but it seems to have little to no effect on browsing speed or CPU usage, both of which are much reduced when compared to loading the ‘full’ pages.

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I found an easier way to clear the memory build up in Firefox than Berton uses (He uses the
Task Manager). I installed the ADD-ON called Memory Restart. After installation of the add-on, a small green circle will appear just to the right of the address bar (you may have to manually get it there by clicking on the “Menu” Tab (top / right side of the page) in Firefox, then click on the Customize tab. I forgot if it got there by itself, or I put it there). It will turn red when a certain amount of memory has built up in the Browser. The amount that changes the circle to red can be adjusted by the user. When you click on the circle, a dialog box appears asking you if you want to restart Firefox. Click OK and Firefox will close & restart with all the web Pages re-loaded that were open before you restarted Firefox.

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You can also download the free version of Windows Repair from http://www.tweaking.com

Close the program then click on the system tray icon arrow then on the WR icon and that will give you a Clean Memory option.

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Ok, no love for v26 then?

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Ok, no love for v26 then?

Not yet, I have not updated yet. Maybe tonight 🙂
:cheers:

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Not yet, I have not updated yet. Maybe tonight 🙂
:cheers:

It’s now on 26.0.3.

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It’s now on 26.0.3.

Got it! Still locks up w/ BSOD as a follow thru. Might be time to start a new thread…
:cheers:

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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