Holo

Yes Mr. Anti-firefox is trying it again, and I just discovered something very interesting. If you minimize ff by clicking on it in the Toolbar and not the - button it frees up all your RAM. I use at least 45MB when it's in focus, but after minimizing this way usage goes down to 5MB! I'd like all ff users, especially ones who have the same issues with RAM usage to try this and post here your findings.

To explain in case some readers don't quite get what i'm asking:

have your taskmgr (Start Run type taskmgr and Enter) open and set to Always on top (options-Always on Top checked). then bring FF into focus (the foreground) by clicking it or maximizing etc. now click on it's toolbar placement to minimize it and remove it from focus. now look at your taskmgr in the foreground and check if it's RAM usage went down from before it was minimized this way.

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the_marq

With 3 tabs open in FF my RAM usage is between 15 and 32MB, when I minmize it the usage drops to somewhere around 1.5MB. How I minimize or restore it makes no difference.

I have a total of 512MB of RAM on this Windows XP PC.

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#3 in a series

zenmaster10665

I think you have two firefox windows running. try minimising both...I have no problem with them when minimising normally.

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Holo

No, I never have more than one ff window open at any time. Why would you when you have tabs?

__________________
I happen to like the words "fuck", "cock", "pussy", "tits", "cunt", "twat", "shit" and even "bitch". As long as I am not using them to describe you, don't go telling me whether or not I can/should use them...that is, if you want me to continue refraining from using them to describe you. ~Prince

laconic1

I'm not noticing a difference at all whether I minimized from tray or minimize button. Either way RAM usage drops from 10-15k down to about 1k. If I have Firefox open for an extended time without minimizing memory usage might go to 35k.

This is on a Win2k box at work with a 433 megahertz Celeron with 256 MB RAM.

billege

I have 3 tabs open, 25mb before I minimized it. It dropped down to 6mb minimized by the task bar. When I reopened it, it only went up to 18mb. Minimized again, by the minimize button, down to 4mb this time. I kept minim and maximizing it, now it's only using 12mb maximized, and 1.9mb minimized. That's interesting that minim and maximizing it a few times can shave 13mb off it's useage. I wonder what IE does in the same situation w/3 windows minim and maximizing.

Okay, IE uses 25mb EACH window (same TFP pages across the 3 IE windows as the 3 fox tabs, mind you.) maximized, and freshly opened. Right off, that's 50mb more than the fox, to do the same thing.

Minimized the IE windows are hanging at 2,824k, 2,556k, and 2,656k. Let's maximize them again.

They all maximized to about 9.5mb/each. Roughly 30mb to do what firefox is taking 18 to do, at this first minim/maxim cycle.

Minimize them again, we're down to 1.2mb, 1.25, and 1.1mb. Maximize them again.

Now: 7.9, 8.25, 8.64mb. Firefox is holding the same three pages in tabs at 16.03mb.

I just opened another instance of firefox, another window, and its memory usage is only 21.3mb for 3 tabs in one window, and google in a new window.

4 IE windows are costing me: 17.2, 24.5, 24.6, and 24.8mb all freshly opened.
Now I'll do the same with firefox.
*had to post, then close this window to make the comparison fair. all freshly opened windows you know...*

Well, there's really no comparison here.
I've got 7 tabs open in one firefox window. Five TFP forums, including this edit post window. Two comics I check every day, and another window on google.com. Firefox is displaying all that using 38.9mb.

IE took 91.1mb to display 3 TFP forum pages, and google, across 4 windows. Let's see what I have to do to make firefox use 91.9mb.

This is silly. To make firefox use 92.2mb (the closest I could get to IE's 91.9mb from the previous example) I had to open:
One firefox window with 15 tabs (each one displaying real pages. I opened all the comics I read, my bank's page, my 401k, Fark, Slashdot, a few pages on the TFP). AND, yes, there's MORE!!
Another firefox window with 13 tabs, displaying everything from Target.com, to Newegg.com. That's TWO firefox windows, with a total 28 tabs to equal what IE uses in 4 windows. Just for shits, here goes 28 IE windows, each displaying Google.com's homepage (which I'd think doesn't take much memory to display.):

(OH!! BTW, when I minimized my two firefox windows with all those tabs, it dropped to 9mb used. One remaximized to type this, 31mb. Onward...)

Well, IE used between 16.2 and 17.9mb for each IE window. Let's call that 17.05mb a window, to be fair. We end up with IE sucking down 477.4mb to keep 28, maximized, windows open.

Score:
Firefox, 2 windows, 28 tabs total: 92.2mb.
IE, 28 windows total:477.4mb.

That solves that question for me.
I hope someone found this amusing!

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Xepidemic

nice findings billege!

face it Holo firefox > ie

CheesePizzaMan

Nice work. You are more patient than I am. I like firefox because just about everything about it "feels" better than IE. Plus, it has the added bonus of not being made by Microsoft.
What's to hate?