Comments on: Firefox2 + GMail == Memory Leak http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25 Coding, Connections, and Other Bloggy Bits of Goodness Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:45:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: Kal http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2439 Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:37:52 +0000 http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2439 It turns out that it may not be just Gmail. In fact, Firefox "leaks" memory almost all the time, the reason being that Firefox almost never releases memory back to the operating system on its own accord. Instead, it usually keeps "released" memory in its heap, and only gives memory back to the operating system upon request. This page explains a lot: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/memusage.html There is a way to force Firefox to shrink its heap, but it apparently only works on Windows, and I can confirm that it does work on Windows because I just tried it: http://www.solo-technology.com/blog/2005/12/23/quick-firefox-tweak-free-mem/ It turns out that it may not be just Gmail. In fact, Firefox “leaks” memory almost all the time, the reason being that Firefox almost never releases memory back to the operating system on its own accord. Instead, it usually keeps “released” memory in its heap, and only gives memory back to the operating system upon request. This page explains a lot: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/memusage.html

There is a way to force Firefox to shrink its heap, but it apparently only works on Windows, and I can confirm that it does work on Windows because I just tried it: http://www.solo-technology.com/blog/2005/12/23/quick-firefox-tweak-free-mem/

]]> by: Cyberfox http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2432 Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:44:35 +0000 http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2432 Greetings, You're right; I had a specific potential issue in mind, where Firefox2 might be in-memory caching the results of XmlHttpRequest 'pages', and somehow bypassing the limits on them. It's frustrating that my Firefox2 regularly grows to 750M+. In general, if I find that my browser has gotten unreasonably slow, I can close my gmail tab, and it works better. I don't like closing gmail, but it might be for the better; I occasionally get more done without it up. :) Anyhow, you're right, I wasn't specific about the kind of problems I thought of when I said, 'general AJAXy problem'. I was focusing on the 'AX' part. It's also been pointed out that there's a decent chance it's a bad interaction between one of my plugins and gmail. I have no way to reasonably test that, but that I agree is possible. -- Morgan Schweers, Cyber<b>FOX</b>! Greetings,
You’re right; I had a specific potential issue in mind, where Firefox2 might be in-memory caching the results of XmlHttpRequest ‘pages’, and somehow bypassing the limits on them. It’s frustrating that my Firefox2 regularly grows to 750M+.

In general, if I find that my browser has gotten unreasonably slow, I can close my gmail tab, and it works better. I don’t like closing gmail, but it might be for the better; I occasionally get more done without it up. :)

Anyhow, you’re right, I wasn’t specific about the kind of problems I thought of when I said, ‘general AJAXy problem’. I was focusing on the ‘AX’ part.

It’s also been pointed out that there’s a decent chance it’s a bad interaction between one of my plugins and gmail. I have no way to reasonably test that, but that I agree is possible.

– Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

]]> by: Kal http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2431 Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:27:22 +0000 http://www.vixen.com/blog/2007/01/15/25#comment-2431 "I have to wonder if it's a general AJAXy problem with Firefox, or specific to gmail..." - I believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with AJAX in Firefox. To begin with, AJAX is not some kind of magical JavaScript module in Firefox (or any other browser, for that matter). It all depends on the implementation. *MAYBE* it has to do with the implementation of XmlHttpRequest in the JavaScript engine of Firefox. Memory leak is a problem that can occur with any looping or recursive JavaScript fragment that doesn't release reserved memory when it should. “I have to wonder if it’s a general AJAXy problem with Firefox, or specific to gmail…” - I believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with AJAX in Firefox. To begin with, AJAX is not some kind of magical JavaScript module in Firefox (or any other browser, for that matter). It all depends on the implementation. *MAYBE* it has to do with the implementation of XmlHttpRequest in the JavaScript engine of Firefox. Memory leak is a problem that can occur with any looping or recursive JavaScript fragment that doesn’t release reserved memory when it should.

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