Why is Firefox Using too Much RAM Memory?

When we compare browsers, memory consumption is one of the most considered fact. Who ever wins the browser’s race, it’s kind of sure that you will continue to use the browser you are comfortable with.

I am with Firefox because it has been a long time and I am comfortable with the plugins available for it. Well, reasons alone cannot stand against facts. So let’s find out why is Firefox consuming too much of your system RAM / Memory.

First of all, let’s check how much memory my Firefox V 20.0 is consuming right now with 3 open tabs including Gmail, WordPress and a webpage.

So, we have a clear picture here and a reason to panic! But before we do that, we need to find out what exactly is going on with Firefox. As we know that sometimes things meant to benefit us can also harm us if not given proper attention. The most ignored but crucial element that goes unnoticed are Addons.

Even in my case, I have been installing Firefox Addons from time to time for testing purposes but eventually forgot about them as I didn’t use them actively or rather didn’t care about it. Till now, there was no way to find which Firefox Addon uses More Memory and causes Firefox to lag at start up and while working with multiple tabs.

Now you can get details of memory consumption for each of the installed and active Addons. The funny part is that a problem caused by an Addon can be solved by another Addon. I got this Firefox extension named about:addons-memory which helps to find memory usage by Addons and hence helping in reducing overall Firefox memory usage.

Identify and Remove Memory savvy Addons

Install about:addons-memory Addon in Firefox, there is no need to restart your browser. Now, open a new tab and on the address bar type / paste about:addons-memory and hit Enter. On the page you will find all the installed addons and their memory usage.

Disabled Addons will show no usage as you can see in the later section of the above image. This Addon also provides an option to minimize Firefox memory usage, all you need to do is just click on it. Unbelievably, it freed up nearly 50 MB of memory from Firefox. This depends on the number of tabs opened and their contents. The maximum memory freed in my case reached up to 150 MB. This Addon does not show memory usage in real time, so you need to refresh the page for fresh statistics.

To free up memory further, you can identify and remove / disable unused but active Addons. Keep in mind that useful plugins do take a lot of memory depending on the feature they are providing. Hence, it’s better to think carefully over removing all Addons just considering the Memory usage.  I will be happy to see a feature like this to be integrated within Firefox.

Download: About:addons-memory plugin