SSE optimized firefox build(s)

[deadrats]

as the title suggests, get your SIMD optimized builds here:

http://www.binaryturf.com/free-software/blazing-fast-firefox-optimized-distributions/

i'm currently using the SSE2 optimized build and must say i'm quite impressed.

[lordsmurf]

How about a "doesnt-suck-up-all-your-RAM" version ?

[deadrats]

How about a "doesnt-suck-up-all-your-RAM" version ?

yeah, firefox seems to have acquired a ram leak sometime during the transition to 3.5 and unfortunately the developers don't seem to know how to fix it (hell, the damn browser is about 10 million lines of code) but these SSE builds aren't as bad as the standard version.

what sucks most is that all the offshoots like flock also seem to have the ram leak, which tell me all these guys are doing is re-branding firefox.

it's too bad really, firefox was always held up as an example of what a successful open source project could be, i think as google started pulling funding for the project they lost some talented coders with predictable results.

[lordsmurf]

K-Meleon is a gecko browser without a RAM leak, so it's a good option for older system.
Flock isn't as bad as FF, but it's still RAM-eating.

I have a 3Ghz P4 and can't use Firefox with more than 3-4 tabs, before it gobbles up the whole available RAM (1GB total in system, upgrade not an option), and I have to quit -- sometimes even reboot. How sad is it that I have to use a dual-core just to browse the web? I can still encode video on the 3Ghz, but not browse the web? WTF? My computers are fine, and I'm not an idiot -- the browser has flaws. More and more Chrome, K-Meleon, Safari and Avant use here. Only open up FF for sites like VH. FF has become my "forums only" browser.

I don't even have to "use" FF. I can just open some sites and let the computer sit idle. The longer it sits, the more RAM disappears.

Look at this BS --- 4 tabs, almost no extensions enabled

[freebird73717]

here is a little hack that can help you recover some of your ram.

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

Now when you minimize firefox your ram will drop to like 10mb and then when you restore it will go back to a reasonable level. I just checked my task manager and ff was using 260mb ram. After min/restore it went down to 160mb. It's not a perfect solution but it does help.

from here
http://cybernetnews.com/this-may-help-your-firefox-memory-leak/

edit
what's funny is that that page was dated 2006. I guess firefox has had a memory leak for some time.

[pepegot1]

On a 1.2 gig AMD Athlon FF, with 6 open tabs, uses 110372 k ram. Not too bad, so what's the big deal?

[leghorn]

I use FF 3.6 Portable (available at http://portableapps.com). With 4 tabs open it uses ~188 mbytes. Not very decent, but far from 1 gig.

Besides, I also tried the "about:config" like freebird##### said. No success at all.

[freebird73717]

I guess that doesn't work with portable firefox then. I'd never tried with that before. It works for me with 3.0 - 3.6 installed though.

[lordsmurf]

I'm already running those hacks -- they're very hit-and-miss.

[deadrats]

right now the SSE2 optimized build of firefox i'm running, with 4 windows open and quite a few tabs, is using almost a gig of ram. every firefox version/variant i have tried since 3.5 seems to little by little use more and more ram up until you hit the 2 gigs range and then it crashes and if you restart it from with all the tabs you had open before, it crashes again.

chrome is a rather deceptive memory hog, as it launches a separate process for each tab, on my system with 1 window/3 tabs, minimized and idle (i'm currently using the SSE2 optimized firefox), there are 4 chrome processes listed in task manager (i'm guessing 1 for the window itself and 1 for each tab) and they are using 62mb, 27mb, 20mb and 3 mb respectively, taht's over 100mb of ram for an idle, minimized browser doing nothing.

i guess it's a good thing i have 6 gigs of ram in this thing....

[lordsmurf]

When RAM runs out, it doesn't use virtual RAM (hard drive space), it just causes the CPU to peg out, and you have to force quit FF. Funny enough, when you re-start FF and re-open the previous session tabs, it NEVER uses as much RAM as it did when it crashed.

I think Chrome handles RAM better.
Yeah, I notice it uses more that it should also, but it never causes CPU 100% spikes or halts.

[SLK001]

I'm trying it now... My "Firefox" memory usage has dropped from 640k to 340k (I don't use tabs - I have 19 separate browser windows open right now). Also, I'm no longer suffering from a Firefox induced lag using FireGuestures, and that was with using version 3.0.17 before the upgrade (I tried 3.6 before, but the lag was unbearable).

I don't know if I like depending on an unknown source for updates. It would be nice if Mozilla would provide the optimized builds. The icon reminds me of the Conquerer browser in Linux.

[jagabo]

With 10 Firefox 3.6 windows open (I prefer windows to tabs) I get 150 to 160 MB memory usage as I bring different windows to the foreground, scroll around, minimize, maximize, etc. Flipping between them is near instantaneous. Maybe it's because I use ad and flash blockers so most of the memory hungry crap is never loaded.

This is on a 4 GB XP Pro system (3.5 available to Windows) with 1 GB allocated to a RAM drive (2.5 GB left for programs, etc), and the swap file disabled. Firefox's cache is set to the RAM drive.