Firefox memory leaks?

[10/28/10] OK, nothing has really worked that well so far. I think the only solution is to install more memory on my computer.

But in the spirit of never giving up, I'm going to try SpeedyFox.

Mozilla Firefox is a fast browser, but with the lapse of time it starts working much slowly. The reason is fragmentation of profile databases. A free tool SpeedyFox is designed specially to resolve that problem. [via frwr_news]

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[10/2/09] When I leave my computer along for long stretches, it often becomes really slow with long hard drive activities when using applications. I suspect it's swapping memory to disk, so I may have a memory leak.

There was recently an application on frwr_news to fix Firefox memory leaks (and other apps). Decided not to use it at the time. But I googled Firefox memory leak fix and came across this pages which suggests some Firefox configuration tweaks.

So far I changed browser.cache.disk.capacity to 5000, it was defaulted to 10000.

And I'll toggle Network.prefetch-next to false.

[10/12] Seems to be working. My computer used access the hard drive for long stretches after leaving it alone and coming back hours later. Notice it's not doing that any more (cross fingers).

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[4/23/10] The slow firefox came back. I think all the settings reset when I upgraded the browser. Anyway, I took a look with task manager what was running when firefox was releasing the memory, and it showed a program called sysfader was running. Googling it showed it manages some windows animation effects (like fading out windows and menus.) So I turned it off and firefox now seems to release memory on shutdown much (much) quicker. The last time I did it anyway... We shall see. The first time I tweaked sysfader, it somehow changed the windows appearance from Windows Classic style (which I prefer) to Windows XP style. [I knew something looked different.] So I changed it back.

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[5/28/10] Firefox was getting really slow after exiting. It would remain in memory (looking at task manager) as the hard disk churned for several minutes. Then memory would slowly get released back to the system. I think I finally figured out what the problem was. It was clearing the disk cache when exiting. I turned off that option and it's much faster now in releasing the memory after exiting. And the disk churning is very minimal now. Go to Tools/Options/Privacy. Then click the Settings Box to the right of Clear History When Firefox Closes. Uncheck Cache.

OK, seems to slowing down as the cache fills up. But still faster than before (so far).

[6/9/10] Firefox was getting superslow again thrashing the hard drive, even before exiting. And a long time after exiting too. Try a new approach. Create a new profile as per these instructions.

[6/10/10] I had left Firefox running and went to sleep. Hours later, I came back and the hard drive was churning. Took a little while to exit firefox. Seemed to exit memory a little quicker, but far from instantaneously. Maybe a couple or three minutes.

OK, try this config.trim_on_minimize and see how it goes.

[9/9/10] still trying. latest tweak: change browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers from -1 to 0. Supposedly this reduces the amount of RAM Firefox uses for its cache