Firefox using lots of memory? Adblock Plus may be the reason

[sujith]

Mozilla has improved Firefox's memory usage significantly in recent time. Many Internet users still think that Firefox is using a lot of memory, but if you compare actual memory usage between different browsers , you will notice that Firefox's memory handling is excellent.

That does not mean that you may not see spikes in memory usage even if you open the same websites as someone else. One of the reasons for this discrepancy in memory usage are add-ons.

While many add-ons are memory efficient, others may increase the memory usage by a lot.

Mozilla recently analyzed memory usage of a version of Firefox without add-ons installed, and a version with the most popular add-on Adblock Plus installed.

The difference is significant, especially under the right circumstances. Adblock Plus adds an overhead to Firefox's memory usage of about 60-70 Megabyte. While that may be a lot depending on the installed memory on the computer, the difference can widen quickly under certain circumstances.

For every iframe that gets loaded in the browser, four additional Megabytes are added to the browser's memory usage. That does not appear to be much, but if you consider that some sites may make use of many iframes, it can grow quickly.

On the popular tech news site Techcunch for example, RAM usage more than doubles if the iframes on the website are activated.

The VIM Color Scheme Test page is an extreme example. Without Adblock Plus installed, Firefox uses about 370 Megabytes when the page is loaded. With Adblock Plus, that memory usage increases to almost 2000 Megabyte.

Note: The test results of author's own unscientific tests are the following: 188 Megybte and 300 Megabyte without Adblock Plus installed to 340 Megabyte and 1160 Megabyte respectively with it installed.

The main issue here is that the stylesheet that Adblock Plus uses for its functionality is loaded for each iFrame. If you are subscribed to Easylist or another large list, then this is the reason why the extension uses this much memory compared to vanilla Firefox installations.

Some users have created their own custom lists to reduce it by a large margin, but that is probably not a solution that most users are willed to consider as it takes some time to implement.

A bug has been filed on Bugzilla about Adblock Plus' high memory usage. It offers additional insight into why the memory usage goes up by that much under certain circumstances. There does not seem to be a solution though for that issue at the moment, other than creating and using custom filter lists exclusively that use less information and are therefore considerably smaller in size.

Source

[chlorophyll]

am using beta version with adblock plus.yeah i donno the reason me too experiencing lags in firefox

Edited May 14, 2014 by ravisoorya

[Sonar]

is adblock edge affected?

[GRiM]

I constantly see BS about Firefox improving memory all the time but over the years I am yet to notice a single improvement. I have now just about 90% converted to Chrome which seems to handle RAM much better. I have been a avid user of Firefox for nearly 10 years but the RAM issues as well as other lags just really started getting on my nerves.

[psyko666]

I constantly see BS about Firefox improving memory all the time but over the years I am yet to notice a single improvement. I have now just about 90% converted to Chrome which seems to handle RAM much better. I have been a avid user of Firefox for nearly 10 years but the RAM issues as well as other lags just really started getting on my nerves.

Try Nightly x64, works great.. been using it for months now.. ^_^

[unknownasphyxiated]

is adblock edge affected?

i think it is

abe operate same as abp..the different only features

[Paft]

I suggest users here should post results using this addon. It's bit more proof than just saying so like that article:

addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/about-addons-memory/

Seems fine to me.

I tried both ABP and ABE and they seem the same. I used FF for 5mins (I need more time) with each and opened fresh unvisited pages:

ABP will prob be using 2% more mem because I tried more pages. THIS IS NOT A PROPER BENCHMARK. OR TO DETERMINE WHICH IS BETTER.

GRiM, what are your thoughts on Opera v.s Chrome?

I'd like to try out Opera but I use a dark Win theme and there are no dark themes for it. I can't read the tabs.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Paft

[0veR]

Im using with adblock and i dont see any big memory leaks and huge memory usage.

This is just lies they want us to unistall adblock so they can earn money from lame and anoying ads!

[spudboy]

Memory doubles (give or take depending on the page) for me with FF 29.0.1 when ABP is enabled.

[clubhouse]

I rarely go much more than 4kbs using firemin.....

[2Old2Remember]

Mozilla has improved Firefox's memory usage significantly in recent time. Many Internet users still think that Firefox is using a lot of memory, but if you compare actual memory usage between different browsers , you will notice that Firefox's memory handling is excellent.

That does not mean that you may not see spikes in memory usage even if you open the same websites as someone else. One of the reasons for this discrepancy in memory usage are add-ons.

While many add-ons are memory efficient, others may increase the memory usage by a lot.

Mozilla recently analyzed memory usage of a version of Firefox without add-ons installed, and a version with the most popular add-on Adblock Plus installed.

The difference is significant, especially under the right circumstances. Adblock Plus adds an overhead to Firefox's memory usage of about 60-70 Megabyte. While that may be a lot depending on the installed memory on the computer, the difference can widen quickly under certain circumstances.

For every iframe that gets loaded in the browser, four additional Megabytes are added to the browser's memory usage. That does not appear to be much, but if you consider that some sites may make use of many iframes, it can grow quickly.

On the popular tech news site Techcunch for example, RAM usage more than doubles if the iframes on the website are activated.

The VIM Color Scheme Test page is an extreme example. Without Adblock Plus installed, Firefox uses about 370 Megabytes when the page is loaded. With Adblock Plus, that memory usage increases to almost 2000 Megabyte.

Note: The test results of author's own unscientific tests are the following: 188 Megybte and 300 Megabyte without Adblock Plus installed to 340 Megabyte and 1160 Megabyte respectively with it installed.

The main issue here is that the stylesheet that Adblock Plus uses for its functionality is loaded for each iFrame. If you are subscribed to Easylist or another large list, then this is the reason why the extension uses this much memory compared to vanilla Firefox installations.

Some users have created their own custom lists to reduce it by a large margin, but that is probably not a solution that most users are willed to consider as it takes some time to implement.

A bug has been filed on Bugzilla about Adblock Plus' high memory usage. It offers additional insight into why the memory usage goes up by that much under certain circumstances. There does not seem to be a solution though for that issue at the moment, other than creating and using custom filter lists exclusively that use less information and are therefore considerably smaller in size.

Source

This was very informative and helped me solve this firefox memory problem. My firefox was using a lot of ram, sometimes over 3gb. I always heard firefox lowering memory usage but never saw the improvements. Since i read this i replaced Adblock Plus with UrlFilter and now, using firefox the same way, it have not even gotten to 900mb or ram usage. @sujith Thank you so much for sharing this article.

[Nastrahl]

I rarely go much more than 4kbs using firemin.....

I presume it all went to swap, which is worse.

[clubhouse]

Not sure how firemin works.

[dcs18]

The bare-bone Firefox is not resource-hungry, by itself - however, every add-on installed does contribute more or less to the memory consumption (some add-ons like Adblock Plus & NoScript are higher on the food chain.)

[clubhouse]

Just had a look its seems it uses this method rather than swap.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682606%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[clubhouse]

http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/131204-firemin-036369-optimize-firefox-memory-usage/

[windowsvistas]

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

[2Old2Remember]

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

UrlFilter

[dcs18]

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

Adblock Edge is the closest alternative since it's a fork of Adblock Plus (not good enough to be a replacement, though.) :nono:

[CODYQX4]

.

Edited April 28, 2019 by CODYQX4

[Sonar]

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

UrlFilter

will give UrlFilter a try :)

[2Old2Remember]

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

Adblock Edge is the closest alternative since it's a fork of Adblock Plus (not good enough to be a replacement, though.) :nono:

since Adblock Edge is a fork of Adblock Plus, I'm assuming it will have the same memory problem since the engine is the same as Adblock Plus.

[dcs18]

If it is a fork though it probably works the same way and suffers the same flaw. I doubt they totally rewrote the whole thing or it wouldn't be very compatible with ABP.

are there any alternatives for adblock plus :showoff:

Adblock Edge is the closest alternative since it's a fork of Adblock Plus (not good enough to be a replacement, though.) :nono:

since Adblock Edge is a fork of Adblock Plus, I'm assuming it will have the same memory problem since the engine is the same as Adblock Plus.

Adblock Plus and Adblock Edge, by themselves are both just about less-than-supreme add-ons. But, just add Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus into the equation and Adblock Plus grows into the Supremo (check out the download link on my signature for the demonstrations.)

The last time I checked, Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus did not hand-shake well with Adblock Edge - it has a seamless integration with Adblock Plus being as they are both developed by the same Developer, Vladmir Palant.

Edited May 15, 2014 by dcs18

[SacredCultivator]

FOr the recommendation of URLFilter... Which FIlters would you recommend per List?

urlfilter.ini / Adblock.css

Also if you run FF with this for a long period of time, it actually doesn't reduce memory usage.

Edited May 16, 2014 by SacredCultivator

[2Old2Remember]

advertban seems even better don't know about the memory usage yet.