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Firefox devs locate a source of memory-bloat


DKT27

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Firefox developers have been hunting down memory issues in Firefox and appear to have located a major one in the JavaScript engine. It appears, according to the bug report, that memory was fragmenting within the JavaScript engine due to it keeping 1MB chunks alive for long living system objects.

The developers then created a patch to reduce fragmentation by taking account of system objects and the results were described as "ridiculously good". In the test, memory usage without the patch was measured at around 239 MB and with the patch at 189 MB; after running "minimise memory usage", the unpatched Firefox was using 108 MB while the patched version was using only 21 MB, five times better. Together with a fix for bug 656120 – which will see the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine running garbage collection far more frequently – these changes should see Firefox consuming less memory.

The changes though will only appear in Firefox 7; Firefox 6 is about to go beta, so Firefox 7 is the earliest the modifications can appear; Firefox 7 is due to arrive in the Aurora channel at the same time as 6 goes beta.

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Speechless.. but I am not for sure what this may means... :o :P cue 'Challenge Accepted'

If not mistaken, it means Firefox was keeping reserved memory and not cleaning it. Makes sense now, memory increasing more, longer the people used it. Haven't looked into the bug report though, I like to read them properly. :)

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In v7? Mozilla wake the XXX up and implement this essential XXX in 5.1 - and hurry :mellow:

PS: Also, please don't mess up the extensions again...

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In v7? Mozilla wake the XXX up and implement this essential XXX in 5.1 - and hurry :mellow:

PS: Also, please don't mess up the extensions again...

Exactly, there is no reason why firefox should wait that long

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It needs proper testing / bugfixing of course. :)

As for the addons. Let me say this again. Addons makers are probably asked to put the maximum version number they have tested their addon with to be put in the compatibility. When addons don't work, it's not Mozilla fault, it's the lazy devs who have taken efforts to make the freaking addon but can't download 20MB and install just to mark a stamp that their addons is compatible. More and more users are using betas that is released only once every 20 days, but devs, they don't leave their "I'll mark them compatible when the stable version is released". How much time does it take a dev to test his own addon and edit just a single, repeat, a single line in their addon. Instead, it's Mozilla who's testing and marking them compatible.

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O.T.

Some extensions have just become incompatible, like Adobe's or KIS's; I doubt this can be blamed on Adobe/Kaspersky, they did their job, support v4, then in just a few weeks v5 came and messed things up. Seriously, are they supposed to update their extensions every few weeks? Mozilla needs a way to fix this thing.

As for the memory bug fixing, it's their job to find a way to test it and implement it fast, after all, they are Mozilla, producers of the 2nd most popular browser.

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Sl@pSh0ck™

Good news ... hopefully they can pull this up ...been using Nightly UX build for a couple of months as main browser, no complaints here.

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Ambrocious

Guys, no worries, Im guessing that FF7 will be out in 2 months probably...as quickly as they have been going for now.

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but devs, they don't leave their "I'll mark them compatible when the stable version is released". How much time does it take a dev to test his own addon and edit just a single, repeat, a single line in their addon. Instead, it's Mozilla who's testing and marking them compatible.

well but, the problem itself behind this is really the compatibility

not just edit the single line as <maxversion>, for sure that's no enough.

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Yeah.. the UI changes and several others have presented a few bugs that can be caused by even the ones I use... AND things like BossKey will not work no matter what you do in 5.. which it also has a DLL file which is in the extension folder..could also have something to do with it.. but I have to tear it apart first.. Not that I could do anything with it afterward..

The ones that are being left behind to use really can't replace them..

EDIT: when you change a component to work differently in the script which makes up FF at any point.. it alters the way some will operate or even remove the manner in which they operated.. Some security.. some simply improvements.. others complete rebuilds...

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The changes though will only appear in Firefox 7; Firefox 6 is about to go beta, so Firefox 7 is the earliest the modifications can appear; Firefox 7 is due to arrive in the Aurora channel at the same time as 6 goes beta.

v6 went beta today so going by this article the bug fix is now live in Aurora?

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/6.0b1-candidates/build1/

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/

Runs off to test now...

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The changes though will only appear in Firefox 7; Firefox 6 is about to go beta, so Firefox 7 is the earliest the modifications can appear; Firefox 7 is due to arrive in the Aurora channel at the same time as 6 goes beta.

v6 went beta today so going by this article the bug fix is now live in Aurora?

http://ftp.mozilla.o...didates/build1/

http://ftp.mozilla.o...mozilla-aurora/

Runs off to test now...

The date mentioned about moving from nightly to aurora and aurora to beta is the date they start the transition. It will take about a week (or less) for beta to actually appear on FTP release folder.

Not sure about v7. It does look like it's the build, but can't confirm if this is the one that has implemented the fix.

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It will take about a week (or less) for beta to actually appear on FTP release folder.

Build 1 is in the beta ftp release folder right now and Aurora has also just been updated.

Having said that memory usage looks the same to me so obviously it's not live.

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It will take about a week (or less) for beta to actually appear on FTP release folder.

Build 1 is in the beta ftp release folder right now and Aurora has also just been updated.

Having said that memory usage looks the same to me so obviously it's not live.

Nope. That's nightly folder, not release. Also, it's Beta candidate.

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That's true but going back to the original article it states that "Firefox 7 is due to arrive in the Aurora channel at the same time as 6 goes beta".

6 has gone beta already (even though it's at first candidate stage it's still beta) and Firefox 7 has now arrived in the Aurora channel (firefox-7.0a2).

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