Firefox and memory leaks

[cantab]

Firefox 1.5, which is standard with Kubuntu, leaks memory like a sieve. I get the feeling Thunderbird (same version) does too?

Is this fixed in firefox 2.0? If not, what browser do you recommend. Past experience of Konqueror has been a few too many crashes for my liking.

Also can extensions leak?

[Gezzer]

Re: Firefox and memory leaks

in the address bar write about:config

right click and pick add new integer
add this setting

add new integer
browser.cache.memory.capacity
32768

this should stop the memory leak as it sets the max amount of ram FF can use ...

[cantab]

Re: Firefox and memory leaks

Yeah that seems to work. Thanks.

Ought to be the default state of affairs really.

EDIT: Or maybe not. Something is still leaking memory, but I'm not sure what. Maybe firefox, maybe something else.

[steven8]

Re: Firefox and memory leaks

I have heard about memory leaks, but have never been sure just what this means. So, two questions:

1) What is a memory leak.

2) How do you know you have one.

Thanks.

[cantab]

Re: Firefox and memory leaks

A memory leak is when a piece of software allocates itself an amount of memory, then due to bad programming 'forgets' about it. This may be repeated each time the program goes through a certain part of its logic.

The result is memory consumption that increases boundlessly with use of the program.

The term is commonly applied to any case in which memory consumption increases without apparent good cause, even if it's not strictly speaking a leak.

In firefox's case, I believe it is due to the caching of rendered versions of pages.

[steven8]

Re: Firefox and memory leaks

Ah, okay. Then you would see it in machine slow down and could see it with a RAM monitoring program.

Thanks!