firefox memory hogging

[thoreau]

in the last couple of days - Firefox has been ramping up it's use of CPU to the point where when I play a YouTube video - the computer freezes up. When I check processes in task manager (its a windows computer at home) - Firefox is using 80-95% of the CPU. any ideas what could make Firefox suddenly become a memory hog?

Comments

[pulsecub.livejournal.com]

Are you using Firefox 2 or 3? Firefox 3 is better at memory handling, and there is a plug-in for it that will free up any memory it may not need.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

According to twobraids the entire staff is trapped in a hotel in Canada after a rockslide wiped out the only road.

Maybe it's slowing down because it's on a psychic level with frantic Mozilla employees?

[budmassey.livejournal.com]

Are you sure that you haven't acquired some malicious code? Usually when a browsers shows that marked a decrease in performance it's related to some security breach.

[eric-mathgeek.livejournal.com]

A co-worker of mine said Firefox has a memory leak -- over time it slowly uses more and more. She suggested that restarting often (as in, every day -- I don't think she meant to suggest more often than that) helps curb that... Does it?

[arkanjil.livejournal.com]

I have much the same behavior, to the point that i do my heavy web browsing using Safari these days. FF2 on OSX was known to have memory leaks, but also FF3 was to address that, among other things. this may help, but otherwise, I would say, check that your add ons are all up to date, try disabling them all for a session and see if that makes your problems go away, and if so, turn them on one by one to see if you can determine which one is a troublemaker.

[bikerbaer.livejournal.com]

OK folks, time to stop guessing and:

1) Search the bug data base: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ ; If you don't find your problem, goto step 2
2) Write up a reproducible case, with documentation of the entire system (plug-ins, patches, etc). Guidelines here: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Bug_writing_guidelines
3) Go to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/createaccount.cgi
4) File a bug *OR*
5) Fix it yourself... It's open source :) Pull the source and start your debugging.

Memory and CPU time are two separate resources. Are you sure you've got a memory leak, or a runaway process? Is it a kernel issue, or userland?

[redhochipe.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the memory Hog thing. After downloading the new version 3.0xxx, I lost the ability to watch UTube and other videos. So, I am forced to use IE.