With Firefox, usually it’s a bad behaving addon that let’s the memory explode.
You could look at about:memory and measure and check the current usage.
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You can adjust the swappiness of your system.
I accumulate maybe 10 MiB of swap per day, which is nothing compared to all the other reads and writes throughout the day.
So what would be really interesting is more detailed information, so what kind of process inside firefox needs more memory… My guess is that it is not a Linux vs Windows problem, but rather how Firefox is build for each OS…
I have no Windows ready now for comparing, but would be glad if you can share the results…
In Firefox: about:memory
You save a memory report on windows and on linux with the exact same tabs. Then you can load and diff them in about:memory and see differences in memory usage.
About this topic:
Try this:
# Clear PageCache only
sync; echo "1" | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
# Clear dentries and inodes
sync; echo "2" | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
# Clear pagecache, dentries, and inodes.
sync; echo "3" | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
and check the usage again:
free
used means → ( used = total - free - buffers - cache )
So rethinking, by guess is that the 7GB ~ buff/cache + available. Available doesn’t mean it is free, but is used, but can be freed anytime. However it is a “estimation” and not the absolut number. Also Firefox does ram caching of websites which should be also part of available.
So Programs itself only uses this:
echo "10 - (4.2 + 3.7)" | bc
2.1
But don’t quote me on that, it is just my humble guessing here.
Thank you. It seems to be an issue with using the computer for days/weeks at a time and memory not being cleared when FF exits. I can’t do any tests at the moment as I updated manjaro and rebooted yesterday, so currently I have 75% of my ram free. But in a weeks time this could be 20% free yet FF not even be running.
Here’s a screenshot I found of someones windows build using very little despite a lot of tabs and windows
I only wish mine would do that. Mine hits ~100% used with like 10 open tabs + rocket league. My new ram should turn up soon so this shouldn’t be a problem.
“open tabs” is a meaningless phrase. Firefox memory usage will vary greatly when tabs are loaded/unloaded. Just restart firefox while keeping all windows+tabs: it will consume very little memory, yet all windows and tabs are “open”.
Also keep in mind that one tab is unlike any other - it all depends on the website loaded in that tab. A simple text page won’t use much memory, some online game can easily use several GB (and still is only 1 tab).
I’d be cautious about that picture.
Some time ago i used a tab session management addon, which allowed me to save all tabs open in a session. When i restored such session, a tab was loaded only after if i switched to it; so i could have that many tabs “open” yet low memory usage…
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Moot topic for me now
Thanks for all the help though.
Oddly it uses very little ram now and all I’ve done is doubled it.
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