http://ipswichtown.rivals.net/default.asp?sid=911

then open an few tabs in FireFox 2.0.0.4, containing pages linked from Latest Headlines and also some pages containing posts from the Message Board, my browser and machine slows to a crawl pretty quickly. This never happens with Internet Explorer.

Although the Firefox interface is very good, the memory management appears to be poor by comparison with IE.

There’s one slight problem with that statement. Absolutely no one has said there’s no memory problem. What we have said is that people who are seeing serious problems are not talking about their problems is enough detail that anything can be done about them. There are some memory leaks, but most people don’t ever notice because the leaks are slow and subtle, taking many days to build up to any noticeable level. A small minority of people do have serious memory issues, but they cannot describe in enough detail about what precisely their problem is so that a bug report can be written so the problem can be fixed. As I have said many times before, if you’re seeing a problem, please discuss it in as much detail as you can at MozillaZine so that it can be fixed, whether the problem is with Firefox, an extension you’re using, or a problem with your configuration.

I’m a tab addict, most of the time I have more than 20 tabs open while @ the same time encoding a movie to divx and I don’t encounter that memory leak or that 99% CPU issue some of you guys are seeing. It must be your machines and not Firefox. I hardly close the Firefox browser either it’s usually open for up to 16 – 20 hours with no problem.

I do think that if OpenSource is to be a success it has to “just work”, improvements have to “just be better” and users should never have to resort to faffing about with configurations. I know there are huge paid-for software companies out there that have issues like this all the time, but they have the advantage of effectively limitless marketing budgets. OpenSource doesn’t have that, so it has to gain converts because its software “just works.” It’s the killer USP that others wish they had, it’s why FF stole the show in the last couple of years.

That is why this memory problem with FF2 and the responses that say “There’s no problem because we have done xyz tests that say there’s no problem,” are so demoralising– they play right into the hands of those who say OpenSource isn’t serious. There IS a problem with FF2, it doesn’t matter a fiddlers if it’s a “memory leak”, just a consequence of the way FF2 apportions memory or whatever. If I see a system crashing under FF2 because of low memory and working fine under FF1.5, I know where the problem lies. If Mozilla engineers can’t find it they’re using the wrong tests.

I’m the System Architect for a growing UK insurer (over 100,000 customers) and the 20-strong programming team all dev in FF, then check in IE, Opera etc. This Asus Core Duo laptop is typically running IIS, a MySQL server and various GUIs for it, a couple of VPN connections, YM, a couple of RDCs, a couple of FTP connections and a number of other typical web dev apps simultaneously. The only program it has ever had a consistent issue with is FF2.

All anecdotal I know and I’m not about to go and find the source of the issue – sorry, got enough things to do – but until I stop hearing comments similar to those on this page I’m sticking with 1.5

Reinstalled 1.5 and the problem no longer exists. Funny that.

Major, major, major mistake on the Mozilla team’s part. Developers really need to get up to speed with a basic concept– new does not mean better. It’s not good enough for the new version to be shiny and new, it actually has to perform better. Otherwise give it a few years and they’ll all be out of jobs cause no-one wants the new stuff.

Beth: If you can tell us how to see Firefox 2 use much more memory than Firefox 1.5, please do so. Then we can file a bug report and get the problem fixed. I’d recommend discussing the problem at MozillaZine.