Firstly, you need updates because they provide security fixes. Obviously, when you are using a program to access the internet, it's important to update it with the latest security fixes to stay protected. Updates also add better features and improve performance. For example, Firefox was recently overhauled to become Firefox Quantum, making it the fastest main stream web browser available.

It's pretty normal for Firefox (and other browsers) to use around 600mb of memory when idling. Once you start loading content into it, the memory required increases. The memory can fill up quite a bit when doing high-resource tasks, like playing Flash content. This could be the cause of your high memory usage.

However, if your computer's memory is "maxed out" by less than 2GB of memory, it's likely time to consider an upgrade. The minimum RAM requirement for most computers today is at bare minimum 2GB.

Nevertheless, there are some things you can do to try and increase the performance of Firefox on your system. I'd recommend trying to manually lower the Content Process Limit to 1, as outlined in Firefox's performance settings documentation.

Here are some other documents that you can review for more information, tips and solutions:

• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix
• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix
• Firefox takes a long time to start up
• Firefox hangs or is not responding - How to fix

Hope this helps.

FireFox Quantum 66.0.2 (32-bit) <------- up to date --

The game i play is not Flash <---- line 10 in the post -- 

Computer Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 2310m CPU2.10 GHz under clocked 2.8GHz Installed memory 2.00GB - 64 bit Windows 10 Pro ( I am trying to see if I can get a 2Gig stick instead ) of 2 - 1Gig Sticks.

Also i referenced the Help or tip pages you listed as not working for me, with or without Hardware acceleration made no difference. I make reference to About:Memory - not fixing the problem, to be clear I clicked lower memory use as instructed. It helped for 3 to 5 mins. I also used About:Config browser tabs and asked for only one browser to run. It worked fantastic. However a forced upgrade caused it to go back to 3 to 5 pages running at the same time. Even though the setting is till only one in configuration. Thus Stating the upgrades were causing, and I quote " This last few updates have been a let down and an annoyance ." So i am updating I am running 2 gig of memory.  I have checked those pages you left links for me. I stated they offered no help to solve the hidden separate pages running in the background. Note i say it still happens every now and again. 
 I am running window 10 it is supposed to be able to use terabytes, so I will see if I can get 4 Gig now and 4Gig late. You may think i have been a little rude but if you read the post with an understanding, you would be able to send better reply's. You did help me think it through. When i bought the laptop the salesman said 2 gig is tops. Well he was wrong - Windows 10 can use 2 terabytes - my laptop tops in at 8 gig - So thanks for the help you really did Great for me.

Vjohnson said

I also used About:Config browser tabs and asked for only one browser to run. It worked fantastic. However a forced upgrade caused it to go back to 3 to 5 pages running at the same time. Even though the setting is till only one in configuration.

I assume you are referring to setting the maximum number of content processes that are running. You used to be able to do that in the about:config settings, but now that setting is available in the regular Firefox settings screen.

If you open the Firefox settings (or enter about:preferences in the Firefox address bar) and deselect the Use recommended performance settings option, you will find the Content process limit option. You can change this to 1 and restart Firefox.

If it helped you in the past, then it may help you now. It sounds like your system isn't fast enough to run multiple Firefox processes, so sometimes limiting the processes can improve performance.

Hope this helps.