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Plugin-Container.exe is using massive amounts of memory, 500mb in my case.

  • 2 replies
  • 57 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by kylemj

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After running Firefox 4.01 for several hours on my Laptop (2gb Memory). I noticed the Plugin-Container.exe was using 500mb of ram. This is just way too much for browsing. I have 8 extensions all up to date, and 13 Plugins. all fairly standard.

I was checking video sites on and off, and some sites with flash. However I can't understand why it requires 500mb ram over this period of time. Any previous versions of Firefox (Been using it for years now), rarely ran over 150mb ram. Even when running for the same amount of time and viewing similar sites.

Any solutions to this excessive amount of ram required?

After running Firefox 4.01 for several hours on my Laptop (2gb Memory). I noticed the Plugin-Container.exe was using 500mb of ram. This is just way too much for browsing. I have 8 extensions all up to date, and 13 Plugins. all fairly standard. I was checking video sites on and off, and some sites with flash. However I can't understand why it requires 500mb ram over this period of time. Any previous versions of Firefox (Been using it for years now), rarely ran over 150mb ram. Even when running for the same amount of time and viewing similar sites. Any solutions to this excessive amount of ram required?

Modified by odeeee

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Over the past few weeks, I've been noticing my laptop (1.2ghz Centrino with 1.5GB RAM and XP Tablet edition that normally runs really fast for it's rated speed) getting horribly slowed down and lagging everything for several seconds at a time whenever I use Firefox for more than a few minutes - and it started happening shortly after I updated to this new 4.0 version

why on earth does it insist on creating a 400-500MB plugin container.exe in the first place? ... it seems like the more updated it is, the harder it is to manage and use - just this one (useless/I did fine without it for years) part of Firefox is using 1/3 of my RAM ... what the heck is it doing with it?

the worst part is that I see NO improvement whatsoever with this new version - if it did something amazing that 3.5 couldn't or wouldn't do, I'd probably understand - but this 4.0 is a HUGE step backwards in terms of speed and usability - but maybe it's only meant for brand new computers with 8GB of RAM and 4-core CPU's

don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Firefox, but I'm going back to 3.5 until something big changes in the memory management of 4.0 ... I should be able to run a simple program like a browser with just about any computer - it's not like I'm using Windows 95 with 64MB RAM and complaining about it, this laptop has been doing just fine with everything until 4.0 hit it like a brick that's been wrapped in a poopy diaper and left to soak in the ocean for 2 weeks

it almost seems like software companies are purposely making their products require a HUGE amount of hardware resources just to make older computers obsolete faster, but I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory and is probably not true ... or is it?

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I disabled DivX webplayer in Tools > Addons > Plugins and everything working with me now