I don't trust when a company releases a new full version, then another 2 full versions within the next couple months.

It's no big surprise it has major problems like this resource hogging issue. There was no real time to TEST these NEW RELEASES.

This is insane.

My machine has 4GB of RAM and yesterday firefox took 1,2gb, i had to close all my tabs clear the cache then close it and restart it to get my memory back to normal. I am a web developer and i use it all day this is horrible.

I need FF for firebug. Sigh please fix this mozilla

I think as long as Mozilla keeps feeling the need to rush out buggy FF versions just to increase their version numbers, we're going to be stuck with poorly performing, buggy FF for the foreseeable future.

I think the users all need to PROTEST and NOT upgrade to 6.0 for at least another 6 months. Force them to get 5 working right, first, before releasing new and buggy versions which are NOT READY.

I completely agree with you RonQ. Well when im done with work today im going to see if i can get FF4 back on my machine, and block all updates. That was a great version to begin with i don't know why they stuffed up on the later versions. Also why do they want their version numbers to climb though?? its going to be stupid saying i have FF 24 in the future...... :-|. whats wrong with FF4.x. Sigh i guess we will never know

I've been getting the memory leaks too, although I'm pretty sure I got them in 5, probablly 4 too.

The whole 4, 5, 6, 7 is just a new update format they're using, nothing to be worried or angry about.

RyanLost, I would strongly recommend ALL FF users BLOCK updates, as long as Mozilla is rushing out buggy updates. I generally don't like to automatically update anyway, but I SURE don't want to have automatic updates when Mozilla is more concerned with putting out new releases than fixing the problems with the old releases.

The fact so many people are complaining about FF6 seems to confirm this. It's one step up, two steps back, for many people. It's not just like an incremental bug fix release. No, it has new and buggy features added.

If 5.x and 6.x were merely improvements on the stability of 4.x, I could have agreed it's "nothing to worry about". But, as you said, the memory is hemorrhaging.

Definitely, I suggest you revert your version and wait until Mozilla actually FIXES a release and the news on the wires is that it's fixes, and not just a buggy new one.

Thanks RonQ. I think we made our point in this question. I reverted back to FF4 and everything is super. There are a few memory leaks but atleast its not 1,2GB, the highest it climbed was 30oMB with 30 tabs open so i would say FF4 is the way to go for now. Thanks for the support guys

No problem, Ryan.

Yes, this is showing me Mozilla is on the wrong track with their upgrade approach.

I still hold out hope that they'll get their act together and start FIXING some of the releases instead of releasing new features with new bugs each time. But it might take a while, until they see the anger of their users and realize that sometimes it's best to FIX bugs in existing releases. If each bug fix is accompanied by a new bug, they will quickly lose their entire core user base.

Until we see how this irons out, I suggest no one go beyond 5.x and everyone turn auto-updates off.

I stopped using Firefox completely months ago due to the severe memory issues. Running Intel Core i7 notebook with 8GB of memory. As a graphic/media designer who regularly uses programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, video programs and such, I was ASTONISHED to see that Firefox 5 (and Firefox 6, still) were using 2+GB (yes, gigabytes) of memory after simply leaving it open for several hours, while my graphic-intensive programs were only using 50-300MB!!!

It simply got irritating to shut down FireFox ENTIRELY every 30 minutes or so just to keep the memory footprint low. Closing tabs didn't reduce memory usage as Firefox seemed stuck after the memory drain. Moved to Chrome. Works great.

Gemini, wow, I never had THAT kind of memory abuse!

But I did find that I could open multiple LARGE images in Photoshop and Illustrator, too, and see FireFox hogging more than these other programs; and worse than the graphics programs, which would release the memory when I closed documents, FF would just keep getting bigger and bigger, no matter how many tabs I closed, until I had to shut down the program entirely!

Now, with the RUSH to release 5 then 6 and now 7, especially with 6 being so horrible, I don't have faith that Mozilla is putting enough resources into FIXING bugs, but they are more worried about fancy updates and new, buggy releases.

Both Firefox 5 and Firefox 6 (Mac) use a huge amount of memory for me — between 750MB and 1.13GB (right now). I have 15 extensions active. I disabled or removed about 10 yesterday thinking that would help — but, today FF is using more RAM than ever! This doesn't make sense to me.

Ironically, that was one of the reasons I went to FF over IE; faster, less memory waste, streamlined and efficient.

Now, however, FF is having worse problems than IE and Chrome, despite those being the reasons I left IE in the first place.

I will avoid IE at all costs, but, if FF keeps going the way it has been, I will have to go over to Chrome. I'm still holding out hope, however, that Mozilla will realize it's on the wrong path and return to the old methods, which made it great.

Firefox 6.0.1 (Mac) hit 1.67GB last night!!! What in the world...? I disabled more extensions — down to 8 (1Password, Add to Amazon Wish List, Browse by Name, DownThemAll! Evernote Web Clipper, Facebook PhotoZoom, InvisibleHand, Xmarks) and it's still using 835MB +/- plus Firefox Plugin Process is using another 152MB. My 2006 MBP (Intel Core 2 Duo) is maxed out at 3GB RAM.

I had just switched back to Firefox for v.5.x from Safari because Safari was dragging. I need to try Chrome again but earlier versions were the slowest of the lot.

Just another update. Firefox 6.0.1 (Mac) just hit 1.77GB plus Firefox Plugin Process using 50MB. Same extensions. Only about 6 tabs open. The next highest app in terms of memory usage was Tweetdeck at about 165MB.

I had to force quit Firefox, then ran Chrome (14.083...B). The Chrome app itself is taking 131MB w/2 tabs open. There are 15 other Chrome processes running that are taking about 660MB together (Chrome Worker, C Renderer, C Helper). But, at least for now, Chrome isn't continuing to hog memory and isn't dragging like Firefox was.

I would rather use Firefox but there need to be some major changes.

RyanLost, have you tried the solutions in the Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix article? It is very unusual for Firefox to take 600 MB.

I closed FF6 when it topped 800GB! I have now downgraded to 3.6

I will give FF one more chance on the next release and if it's still taking ludicrous amounts of memory it's Hello Chrome

[Profanity removed by moderator. Please read the Mozilla Support rules and guidelines, thanks.]

This is RyanLost's thread, so we should be focusing on helping him/her. Hopefully he/she will respond to my answer. If anyone else has already tried the solutions in the Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix article, and still has the problem, it's best to start your own thread by going to https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/new . You can then provide a lot more info, which will help the volunteer community help you. Thanks.

You can also check the memory usage on the about:memory page.
You can open about: pages via the location bar like you open a website.