try to reset Firefox. Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings. This simple step will eliminate many Firefox problems with only one click.

Thanks for your reply. I saw that solution previously but was hesitant to do it. I went ahead and reset Firefox. It still really slows down my computer, mostly because of the plugin-container.exe file. This was never an issue with previous versions.

I switched to Firefox from Avant browser because of a similar issue. It may be time to switch to something else. :-(

How to disable extensions, Personas, and plugins

Disabling an add-on will turn it off without removing it:

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools 
     menu in Windows XP), and then click Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager 
     tab will open.
2. In the Add-ons Manager tab, select the Extensions or Appearance or 
     Plugins panel.
3. Select the add-on you wish to disable.
4. Click the Disable button.
5. Click Restart now if it pops up. Your tabs will be saved and restored 
     after the restart. 

To re-enable the add-on, find it in the list of Add-ons and click Enable, then restart Firefox.

If you had a Administrator account you could left click onto the task bar and select the Task Manager and Kill the Process there but it would be safer following the instructions above supplied by Firefox.

I opened my Task Manager and found these two plugin-container.exe running within Firefox. I have no problem with the speed of my browser, in-fact Firefox blows away the compatition comparing searching speeds with DSL and I have only a 2GB HD on this old computer.

It sounds like you need to download and use regularly, CCleaner and Defraggler at: www.piriform.com/CCleaner, www.piriform.com/Defraggler

Excellent Maintenance Software for Free...

plugin-container.exe

Process ID 3872

User- User Account

Domain- Computers name

Path C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe

Memory Usage 1.98 MB

Peak Memory Usage 26 MB

plugin-container.exe

Process ID 3772

User - User Account

Domain- Computers name

Path C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe

Memory Usage 49 MB

Peak Memory Usage 288 MB

Good Luck, Later

“Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.”

Comfydragon, Firefox does not list plugin-container.exe as an add on. So I can't disable it. I am able to use the Task Manager and kill the process. However when I do that, Firefox does not run Flash. So some pages don't load properly.

Firefox currently using 758 MB memory.

Plugin-container.exe using 157MB memory

Ridiculous...

I can't install those applications on my computer even if they would help. IT dept doesn't really want me to use Firefox so they're not trying to help.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions...

Flash Player tends to be causing problems or crashes for some Firefox users at the moment. You only seem concerned about the amount of memory in use.

The plugincontainer.exe is likely to be due to FlashPlayer use. The amount of memory used by FlashPlayer is determined at least in part by type and quality of the video content that you play.

Presumably you look at sites at work that have a high FlashPlayer/Video content. it would be interesting to know how you are measuring memory use?

Try keying in to the address bar and opening tabs for about:memory and about:compartments that may at least help you to see what is using the memory.

John99, I'm not as concerned about memory usage as I am with the speed of my computer. If these apps were memory hogs but didn't slow me down, I couldn't care less. Anyway, it is definitely the Flash Player causing the problems. I know that because I've disabled it, and my computer is running faster. The plugin-container.exe file is also gone so I guess it only runs with Flash Player.

I wasn't aware of how many sites that I visit that use Flash Player (mostly for ads) until I disabled it and got that error message where an ad should be. I did the about:memory and about:compartments... not sure what I'm looking at...

I guess I will enable and disable Flash Player as needed, at least until they "fix" this bug with Firefox. Thanks for your help!

adrienne0914,
It is surprising what some pages contain, and that so many sites do now run FlashPlayer for displaying advertisements.

As an alternative to just disabling FlashPlayer some users use things like NoScript that ; once it is set up will to your liking; will block most advertisements whilst allowing the FlashPlayers that you want to see.

Unless you know you are desperately short of RAM or HDD space the amount of memory Firefox is apparently using is often not vital. I m currently using Firefox 16, but Firefox 15 - already available as Beta - should be a good improvement as far as memory use of plugins is concerned.

About:memory and about:compartments are both rather complicated. But they do serve a good purpose in enabling memory use to be tracked a lot easier and more accurately than has been possible until recently. Note

• about:memory
  • gives mouseover information on the different objects
  • is an expandable tree structure
  • has a button with an option to try to reduce memory use
• about:compartments (if you ignore the System portion)
  gives something approaching a per tab or per window listing

John99, thanks for that add-on. I installed it but found that none of the pages were loading properly. I tried to resolve on my own. I'm not a newbie, but I'm not that technically savvy either. So I just disabled it. I'm hoping that Firefox 15 will end my nightmare.

This has been really frustrating, but at least I've learned a thing or two. Thanks for the pearls of wisdom. :-)

If you are having problems with using FlashPlayer 11.3 consider instead of totally disabling FlashPlayer uninstalling Flash 11.3 and re-installing Flash 10.3 (Some Firefox users find that works better than 11.3)

• See flash 11.3 crashes if you need instructions on how to uninstall and reinstall FlashPlayer 10.3