Thinkpads Forum

Previously on Firefox, and now on Pale Moon, I always noted the exorbitant memory usage of this browser.
By accident I stumbled upon this website: http://www.rizonesoft.com/software/firemin/
They have made a program Firemin that now limits this memory-gobbling to only a few MB!

Before: (these are my personal figures from 01/09/2015)
Time - Memory used (as per Task Mgr)
06:01 392,644 K
08:26 544,388 K
10:14 928,936 K
11:18 1,025,436 K
13:47 1,017,584 K

After:
regardless of time, it fluctuates between 1,500 K and 22,000 K, mostly around 8,400 K

The program Firemin (Build 2086) can be used on FireFox itself.
The Beta Version (Build 3977) can be used on the FireFox derivatives Pale Moon, CyberFox, WaterFox and IceDragon.

I have tested some Beta-versions (using Pale Moon) and the current Build 3977 is almost perfect, well worth running!
In the 3977 download, only the profile palemoon.ini has duplicate entries, just delete the second half and you'll be grand!
It took me a while to realize that the program's icon on the Task Bar (on mine at least) was a hidden icon.

EDIT: not mentioned anywhere, but you need to change firemin.ini Profile and Path to show YOUR browser location before you start the program.
Mine changed from firefox settings to:
Profile=palemoon.ini
Path=F:\Program Files\Pale Moon\palemoon.exe

Had been running Pale Moon for several months until they dropped support for XP; I then switched back to Firefox (now at 34. something). I run two A31p with 2GB memory and WinXP SP3. Memory usage by Pale Moon wasn't as bad as Firefox but then again, it was still a memory hog. My use of a web brower is to have open at least 4 or 5 tabs continuously. As I browse the forum and eBay, that number will rise and often hit 20 tabs. I've seen memory usage as high as 1.6GB. When that happens I usually shut down Firefox and re-start it but after a few days it's back up again (I leave my home system on 24/7 but the work A31p gets hibernated each night).

Downloaded Firemin and set it to 1000, the setting the provides the lowest processing power but allows more memory to be used. A good compromise given I'm running such an obsolete processor. Even so, Firefox memory usage dropped from 800+MB to about 100MB. Will monitor the usage over the next few days and report back.

rkawakami wrote:Had been running Pale Moon for several months until they dropped support for XP;

My understanding is they still support XP in the "Atom" version.

Nice find, I will definately test this out sometime soon!

jdrou wrote:

rkawakami wrote:Had been running Pale Moon for several months until they dropped support for XP;

My understanding is they still support XP in the "Atom" version.

At this point you don't even have to do that. There is still a Pale Moon for Windows XP build.

As far as browser memory usage goes - if you have enough RAM, I don't see it as a problem "per se". It would be interesting to investigate the tradeoffs between normal mode, and aggressive memory release modes (like what Firemin does). For example - do frequent calls to memory free API make the application slower when you come back to a tab which was unused for a while? It might be the case, but without testing, I have no idea.

After a few days of Firemin, my PaleMoon memory usage is staying WAY low!
I started my PC this morning about 3:15 am, and now, 13 hours later and with average 6 tabs, memory usage is still only around 1,500-1,800 K. Perfect!

Yes! I can use Firefox on my T43 again!

I've been using Firemin on my Windows 7 desktop (at work) for the past few hours now, and memory use went from around 240MB down to less than 10. Only extended testing will prove whether Firefox is affected in any way by this or not, but it seems stable.

dr_st wrote:At this point you don't even have to do that. There is still a Pale Moon for Windows XP build.

Right now yes but according to the Pale Moon dev, "Please do note that these versions will be discontinued when the last retail NT 5.x product goes EoL in July 2015." I assume that means after that point the source will no longer build for XP (otherwise he couldn't really speak for 3rd-party builds).
There is no such disclaimer for the Atom build.

Had a problem with the work A31p (1.8Ghz, 2GB RAM, WinXP SP3) being slow this morning. Firefox took a very long time to get keyboard/mouse focus (Firemin was running). Figured it was due to the fact that I've been hibernating the system for several weeks without a full re-boot so I shut it down and re-started. Prior to this, Page File usage was hovering around 1.6GB; it's now at 810MB. 5 applications running and 61 processes. Firefox is taking 15MB to 60MB (6 open tabs) with Firemin set at 1000. Firefox CPU load varying around 75%. System Idle Process, AVG and Firemin accounting for most of the remaining 25%. System is definitely more responsive than earlier so I'll start taking notes on the performance starting with this clean slate. I'll re-boot the home A31p tonight.

THANKS RBS
That program really knocked down the memory that FF is using. So with my many open windows and tabs, I am not pushing 6GB of memory in use, I am down to about 3.1GB.
And I left it at the default of 300, and not being aggressive.

Do you care for Google Chrome? I use Firefox (currently 37.0.1) and Chrome (currently 41) daily on my T40 and have no issues whatsoever.

Chrome and Firefox are widely supported by most website, and they both support XP at the moment. Google has pledged XP support through "at least April 2015", and they are probably going to revisit the XP issue this month. I also like Chrome's minimalist interface. I also like how Chrome auto-updates Flash since that is a key security risk on any system.

sdfox7

I liked Chrome, in the beginning.
But then I discovered something that I just hated...the auto update. Chrome would do an auto update as soon as I turned on my computer. The issue was, I needed to get work done, and the auto update took away too much CPU and disk access resources when I needed to do work. And my work computer was a laptop, so I did not have the extra horsepower and drive speed of a desktop. So, without the ability to specify when I want to do the update, I stopped using it and removed it. I do virtually all my updates manually. The software just needs to tell me that an update is available, and I will choose when to do the update.

BTW, trying to remember my laptops; T21 at the 1st company, a T23 at the 2nd, and I think a T41 at the 3rd company. I don't remember the OS that ran on each of them. So we are not talking high horsepower here. Although at the time they were pretty good laptops. I do not remember when Chrome came out and which laptop it would have been installed in.

I guess if you are using an old PC with a single core CPU and low RAM (1-2GB) this program could be useful.

But for people with i-Series CPU's and 8-16GB of RAM, why bother? Most users have their browser as their *primary* application, then some office program (word, excel, or god forbid one of those libre office jokes), and maybe iTunes, spotify, or other media player running.

I guess my point is, on a modern system, does it really matter?

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Temetka wrote:Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

There is no such. The 'unused' one is actually disk cache.

My impression is that Fire Fox/Pale Moon takes account of how much memory your computer has and adjusts its use accordingly. For example, it seems to use less on a T42p with 2GB than another computer with more.

I will have to check this out - very cool.
Temetka makes a valid point about newer systems - but of course we don't all run in unlimited RAM scenarios.
I used to use Firefox as my main browser, but now use K-Meleon, which is a Gecko-based browser actually older than Firefox, and is incredibly memory efficient and customizable. A unique beast indeed, especially shining on machines with limited memory and running Windows XP SP2 or newer, though some do run it on Linux.

sdfox7 wrote:Do you care for Google Chrome? I use Firefox (currently 37.0.1) and Chrome (currently 41) daily on my T40 and have no issues whatsoever.

Chrome and Firefox are widely supported by most website, and they both support XP at the moment. Google has pledged XP support through "at least April 2015", and they are probably going to revisit the XP issue this month. I also like Chrome's minimalist interface. I also like how Chrome auto-updates Flash since that is a key security risk on any system.

I did some of my own tests and found Chrome gobbled up far more CPU when running videos i.e. youtube on my T60p than FF. Another horrible thing about chrome is that they decided your computer should save all of your passwords and keep all of your history (unless you're in incognito mode I suppose, but even then if you're not careful it can inhale personal data). It's not like I'm doing anything I don't want other people to see, but if said "other people" steal my laptop and get into it, I don't want any sensitive credentials cached by accident without my consent.

This is definitely a neat utility for running on a T4x laptop. I'll give it a shot when I have a chance. Regarding Temetka's response, yeah... newer computers won't benefit from it, but old intel-chipset-RAM-crippled-thinkpads will. I thought I would be able to use up all 48 GB of RAM in my desktop and was going to boost it to 96 GB; but I didn't so am holding off on that upgrade.

micrex22 wrote:Another horrible thing about chrome is that they decided your computer should save all of your passwords and keep all of your history (unless you're in incognito mode I suppose, but even then if you're not careful it can inhale personal data).

I can't say I've ever had it save passwords without my consent.

RealBlackStuff wrote:After a few days of Firemin, my PaleMoon memory usage is staying WAY low!
I started my PC this morning about 3:15 am, and now, 13 hours later and with average 6 tabs, memory usage is still only around 1,500-1,800 K. Perfect!

Wow! I wish there was something like this for Chromium based browsers. Waiting for Firefox to become Chrome Extension friendly.