Just curious to see what you're working with. Can you post a screenshot of the performance tab?

Introducing Firefox’s new Site Isolation Security Architecture https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/

Firefox's Project Fission: better security and more processes https://www.ghacks.net/2019/02/07/firefoxs-project-fission-better-security-and-more-processes/

Firefox using too much RAM https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1401082#answer-1557050

Hi jonzn4SUSE,

Thank you for the response, I wasn't exactly expecting to see one so I am happy to be proved wrong.

I have attached screenshots showing the task manager for firefox and also the extension manager showing no extension is installed.

It seems that there is something that is looping just enough to hold a half gig of memory, as I mentioned, I turned OFF hardware acceleration, restarted and rebooted...still taking a very high amount of memory...I also deleted the content-prefs.sqlite as mentioned in another thread/suggestion just in case the new profile (new system) somehow was corrupted...nothing helped.

That's not exactly what I'm looking for. Let me boot to windows. Did an understanding of the processes from the articles? You didn't comment on them.

Looking for this. see screenshot

Hi jonzn4SUSE,

I guess I am slightly confused at what we are looking for in a screenshot, the ones I gave were specific to Firefox and the task manager built into it, I have attached a screenshot of the Windows task manager, with Memory highlighted (not having an issue with cpu cycles/load at this time).

As for the list of things I went through, it came from Mozilla's board: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-or-cpu-resources#

The issue "feels" like there is a conflict with something causing a leak, however that is the softwares I have supported over the years typical issue, something locking/holding a dll that the software was trying to use, then spike memory and loop.

Let me know what you'd like to see after seeing the screenshot, again this is a fresh build of win10 with no real extras (aside from browsers) installed.

It seems that Firefox is intent on taking 1/4 of the available memory, I "threw hardware" at the issue and installed 16gb (up from the 4 I had before) in the system, now Firefox is at 4gb of memory being used (I DO have some extra tabs open, however that is A LOT of memory for any program to utilize that is not actively being accessed (ie: all but the current tab should be actively using memory, holding memory and not releasing it back seems like a bug to me).

Since the browser is still proving to be unusable, I'd like to suggest a few additional steps you could consider:

1. **Safe Mode:** Try launching Firefox in Safe Mode. This mode disables all extensions and uses the default theme, which might help identify if an extension or theme is causing the excessive memory usage.

2. **Profile Refresh:** Instead of renaming the profile file, you can try using Firefox's built-in Refresh feature. This creates a new profile while retaining your bookmarks, history, and passwords.

3. **Check System Resources:** Monitor your system's overall resource usage (CPU, memory, GPU) using the operating system's task manager while Firefox is running. This might help identify if there are any unusual spikes in resource usage.

4. **Check for Updates:** Ensure that both Firefox and your operating system are up to date. Sometimes, updates can include bug fixes that might resolve performance issues.

5. **Consider Other Browsers:** If the issue persists, you might want to try using an alternative browser temporarily to see if the problem occurs there as well. This could help determine if the issue is specific to Firefox.

6. **Support Forums:** If none of the above steps yield results, consider posting your issue on Firefox's support forums. There, you might receive insights or solutions from other users or Mozilla experts.

7. **Professional Help:** If the problem persists and none of the solutions seem to work, you might consider seeking assistance from a professional who specializes in computer or software troubleshooting.

It's frustrating when technology doesn't behave as expected, especially on a new system. I hope that by exploring these additional steps, you'll be able to identify and resolve the issue, ultimately allowing you to use Firefox without any usability concerns. Best of luck, and I hope your browsing experience improves soon!

Thank you for responding Herry, answers under the question/comment below.

Since the browser is still proving to be unusable, I'd like to suggest a few additional steps you could consider: 1. **Safe Mode:** Try launching Firefox in Safe Mode. This mode disables all extensions and uses the default theme, which might help identify if an extension or theme is causing the excessive memory usage. ---bold text The original question stems around this being a fresh install...there are NO extensions that have been installed and NO themes, with that said testing on this particular question provided no results that could be conclusive. 2. **Profile Refresh:** Instead of renaming the profile file, you can try using Firefox's built-in Refresh feature. This creates a new profile while retaining your bookmarks, history, and passwords. ---bold text There are NO bookmarks/history/passwords that are outside the account I logged in with, this is a brand new install, I noticed the memory issue so I did NOT add something else to the mix and recreating a corrupted profile seems a better step than doing a "refresh" as I currently do NOT have any data I am overly concerned about keeping. 3. **Check System Resources:** Monitor your system's overall resource usage (CPU, memory, GPU) using the operating system's task manager while Firefox is running. This might help identify if there are any unusual spikes in resource usage. ---bold text While the question/statement/step is a sound step, this was covered in the screenshots above, I utilize both Windows task manager and Firefox's task manager to show what is happening, this is where I know that Firefox is using 1/4 of the available memory and it looks like the Firefox process "GPU" is ~1gb of memory usage. 4. **Check for Updates:** Ensure that both Firefox and your operating system are up to date. Sometimes, updates can include bug fixes that might resolve performance issues. ---bold text I had thought I covered this, however I did not make the direct statement, this is a brand new system, I have currently ALL software installed fully updated/patched, I definitely follow the idea, however perhaps this is a version of "cutting edge is bleeding edge" and an update (uncertain when) had caused the issue? It still "feels" like firefox is fighting with something or has an infinite loop for a command that gets capped by some setting at 1/4 of available (in context, think the Java style smx and xmx settings for memory). 5. **Consider Other Browsers:** If the issue persists, you might want to try using an alternative browser temporarily to see if the problem occurs there as well. This could help determine if the issue is specific to Firefox. ---bold text I have tried other browsers and while they are using more memory than I feel they should with the same scenario (~200 mb/~400mb, no tabs running, Brave and edge respectively) throwing hardware brought them down from 1/8th available usage to ~1/32th usage (if my maths are correct there, the percentage is lower after I added 4x the original memory I started out with on this post). 6. **Support Forums:** If none of the above steps yield results, consider posting your issue on Firefox's support forums. There, you might receive insights or solutions from other users or Mozilla experts. ---bold text Perhaps I am wrong, this "support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1420144" (Home/Support Forums/Firefox/Firefox Too much memory) url/location IS support forums, right? 7. **Professional Help:** If the problem persists and none of the solutions seem to work, you might consider seeking assistance from a professional who specializes in computer or software troubleshooting. ---bold text I never like to "play this card" especially when I am posting for help on a forum style board because it is typically unhelpful and makes a person looking into the issue be swayed by what I am...I have been in the "custom" software world for over fifteen years and specifically done the ops side of DevOps (think server/network configuration/dev-uat-pre-prod setup), the reason I posted is my normal troubleshooting did not work and neither did searching for the forums (I did see similar questions, however the OP never responded to the provided question so I was not able to determine if the same issue or different, thus with no advice given, unable to try to work on it). With all of my experience above, I will definitely say that I am NOT a browser expert and cutting that forte down more, I am NOT a Firefox expert (the browser I was forced to troubleshoot was Explorer as the product I was supporting at the time utilized the rendering for Explorer...oh yea, the second softwares I supported was coded in silverlight so pretty much stuck using Explorer, my work arounds for testing if it was a browser was adding an extension to render in IE/Silverlight which did help maybe .001% of the cases I saw). It's frustrating when technology doesn't behave as expected, especially on a new system. I hope that by exploring these additional steps, you'll be able to identify and resolve the issue, ultimately allowing you to use Firefox without any usability concerns. Best of luck, and I hope your browsing experience improves soon!

---bold text In the work I have done for a slice of time, technology could be frustrating daily, if a customer contacts me, they are usually not asking about the weather or what the sportsballs team did last night...I do appreciate the list as it does as questions to get a better understanding of the OP/system, unfortunately as I have responded bolded above (html/inline encoding is NOT a forte of mine either) I am no closer to understanding what is happening...again it seems to me that that "GPU" process is gathering resources for some reason and because the utilization went up approximately the same percentage when I "threw hardware at it" so like it is "blocking off" a block of memory so it has some "ready"...if that is the case, then there is some config file/settings file/registry(?) that tells the OS/browser to allocate this percent of memory for use...while not ideal for my question, it would be an answer and give others with the same issue some understanding.

With that being said, I still do have this issue, ~4gb utilization of memory for a browser is way too high, if there is some setting I can use to drop that down, while again not ideal, I would be open to it.

Hopefully we can get some semblance of an answer so the next person that googles Firefox takes too much memory, there will be something to try (aside from the link I posted above on the steps I tried, restart/reboot/refresh etc).