hi, yes this is normal and will contribute to the speed, stability and security of the browser: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/08/02/whats-next-for-multi-process-firefox/

I have the same issue as the original poster. Each firefox.exe process was eating up so much memory that I couldn't keep open even half of the tabs that I was used to with previous releases.

I just recently applied the workaround mentioned here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1186054

It reduced firefox.exe to a single process, but that only slightly mitigates my original problem...my physical memory was at around 89-90% with Firefox Quantum open before, and now it's hovering in the vicinity of 75% with occasional bouts of jumping up into the upper 80s and also taxing CPU usage high enough for random screen-freezes.

I don't suppose there are any other suggestions out there for workarounds? Thanks very much in advance.

I may have answered my own issue (or not, as I'm barely one step above a layman when it comes to debugging stuff), so I wanted to post an update.

After doing a bit more digging around, I found another thread (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1187589) and a link to the writeup on Firefox performance settings (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings). I went back into about:config and set browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 to true and restarted the browser, then went into Options ~> General and played around with the Content process limit values. I currently have it set at 2, and my speed/lag issues appear to be gone. I still have 5 different firefox.exe processes in my task manager, but instead of having five of them pulling 500+ Mb each, the biggest one is only at ~300 Mb, and my Physical Memory is capping around 65%.

...I don't want to jinx anything...but did I stumble upon something good?

I've changed the values in the about:config area and I've gone to options>general but I find nothing that says 'content process'. Help?

This is so ridiculous.. I'm having to reboot my laptop several times a day.

lseeber said

I've changed the values in the about:config area and I've gone to options>general but I find nothing that says 'content process'. Help?

Ah, for that, you need to un-select "use recommended performance settings" to reveal the option to change content process limit. I attached a screenshot of what that section looks like on my options>general.

Hope this helps!