Some Firefox users feel that the web browser has grown into the wrong direction lately with to much bloat being added to the web browser. The computer memory usage of the web browser is one of the factors that they use to make their point although studies show that memory usage actually decreased in Firefox 3 when compared to Firefox 2. Still, the memory usage of the browser can reach hundreds of Megabytes in no time and it seems that grows with every passing minute but fails to decrease to the initial starting memory usage.
Memory Fox is a memory optimizer for the Firefox 3 web browser. It is only offered for the Windows operating system and can be used to constantly flush Firefox’s memory usage.
Memory Fox, focuses on two ( 2 ) types of memory usage and with flushing for memory recovery. When resource requirements ( Stack and Heap ) have been reached, according to the user’s preset option settings, the memory will be flushed and recovered from Fragmented Orphaned Ram memories.
Memory Fox needs to be activated after installation which can be done in the add-on’s options or from the status bar icon. Activating of the memory optimizer results in constant drops in the memory usage of the web browser which can be observed in the Windows task manager.
The extension manages to keep the memory usage of Firefox 3 below the 100 Megabyte mark most of the time. This does not result in measurable speed improvements but it might be helpful if the computer system is not equipped with lots of RAM.
Memory Fox can be downloaded from the add-on’s Mozilla Firefox profile page.
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This is totally wrong.
Read this article from Mark Russinovich: The memory optimization haox
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html
:)
Claude, you’re citing an article from 2004 that discusses potential spyware/adware sold by popup ads. I think this is completely different – even though it only “manages” memory by dumping it periodically. For the way I abuse multiple tabs in Firefox, and with my old 512MB RAM laptop locking up every other day or so because it runs out of memory, that’s a very useful feature.
Hoi Martin, Did you notice than when your activate this program this program also activates a outher program (from the same developer) named AFOM 2.0? AFOM recovers Memory Leakage within a running instance of the Firefox browser application. The disadvantage is that this gives a outher task (afom.exe) in main task management. But no worry this because the memory saving capacity from this program (Memory Fox) is absolutely fabulous. And a outher good thing is that when your close your firefox brouwser the afom.exe also disappears, in main (and of course yours) task management row.
Oh no, my precious RAM. Seriously, the last time memory usage by a browser was a problem for me, I was using Windows 95.
Hi,
Using CleanMem, which does the trick for Firefox & other apps, so won’t be trying this out – at least for now.
@Martin,
Funny how the very next article is about the app store Mozilla considers for add-ons (lol).
Cheers,
26Dolphins
Certainly nice, but would even nicer on a system-wide basis. Try ‘CleanMem’ which handles the whole system, and it really is not to be compared to traditional memory enhancers. => http://www.pcwintech.com/cleanmem
This a great tool. During the course of the day my RAM monitor would keep climbing until it reached 90%. I would normally need to close FF to force the memory dump, but with this tool, I can leave FF open all day. Yes it works, and works well. My normal routine makes the FF memory build to around 120,000k, and then it stays there, even if I close all but one tab. Now with 12 tabs open all day, it gets no higher than 25,000k, since it dumps the memory every 3 min, and starts over. GREAT tool.
I ran this for about 10 hours today. But had to shut it down as it has some sort of leak which results in the msg “TOO MANY WIN32 HANDLES” from my monitoring software. The program was up to 33,000+ Handles when I shut it down. That is FAR too many!
I’ve sent a note to the developer with some screen shots.
Looks like the developer has subscibed to your point of view ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/53880 )
“Memory Fox Version 1.03 :
( 1 ). Closed Handles Left Orphaned. ( Special Thanks To Joe For Pointing This Issue Out ! )”
Works nicely here :)
I can’t seem to find a download site for it. What’s the deal?
Tried it (1.08) and it seem working pretty well.
You can have lots of RAM and still have problems with FF high memory usage… a half day’s browsing can make FF get as high as 500MB, on a 1 GB XP system FF starts hitting the pagefile and starts using several hundred MB in pagefile space… it’s insane. I will be trying memoryfox for sure.
I’d stay away from MemoryFox for now.
I caught a memory leak which the author fixed after my report. But I’ve also caught a problem with a process called AFOM which runs along w/MF which I ‘ve been meaning to report but haven’t got around to it yet. This app will quickly overwrite your APPLICATION section of the Windows Event log with entries like this:
Event Type: Information
Event Source: AFOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 12/27/2009
Time: 5:08:05 PM
User: N/A
Computer: DESK01
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( AFOM ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Requirement: [ PeriodicRAM ].
@Jojo: That’s more of an annoyance bug than anything. I’d rather have lots of application log entries than deal with my browser grinding to a halt.
@David T. said “@Jojo: That’s more of an annoyance bug than anything. I’d rather have lots of application log entries than deal with my browser grinding to a halt.”
——–
Perhaps. You won’t have lots of DIFFERENT application log entries. You’ll have the same two entries from AFOM generated every two minutes, over and over and over….
So if you ever need to examine event log records to see why an application might have a problem, well, you’ll be SOL because there won’t be anything there!
I’ve personally never experienced FF “grinding to a halt” despite running a lot of extensions and open tabs.
I am running on WinXP SP3 with 2GB RAM. My system has 81 processes running now. On FF (V3.5.7), I have 63 extensions and 18 plug-in’s installed. 45 tabs are open right now. FF is using about 500MB real RAM right now. I am NOT running MemoryFox.
i too get these enties in the application event log for the same AFOM error as above. annoying. i am seeing them every minute or so. i have set the event log to a fixed max size with auto overwriting, but as noted, this makes it hard to see any other progs errors as the afom errors eat out the heart of the log.
using win7 x64 & firefox 3.6rc2.
I have had a dialog with the author about these event log records.
He says that the 2.0 release will allow for them to be disabled.
I have removed Memoryfox until that release is available.
oh, i want really this add-on
but i can’t found this
UR link page(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/53880)
print this message
Add-on not found!
How can i download this add-on?
I emailed the author of ‘Memory Fox’ to let him know his extension was no longer available on Mozilla Extensions’ pages. He answered me that he was about to upload a new version 1.4. I presume the old version has been removed for a good reason, which I ignore.
So, let us wait for version 1.4, which should be available soon.
thanks for answer :D
I did not speak English then why did not download.
well.. I wait for comming to nice add-on !
guger > I notified to the author of ‘Memory Fox’ that his extension was at this time unavailable on Mozilla Extensions’ pages. He answered me that he was preparing next version 1.4 and about to upload it. I assume last version 1.3 has been removed for a good reason that I ignore.
So, let us wait for ‘Memory Fox’ 1.4 which should appear soon …
thank U for answer :D
i can’t speak english very well.
anyway..
i’m so sad that because does not remain the last version :(
After using Firefox ever since it was Phoenix, I have switched to Chrome, now that v4 offers extension support. It is really quick and really nice. The web browser simply needs to be reinvented every few years I guess.
I think a sort of fatality will make me slip to at least to trying Chrome… :)
Memoryfox 1.3 is available here in google’s CACHE
The Link
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:zfS_x2moN80J:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/53880%3Fadvancedsearch%3D1+%22Memory+Fox+1.3+%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Memory Fox’s purported Memory leak and freeing capabilities are a lie. Memory Fox uses a standard windows function to flush the process’s memory to the page file RESULTING IN WORSE PERFORMANCE.
Any windows developer with an ounce of free thought will realise in an instant that the claims maid by the extension author are bogus and the experiences of its users are placebo. Firefox’s stability and memory use will differ from session to session, and even between reloadings of the same session, and especially differ between Windows sessions.
The only extension which actually effects real memory usage is the ramback extension which flushes the System memory allocated caches.
Anyone seeking to verify this, can enable the Commit column in task manager or use about:memory.
This review will be going viral.
SQUALL you cut and pasted your spam at the Mozilla Forum too, the exact same message !
‘SQUALL’ has vested interests in the RAMBACK addon, so therefore he spews his Memory Fox lies all over the internet.
Surprised I didn’t find MemoryFox on the official Mozilla Addons page so decided to comment here.
MemoryFox is invaluable particularly in Firefox 4 for me… without the constant flushing, memory usage balloons to ~500mb and stays there with about 15 extensions and 5 tabs open. With Memory Fox enabled, mem usage hovers between 29mb (when FF4 is out of focus and idle) to 132mb (one active tab, 5 other tabs still “opened”) without appreciable performance degradation. Only caveat was that I had to remember to uncheck “Protect my system blah” when a prompt came up asking me what user to run the Memory Fox addon as in Windows XP after enabling it.
And yes I agree with Malau – I tested RAMBack on FF4 (after having to force it to work via editing install.rdf as it wasn’t even compatible with FF4 by default) and clicked on the “Clear Cache” button that it adds to the TOols menu – it didn’t reduce memory usage at all.
IDIOTS SIGHTED!
hey Malu, thats to be expected, RAMBACK only affects REALISTIC memory reduction,
MemoryFox just purges all data from memory and causes increased pagefaults (disk thrashing)