THIS IS NOT A MEMORY LEAK.
Or at least I don't think so. It's perfectly normal for Firefox to use this much memory.
The more memory you have, the more firefox wants to use. It adjusts it's memory usage dynamicly based on how much ram you have aviable.
In fact YOU WANT IT TO USE IT. It makes it
faster.
Say you have 1256 megs of RAM. Say your only using 300 of it.
Now you open up firefox, you visit Anandtech.com, then you visit a dozen other sites.
Then when you go back to anandtech.com you
still have all the pics and stuff in your memory cache. That way you don't have to re-read the stuff off of your harddrive, and so since it's in RAM it's quicker.
Ask yourself, why is a disk cache good for you? So you don't have to redownload the same pictures over and over again. So then a memory cache is good for the same reason.
Now what if it's a memory leak?? They way you'd know is if your using up most of your ram, and you open up firefox. So far everything is cool and their is enough room for it. No problem. But then after a couple hours of just using firefox your computer begins using the harddrive heavily because the RAM is used up and your starting to go into page file.
Then THAT's a memory leak.
But right now the screenshots you guys have shown are of Firefox using only a very small percentage of your memory. The second guy had only 400 or so megs out of 1200+ used!
That's 600 megs that your wasting! Why not use it for something usefull?
Look, if you need proof, then check out how much memory cache firefox is using, type into your URL bar
about:cache, and it will show you how much memory cache and disk cache your using.
If you don't like it using so much memory, you can turn off the automaticly-adjusted memory cache feature.
Like this
It will show you how to make your own user.js config file somewere else on that website. It shouldn't be hard to do, and that way you can unlock and manipulate the browser in ways that make extensions seem small fry. If your so inclined.
Now
it could be a memory leak. I am not saying that it isn't, but I am saying that it isn't likely. IF your running out of memory and Firefox keeps using more and more and more over a long period of time, causing your system to go into the page file, then it could definatly be a memory leak.
But it's good policy to take advantage of the RAM you'd bought for yourself. After all, why did you buy it? As long as Firefox is working correctly it will use more memory on systems that have plenty to spare.
Don't forget the
about:cache, and remember you can probably reduce the amount considurably if you don't like it.