[PLUG] Firefox Heap Memory Constipation

Charlie Schluting charlie at schluting.com
Mon Jun 25 18:03:02 UTC 2007


On 6/25/07 10:56 AM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
>  The so-called rationale is that if you run out of
> real memory, some of the heap will just get swapped out.  "All your
> RAM are belong to us", I suppose.  In the real world, this just
> slows down everything else, slows down program exit, reduces
> security, and increases crash probability.

Reduces security? Eh? Increases crash probability, eh?

Neither should be true. The former would require an OS bug, and the
latter requires either bugs or broken hardware.

But yes, people with limited memory will get swapped out more, including
possibly active tabs. Well tabs that haven't been accessed recently, anyway.

They could be smarter about it, but it really isn't a security/stability
issue. And if you have plenty of RAM it isn't an issue. Perhaps all the
FF developers are too well-funded? :)

 -Charlie



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