Hi! I've got two computers on 16.04 with 3 and 4 GB RAM. I do not know if it is a known bug that the longer the web browser is open (never mind whether Firefox or Chrome) the more memory it needs. Finally the memory is full and I have to restart the browser cause whole system start to hang and freeze.
As You can see in the photo I see what happens with memory all the time on the upper panel in a system monitor icon. It doesn't matter how many tabs I open. Important is the time: the longer I use a browser the less memory stays free. Can I try to do anything about it?
I have not experienced this problem quite a severely as you have. But, I do concur. I have noticed the phenomena of growing Ram usage over the course of a session as well. But, since I have a very large amount of RAM, it has not posed me personally any problems.
The internet has become bloated these days, hadn’t it?
For both browsers there are a few things I can recommend;
Use less addons, if you rely on a bunch of third-party functionality; Use only what you need.
Install a script blocker and an ad blocker. NoScript and Adblock Plus for Firefox comes to mind for me.
While NoScript isn’t a Chrome addon, similar programs also exist. Ghostery might be a good alternative for Chrome.
For all of the above, reason being to load less stuff, which will cause less RAM to be used but may cause problems while browsing the web.
Limit how many tabs are open.
Try to use mobile versions of websites, if you can; those are often optimized for “Lesser” processors.
That can be achieved in Firefox with User Agent Switcher and an XML file from the author’s website to load a bunch of profiles, if nothing for mobile versions of browsers exist in the default set.
There is most likely a version for Chrome, as well. never bothered to look but if you’re dedicated you’ll probably find something.
Following the above won’t guarantee less memory being used, but those are solid first steps to see if the internet as it stands with limited control over what you can load is too heavy for your machine to handle.
I only want to metion that I use a clean version of Chrome. Yes, I do have a few add ons for Firefox but they should be a problem right from the start, I mean when I only start Firefox. The problem comes here with time, not from the start.
A 3/4GB mashine should be able to handle Internet browsing. As You see in the photo, I had only one tab open and a pop-up window. When I closed it and changed the website, problem persisted. When I closed Firefox, RAM memory stayed full for something about 20-60 seconds:
