[plug] Possible problem with memory leaks

[Leon Brooks]

On Tuesday 22 February 2005 09:46, Bret Busby wrote:
> After that, I kept going, and tried to use up the available RAM. With
> 19 Mozilla browser windows open, with an average of about 7-8 tabs in
> each window, open, I got up to about 80% memory usage. I then quit
> Mozilla, and that changed the memory being used (as opposed to being
> cached), from about 500MB, to about 200MB, with an increase in the
> cached memory, of about 300MB.

> I then cleared the cache, and changed the Cache setting, in Mozilla,
> from 50MB to 5MB, as I figured that the amount of the cache, as set,
> would apply to each browser window, and so that I would not get
> anywhere as much memory caching.

I think here you are confusing Mozilla's web cache, which is a mix of 
disk and ram shared between all running Mozilla instances, with the 
OS'es disk block cache, which has no direct relationship with the web 
cache.

The web cache stores objects (web pages, images etc) which Mozilla is 
likely to use again. First each whole file is stored in memory, and 
then it is aged out to a file tree on the disk.

The disk cache keeps often-used or likely-to-be-used-soon blocks of disk 
in memory, and doesn't know or care whether or not they're part of 
Mozilla or the disk part of Mozilla's web cache or something completely 
different.

Cheers; Leon