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Technical Help & Discussion => Windows PCs & Software: Help, News & Discussion => Topic started by: GillE on November 30, 2010, 15:13

Title: Memory Leaks
Post by: GillE on November 30, 2010, 15:13

I've read recently that some internet browsers have memory leaks, especially as more and more tabs are opened.  What does this mean?

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: sam on November 30, 2010, 15:29

In essence, they don't clear the usage of RAM, so they just keep growing and growing. Its a rather common thing in software, once you have allocated memory space and then finished with it you should unallocate it. Take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak - has an example of it in open text.

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: Clive on November 30, 2010, 16:09

Oh that's very interesting!  It explains a lot doesn't it? 

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: Rik on November 30, 2010, 16:46

It does.

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: GillE on November 30, 2010, 19:21

Thanks for your help, Sam - I've heard that FF is particularly prone to memory leaks whereas Chrome is less so.

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: Simon on November 30, 2010, 21:00

Earlier versions of FF were notorious for memory leaks, but I think they've improved it a bit now.

Title: Re: Memory Leaks
Post by: sam on December 01, 2010, 01:04

and Chrome is just simply well developed, and of course its multithreaded (firefox will be, isn't yet). - i.e. each tab is a new task on your machine