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I have installed a package of Firefox extensions that installed a few extensions to my Firefox.
Recently I have noticed, that the resource consumption of the Firefox process rose to unacceptable levels for my rather weak Laptop.

How can I identify the add-ons responsible for this? I do not want to uninstall all the add-ons since I think some of them really make my life easier. Is there a way to profile my Firefox plugins, preferably over a period of time?

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2 Answers 2

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Disable each extension, then enable one. Do a few hour's worth of browsing, then open a new tab and go to about:memory to see detailed information about the memory consumption. If it is too high then you will know that that extension is a resource hog. Also, check about:compartments for "ghost windows" and compartments that are still listed even though they should not be - this is an indication of a memory leak that you should report to Mozilla or the author of the extension.

Note that this would be more accurate/precise if you used a special script that opened 100 tabs at a time, then closed them and then checked the memory. Also, it is a really good idea to disable all extensions first to get an idea of what the normal memory usage should be/is.

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  • loaded 100 pages* merely opening the tabs uses a negligible amount of memory compared to loading (moderately intensive) pages.
    – Bob
    Oct 11, 2012 at 21:37
  • When I said "100 tabs" I meant "100 sites". At the time, I was actually thinking of a script that automatically opened the top 100 most popular websites, but I can't currently find it.
    – Wk_of_Angmar
    Oct 12, 2012 at 17:09
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Known problems list.
However, sometimes the only way is to uninstall them one at a time to see what happens.

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