Memory problems (/questions/967643)

Question

Some basics
Firefox 30
Windows XP SP3
Technical level
I am a software developer but have no experience building or debugging firefox or any of the other mozilla products. I am willing to provide debug information as needed. I also have a background in QA and testing so I am not afraid to roll up my sleeves and help iron out some of these issues if given some guidance on how to proceed.
Troubleshooting Information:
I have the Troubleshooter installed but don't see the data.
I also can't see the educated guesses about the current browser and operating system when I click the "See the data" and "Show details" links. I generally browse always in private mode. I have attached a list of addons at the bottom just in case.
Firefox seems to leak both memory and virtual memory during routine web surfing. By Routine, I am doing the following:
1. Opening Gmail and reading all my mail. After I am done, I close the tab. I probably go through 100-200 emails at a time.
2. Go to Google News and read some stories. I will share some of them using the Buffer This Page addon. I will close the tab when I am done.
3. Go to Slashdot and read all the days stories. I will close the tab when I am done.
4. Maybe go to facebook or twitter and catch up on some updates. I will close the tab when I am done.
After that, depending on how long I leave firefox open with no activity, it will just continue to use the same amount of physical and virtual memory as it was using at peak. It is almost like it keeps requesting resources and never frees them until I completely close firefox and sometimes kill the firefox.exe process in Windows Task Manager.
As a point of reference, after doing the above tasks and trying to research this issue by checking about:addons-memory (which currently shows about 100 MB of known memory usage) as well as researching this support site, I am up to almost 600 MB. Some days, it will exhaust all my systems physical and virtual memory until it starts paging. As a result, I keep firefox closed as soon as I am done using it. I use other apps to check email and only use firefox for very short periods of time.
The following are the current addons I see installed and enabled:
about:addons-memory 8
ActiveInbox for Gmail and Google Apps 5.0.12
Adblock Plus 2.6.3
Bitdefender QuickScan 0.9.9.119
Buffer for Firefox 2.6.0
DoNotTrackMe: Online Privacy Protection 3.2.1113
DownThemAll! 2.0.17
DownThemAll! AntiContainer 1.3
HTTPS-Everywhere 3.5.3
IE Tab 2(FF 3.6+) 5.12.12.1
Launchy 4.4.0
Linky 3.0.0
Neo Diggler 1.0.6
NoScript 2.6.8.33
Rapportive 1.4.0.1
Troubleshooter 1.1a
YouTube Video and Audio Downloader 0.3.6.2
The folloiwng are disabled:
Privacy Badger Firefox 0.1.4
ThinkVantage Password Manager 2.0

Answer 1

I admire you for being willing to get your hands dirty, I will pull out the profiler and memory bug instructions:
*this will tell you more about the about:memory page: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/Reference/Interface/nsIMemoryReporter]
*Memory leak tools [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance:Leak_Tools](not sure how old that is)
*[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/Memory_Reporting]
Also the Telementary data sent on the browsers can help improve the performance. There are also automated tests done to check performance of different platforms.
If you are interested in providing a website example this could help create a bug. With the websites you tested/mentioned in your description, there are have these tools to test the performance of the profile as well: This will test the javascript engine on desktop: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Reporting_a_Performance_Problem]
There is also DTrace that can help optimize development on javascript pages [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Optimizing_JavaScript_with_DTrace#Tips]
I understand that add on memory is assumed to only measure: " about 100 MB of known memory usage) as well as researching this support site, I am up to almost 600 MB" - Another troubleshooting step for running Firefox without addons is Safe Mode, does the memory stay high without them as well?
The troubleshooting info will be in the link in the right column of this question's page. "More System Details" is the title.
What is the webGlRenderer message? "TrynewDriver"
Also I invite you to get involved in QA if you have some free time. The contacts page for Firefox Desktop is: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/Desktop_Firefox/GetInvolved Desktop_Firefox Get involved] :-)