Real-World Firefox 3 Memory Usage Leads the Field

I developed a Windows Forms application in .NET called Memory Watcher that "watches" the system memory numbers. It uses a timer to poll the processes every 3 seconds. It then records every number and also prints them out in a grid on the screen. This allows us to keep track of each program's memory usage over time and with real-world usage.

These results are from opening Memory Watcher and then using the browser between 9,000 and 11,000 seconds (close to 3 hours). Each browser is tested in a separate session, and there are brief periods of inactivity throughout the time period. The vertical axis is the memory used in MB, and the horizontal axis contains the memory "checkpoints" my program took (one every 3 seconds).