Mozilla & Firebird: RAM usage

[Floog]

I am running Slackware 9.1 with kernel 2.4.22 on two different machines: one with a 1 ghz P3 and 256 megs. of RAM and another with an 800 mhz AMD Athlon with 512 megs. of RAM.

I tend to use Mozilla and Firebird as my preferred browsers. Lately, I've been monitoring what processes are running on these machines at any given time by way of 'top.'

I notice that even when I have only one browser window open, top will show 4 - 6 instances/processes of the browser. It's kind of surprising how much RAM gets hogged up whether it be the full version of mozilla or the more stream-lined firebird.

Here's a sample from top from the Pentium 3, 1Ghz machine with 256 megs. of RAM:

430 user 11 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:21.18 MozillaFirebird
432 user 9 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:00.01 MozillaFirebird
433 user 9 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:00.26 MozillaFirebird
434 user 9 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:00.00 MozillaFirebird
435 user 9 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:00.01 MozillaFirebird
436 user 9 0 37556 36m 15m S 0.0 14.7 0:00.20 MozillaFirebird

Obviously the 14.7% memory usage that is indicated can't mean that each of the six processes is using 14.7% of the available memory. If you add that up it comes to roughly 88%. The stats. from top indicate that about 152 megs. of RAM is in use and the other 104 megs. of RAM is free or in buffers.

Does anyone else get similar results? And why are there so many running processes for one instance of one app., used by only one logged on user?

Thanks for your time and help.

Floog

[Shep]

I usually get a few Mozilla-bins running when I run top, but its not hogging much. Every once in a while I have to kill it because it is causing 100% CPU usage. If you are running GKrellm, you can keep an eye on things.