# How often do you shut down/restart your browser? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2013, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320 "2013-09-08T10:31:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/21 "2013-09-08T19:04:08Z")
All the time; browsers use a huge amount of memory, and generally if I go to do something else- clean up photographs, play a game, etc… there are better uses for that memory than being tied up in a browser I’m not using. I wouldn’t be surprised if at work, I open and close browsers 15-20 times a day for the same reason (different tasks to perform, but the idea would be to free up memory). I also don’t power my computer down ever. I may reboot it occasionally if it starts to have issues, but I don’t cut the power off if I can help it. The reason is that generally speaking, if you leave it on, the components are in a thermal and electrical steady state, more or less, which lengthens the life of the components (with the possible exception of the hard drive). Powering it up and down both is pretty stressful thermally and electrically on components and connectors, and can cause all sorts of issues. (this is straight from a digital design electrical engineer I used to work with, coupled with the knowledge that anything more powerful than a desktop never goes off by choice in any data center I’ve ever heard of) ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/22 "2013-09-08T20:26:07Z")
I generally close the browser but leave the machine on when I walk away from the computer for more than half an hour, so at least a few times a day. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/23 "2013-09-08T23:45:52Z")
Like most of the above. I close all my applications when I’m not actually using them, but I only reboot my machine (Windows 7) every two weeks or so. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/24 "2013-09-09T00:56:49Z")
I leave my PC on but close my browser once I am done browsing. I never leave it open unless it is downloading something or I am tracking something (like my pizza deliver 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/25 "2013-09-09T01:03:54Z")
Pretty much the same answer. Close apps when I’m not using them. At work, for some reason I experience severe memory leaks. Happened on XP before and on Win7 now. Is especially obnoxious when I spent time on [fark.com](http://fark.com). I used to close out my browser completely several times a day to clear it, then discovered that about one time in five, that huge memory bubble process continues to run. So I’ve just started going to task manager several times a day to kill it and only closing the browser a once or twice a day just because. I never have that issue on my home PC, so it has to be something installed on that PC, which is quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/26 "2013-09-09T03:40:17Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > You were definitely not using the right form of hibernation and possibly not the right form of sleeping. > > On all systems I’ve used recently, hibernation is complete power off. The state of the machine is stored on the hard drive. > > On newish laptops, sleep mode (which could be triggered by just closing the cover) should also save things on the hard drive, but it’s a hybrid or solid state drive so shutting down and waking up is nearly instantaneous. > > RTFM. When I say “used to be” I’m not talking anything remotely recent the way you are. I understand that recent models can handle sleep/hibernation just fine. So you can eat your RTFM. I should keep my computer on for longevity reasons, but I plain don’t like the lights and heat as I previously mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/27 "2013-09-09T04:03:34Z")
Once a month whether I need it or not. No memory-hogging or CPU-hogging issues, but sooner or later some bad javascript gives it a bit of a hangover. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/28 "2013-09-09T06:37:45Z")
I leave my PC on all the time, as there are always things it’s doing overnight, but I close the main apps when I go to bed. Also there will occasionally be call for restarting the browser midday, for some arbitrary and annoying reason. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/29 "2013-09-09T12:16:54Z")
I have Firefox configured to clear cache and cookies on shutdown. Every time I finish with a ‘sensitive’ site such as online banking or Amazon I close and reopen the browser to clear it up. I shut down all apps and hibernate if I’m going to be away for any length of time. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/30 "2013-09-09T15:32:12Z")
I, too, shut down my computer every night, but FF is notorious for hogging up all of your memory. I went to Chrome not too long ago because of this. It slowed my PC to a crawl. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/31 "2013-09-11T15:22:22Z")
About once a day. Mostly to force Firefox to unload tabs whose memory has been cached out to disk. Doing that and then closing unnecessary ones when they are unloaded is much faster than trying to close them manually. I don’t know why Firefox is so much slower than any other application in getting memory back that is cached out to disk. My guess would be the overly aggressive garbage collection. (Heck, it even does GC when you exit the application, for goodness sake. Who cares about memory that’s going to be unloaded?) The garbage collection causes other problems, even if I don’t have any tabs I want to unload. Within a week or so, the garbage collection times will increase. Combined with how horrible Flash is, I would guess that this is the OP’s problem. The only solution is more memory. I deal with it because the alternative is worse. Chrome is just too big a step down in features and uses more memory besides. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/32 "2013-09-11T17:12:22Z")
Pale Moon version of FF seems better about this IMO. Get SSD’s and buckets of RAM ( 32 Gigs or more) & don’t worry about it… I still shut down 1-3 times a day. Always have, never lost a computer ever. I only started in 96 though so I can’t say about old systems. I put my system on a Kil-o-what meter and that plus the heat produced made it obvious I would benefit from the shut downs. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/33 "2013-09-11T17:18:36Z")
Every 20 minutes or so? I see no reason to leave **anything** open if I am not actively using it. Work computer shuts down completely every night, and the home computer goes into sleep mode. CCCleaner gets run every few days. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/34 "2013-09-12T22:50:26Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Every 20 minutes or so? > > I see no reason to leave **anything** open if I am not actively using it. Work computer shuts down completely every night, and the home computer goes into sleep mode. CCCleaner gets run every few days. You must have a lot of patience or a really fast computer. Web browsers take time to load, even on the fastest computers I’ve seen. The only way I’ve been able to make them load quickly is if I use them on a RAM disk, but then, I’m just leaving them in memory the same way I would if they were running, so I don’t see the point. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320/35 "2013-09-13T05:01:27Z")
I just tried 3 different browsers I have here and they all loaded in less than 2 seconds. I don’t leave tabs open. Wife leaves tabs open on Chrome, 20 or so & it loads and is ready to go in less than 15 seconds, sometimes less that 5 depending on the pages she was on when she closed out. My computer boots in about 15 seconds, hers is a little faster as she does not have as many apps & programs running all the time. People don’t have that much time in the morning to get working… Yea, … right. I see that frfom all the workers in cubi hell. Do some people actually not boot their puters before they pee in the morning. If they don’t they are not even close to being a geek or power user… Bawahahaha _The numbers above are true, the rest has a lot of sarcasm attached for those who are just skimming._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-shut-down-restart-your-browser/668320.md?page=1)