Skype 5.3.0.116 – a memory hog with memory leaks

Just take a look at the following screenshot I just took, showing two Skype 5.3.0.116 instances running on a current Windows 7 box with 4 GB of RAM:

That’s 330 MB of private memory for each instance at this very moment! Note that these numbers are steadily growing (at about 2 KB/s) for both processes – for no apparent reason. A hint, that there’s likely a memory leak somewhere in Skype.

Let’s hope Microsoft will rewrite Skype from scratch (The current code-base probably isn’t worth refactoring). I’m confident they don’t lack the human and financial resources to do it. It can only get better.

6 Replies to “Skype 5.3.0.116 – a memory hog with memory leaks”

  1. OMG wtf…using over the 100MB of RAM just to idle for me.

    The base of skype is leaking a most likly using a massive amount of resouces for nothing. The really can work on that. Seem since v3 they really did not look at resource saving.

  2. Ah, so that’s why! I’ve got Skype running all day for work, and as the day passes my pc became slower. This is pretty rediculous, why don’t they just fix it … ?!

  3. I started to get program leaks which turned out to be Skype. I found that it was using the most memory out of all my apps and just grew in memory usage the longer I left it running. I have theorized that it’s integration with Facebook is trying to Facebook connect in vain. I have tried to install version 3 and Microsoft won’t allow it to run on my system. So now I have no option but to have it disabled on start up to keep it from gobbling up memory. I have rented one of their phone numbers and have recently cancelled it and am looking for an alternative which brought me here. Especially an alternative app to Skype that doesn’t insist in forcing a Facebook plugin on me with the installation.

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