ps. sorry for the previous double post but i couldn't find a way to edit the first one.

If this isn't to much, then something's wrong.

And this with 5 open tabs in Slimjet and only 1 in Opera. How do you explain this?

And after 10 min, opening the forums page in a 2nd tab, it shows

Definitely something's going wrong, don't you think?

And this with 5 open tabs in Slimjet and only 1 in Opera. How do you explain this?

@blackbird71
Okay, with history deleted and just the settings tab, this is what Opera Task Manager is showing:
BROWSER 38,172KB
...

OK, now I think we're on the same page (no pun intended). There was some confusion regarding which "task manager" was presenting some of the data used in both of our postings. The Windows Task Manager shows RAM in use, whereas Opera's Task Manager shows RAM footprint (the memory set aside for the program whether in use or not at any given moment). Both TMs are useful for analysis, but shouldn't be cross-compared since they refer to somewhat different memory values.

As it stands, your Opera Task Manager data is now in line with what I would expect for a settings-only tab on a 32-bit Opera installation. If you now bring back up your normal tab usage, does the browser now seem free from memory issues? If so, a key factor in improvement may have been turning off the battery saver feature recommended by @burnout426.

when ya get time can ya follow up with blackbird71 last post.. *thankyou..

@blackbird71
Okay. Done everything. Usage is now 244Mb with just the Opera settings tab open. Is that within acceptable limits?

By "Done everything", what do you refer to? The 244 Mb with only the Settings tab open seems high; I'm seeing around 135 Mb under the same condition (and with no Opera extensions). Have you deleted Opera's cache, history, etc.?

FYI: An "AppData" folder is auto-created by Windows for each user account on the computer and is already assigned and in use at the user account level. It contains a variety of subfolders in which various Windows and apps program data is stored that is unique to each user account.

A "page file' is the term for when Windows detects RAM usage is nearing maximum, it will copy a block of that RAM memory to a set-aside portion of the hard-drive and release the block's former RAM space for use by programs; also called "swap file" or "virtual memory", Windows will swap data back and forth between RAM and the page file to reduce RAM overflow - however, because it involves significant hard drive read/write operation, it slows down a system greatly when invoked; the page file size can be set by the user but is otherwise defaulted by Windows to a percentage of the RAM or disk size; if/when the combined RAM memory space and the established page file space is exceeded by usage, the computer will usually give an error message, freeze, or blue-screen (depending on what gets jammed up first).

No extensions. I opened the Opera Task Manager and there's about 700Mb of activity there with just Yahoo Mail open in one tab,...

Hmm. 700 MB seems quite high for having only Yahoo Mail open (unless you have massive amounts of eMails visible). On my system, a Yahoo Mail logged-in tab process itself runs around only 100 MB, with the whole browser only using a little over 200 MB. For some reason, your Opera installation seems to be running very high on memory usage.

You might first try clearing Opera's cache and history elements from within Opera via: Settings > Advanced > Privacy and Security > Clear browsing data > Time range: all time, then check all boxes shown except Passwords and Autofill data > Clear data. That may reduce Opera's memory consumption significantly if there is something massive stored in cache or history.

If that approach fails to reduce memory consumption, you could then try "resetting" Opera's profile by opening Opera to locate and copy down the file/folder path of your profile folder (Opera icon > Help > About Opera > Paths: Profile:, then turn off Opera's sync (if it's on). Next, with Opera turned off, use your Windows file explorer to navigate to that profile folder and rename it to something else (eg: rename Opera Stable to XXXOpera Stable). Then once more open Opera (which will automatically recreate the profile folder and files with its original name but default-condition files and settings); then see if Opera's memory consumption is signficantly reduced. Note: the newly-created profile will not have your customized settings, bookmarks, etc., but it will eliminate any corrupted files within the profile as a test case; you can always regain your original profile by turning Opera off, deleting the newly-created profile folder name and re-renaming the XXX... folder back to its original name. If the original profile has been corrupted, one can try copying specific customization files (bookmarks, preferences, etc) one-at-a-time from the original renamed profile folder to the newly-created one to retrieve as much of your original settings, etc as possible (always keeping Opera turned off when copying profile folders/files).