I am using Chrome as my browser and as the browser evolves, I have noticed more problems with Swap File usage not being released. This problem also applies to Thunderbird (a Firefox-standalone email program) that I use for some email. I wonder if this is a WindowsXP SP3 issue, or a program/browser-specific issue? Thanks 1 person needs an answerI do too

Can you clarify what you mean by "swap file usage not being released"? Are you monitoring some value that is meant to measure memory consumption of a process? If so, what application are you using to monitor the memory, and what values are you looking at? Also, for chrome, what process are you looking at? Assuming it's chrome.exe, keep in mind that chrome uses a process isolation model for its tabs, and multiple chrome.exe processes tend to live and die in a browsing session. There is one "main" or "controller" process, the first one, that would seem to make the most sense to monitor. At any rate, generally, if, the longer an application runs the more resources it consumes, it may be indicative of a memory leak in the application. It could also be expected behavior of the app - the longer an app lives or the more one does with an app, the more things an app may be keeping track of. The more things an app keeps track of, the more memory it may need to use. Hopefully an app would have some strategy for releasing memory associated with tracking things long term, to eliminate situations where an app that is run for an extended period of time ultimately runs out of resources (or worse, affects the entire system in that fashion). But that would be a characteristic of the application, rather than the OS. Are you experiencing performance issues or the like as a result of what you notice, or are you just making an observation?