Is it costly to leave the Console and Script features enabled in Firebug?

Question

For some time now, I've run Firebug constantly enabled to do quick DOM inspections, leaving the Console and Script panels disabled.

I'm just starting to use these two features so I don't have to keep using alerts for testing and debugging. I enable them while I use them and turn them back off when I'm done.

I'd like to know if these particular features can slow things down such that they shouldn't be left on round-the-clock. Like do they slow down page loads, use inordinate chunks of memory or something?

I don't see anything about it in the Firebug wiki.

Answer 1

Yes - FireBug is storing information which is meant to be static (i.e. only one instance is intended to be stored, however, FireBug stores all instances).

Gmail in particular will slow considerably and may even crash your FireFox instance.