title: How to Fix the Memory Leak in IE WebBrowser Control?
body: <p>I am trying to embed a WebBrowser Control in a C# Winform Application. This sounds easy enough. However I discovered that the WebBrowser control eats up a lot of memory every time I call the Navigate method. The memory is never released. The memory usage grows and grows…</p>
  
  <p>Many people on the net having the exact same problem but I haven’t found a satisfying answer yet. This is the best discussions about this issue I found so far:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ieextensiondevelopment/thread/88c21427-e765-46e8-833d-6021ef79e0c8" rel="noreferrer">Memory Leak in IE WebBrowser Control</a></p>
  
  <p>One person suggested an upgrade to IE8 to fix the problem.</p>
  
  <p>However I need a solution that works whether the user has the latest IE version installed or not. I do not have control over the users environment.</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody know how to release the memory taken by the WebBrowser control? Are there workarounds? Are there alternatives to the WebBrowser control?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update:</strong>
  I just did a few more tests. At work I am running Windows XP and IE6. The memory is not growing there. The memory increases when calling the navigate method but is being released after a while. At home I am running Vista and upgraded to IE8. Here I also do not see the problem anymore. It looks like the issue is specific to IE7. So the question should be rephrased to "How to Fix the Memory Leak in IE WebBrowser Control when IE7 is installed". Can anybody confirm that this problem is specific to IE7?</p>