I installed version 4.2.0.17.089 build 17.089.1709 to test the memory consumption issue. I found that this version still suffers from the the memory consumption issue.
After running for 2 days normally with up to 10 sheets opened to multiple database instances the OS reports over 1.1GB used by the process. I then closed all sheets and disconnected all connections and found the memory reported as used by the OS increased to 1.2GB.
I also ran the Java VisualVM tool to perform garbage collection on the SQL Developer VM but that did not result in the OS reclaiming any memory from the Java VM.
As before, the SQL Developer tool becomes slow and freezes after multiple days of normal use in addition to consuming the large amount of memory.
Are there any new recommendations for working around this issue?