The resource usage of browsers is an important aspect in modern-day computing, because the browser is taking on an ever more important role in day-to-day computing tasks. Hence, it may come as no surprise that many complaints regarding browsers are not about rendering speed or rendering quality, but about resource usage. Dot Net Perls ran an interesting benchmark on Windows Vista SP1, comparing 5 browsers to each other.
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Member since:
2005-12-07
Member since:2005-07-14
I would say both... a flat line at 1Gb (made up number) would be a bad sign too. But most common complain is when browser over time eat all the memory.
My browser can be running for days... so no leaked of memory is definitively what I am looking for. Mozilla did a great work on that new version for that matter.
Member since:
2006-01-23
Would probably use less memory on Windows if they just used native widgets and font rendering, not to mention it would look better.
I like the font rendering on my mac more than my pc, but I think it looks absolutely terrible on Windows because it looks so different than everything else.
Member since:
2007-01-23
Member since:
2006-11-17
Of course, lynx would beat them all, easy. Yes, lynx exists on Windows, although it is not that popular (I wonder why). Only links could beat lynx on memory usage.
Anyway, I use Firefox 3.0 not only for its low memory usage, but because it has the best functionalities for me and it looks better to me.
Edited 2008-06-25 17:14 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-11-17
Member since:
2005-11-10
What I don't understand is how a browser not using a native UI (thus having all the extra load of an XML/Javascript UI) can use less memory than an entirely Cocoa native-API browser like Safari...
I mean really, how? That one boggles my mind.
edit: on Mac, I should add. Safari/Win doesn't count, it's in the same boat.
Edited 2008-06-25 17:33 UTC
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:
2005-07-06
Opera seems like a happy medium. With 3GB of memory, I would hope my browser would be willing to utilize ~5-10% of it during a 3-hour browse session. The higher memory usage can translate to improve performance when its still below a certain threshold.
FF3 using 100-120mb makes me wonder what it sacrifices to obtain that. Does it aggressively return stuff to memory resulting in lost performance while that memory has to be relocated or calculations/routines have to be re-performed?
Member since:2008-06-25
Member since:2007-09-18
Member since:2005-10-13
I didn't really care too much about the RAM issue either, but it's a no-brainer that using less RAM in these cases is better for 99.99999% of people.
From what I gather, FF3 just releases a bunch of caches after certain timeout periods are reached - so that background tabs stop caching stuff you aren't likely to use for hours anyway. CPU's are so insanely powerful these days that it might only take 5ms to recreate the caches when needed, and that's unnoticeable. Meanwhile, if that data was kept in memory and got swapped out to the hard drive it might make the whole system slow.
So yes, FF3 exchanges memory for increased CPU usage. But it isn't a problem because the CPU usage is still virtually nothing unless you're running on an i386, and I imagine your performance in those situations isn't going to be great anyway due to other bottlenecks besides the released caches.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2008-06-03
Member since:
2007-02-27
Member since:
2006-01-02
It's actually pretty hard to make a comparison of memory usage. He said he measured private pages, but did he actually measure Working Set, Private Working Set, VM Size, or what? There's a lot of ways to slice memory and it takes some relatively deep knowledge of how to interpret a particular memory usage pattern's effect on the rest of the system.
There's at least one cool memory trick a browser author should consider on Windows: a large memory sink is decompressed images stored in memory for display purposes. It may be wortwhile to keep the compressed versions handy and mark the uncompressed cached image pages with the MEM_RESET flag. I'm not sure how the memory counters will react, but this solution lets youkeepa lot of data around without taxing the system, since pages that are RESET can be repurposed for other programs without writing them to the pagefile or doing any additional bookkeeping. If you call VirtualUnlock() on the pages, you essentially give them back directly to the OS's Standby List, so it doesn't have to look into your workingset for those pages. For all intents and purproses these pages are free for the OS to use if other programs need them.
Aside from memory leaks, which Safari seems to suffer from, one shouldn't be concerned by virtual memory usage of a program unless it appears to affect performance. Reference set and fragmentation are important, however, and it looks like FF3.0 devs have done a great job on this front with lower working set as a happy side effect.
Edited 2008-06-26 16:48 UTC