OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19916/Comparing_Browsers_Memory_Usage Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:03:14 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Is it just me http://osnews.com/thread?320004 http://osnews.com/thread?320004 Is it just me or does the study show IE8 using far less memory in the short term but growing faster in the long term? So is the winner of the study determined by a flat line or actual low memory usage? Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Novan_Leon) Comments Safari http://osnews.com/thread?320009 http://osnews.com/thread?320009 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. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eggs) Comments FireFox r0cks http://osnews.com/thread?320023 http://osnews.com/thread?320023 I'm fan of FF, and it's awesome tabs and speed, 3.0 owns.

Mozilla should make code cleanup too for the next releases. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Arabian) Comments RE: Is it just me http://osnews.com/thread?320024 http://osnews.com/thread?320024 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. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ikshaar) Comments lynx http://osnews.com/thread?320025 http://osnews.com/thread?320025 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 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (agrouf) Comments RE: lynx http://osnews.com/thread?320026 http://osnews.com/thread?320026
Of course, lynx would beat them all, easy.


And DOS would beat Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows Vista.

Not that it really says anything, but hey. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[2]: lynx http://osnews.com/thread?320027 http://osnews.com/thread?320027 Don't get me started! CP/M pwns DOS Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (agrouf) Comments Comment by Kroc http://osnews.com/thread?320031 http://osnews.com/thread?320031 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 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE: Comment by Kroc http://osnews.com/thread?320032 http://osnews.com/thread?320032 Run both browsers through Instruments and then tell us what's going on? I haven't got the time right now, but when (if?) I do it might be something worth writing about. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evangs) Comments Opera http://osnews.com/thread?320038 http://osnews.com/thread?320038 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? Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sappyvcv) Comments Low memory can be BAD!!! http://osnews.com/thread?320046 http://osnews.com/thread?320046 Personally I WANT my browser to use more memory. When you have 2GB or 4GB of RAM, the amount of memory the browser uses is nearly irrelevant.

In fact, I would RATHER the browser keep more cached information in RAM so that I can access it near-instant. If the browser, like FireFox 3, constantly releases memory back to the system, that means 2 things:
1. More CPU cycles (to calculate what to release)
2. More wait time if something you want to see was released from memory. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JoeSmith) Comments RE: Opera http://osnews.com/thread?320047 http://osnews.com/thread?320047 wow, i said almost the exact thing. Didnt see your post when I wrote mine. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JoeSmith) Comments RE: Low memory can be BAD!!! http://osnews.com/thread?320048 http://osnews.com/thread?320048 Do you know that some people use more than just a browser, but dozens of apps. The more effective the memory-handling is the better... Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asr4096) Comments RE: Low memory can be BAD!!! http://osnews.com/thread?320050 http://osnews.com/thread?320050 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. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (smitty) Comments RE: Low memory can be BAD!!! http://osnews.com/thread?320054 http://osnews.com/thread?320054 Sure, if your really want I can make you a browser that eats most of your memory no matter what. It will be a simple IE-based browser but it will absolutely use up your memory.

Those two points doesn't seem very relevant. Stuff like that takes no time. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bending Unit) Comments Whattabout FF3 with Extensions? http://osnews.com/thread?320137 http://osnews.com/thread?320137 The reviewer tested Firefox3 without extensions. How much larger is the footprint with, say, a dozen extensions/plugins running?

Just curious. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gan17) Comments Why in this test they used 7.0 rendering mode for IE8 ? http://osnews.com/thread?320187 http://osnews.com/thread?320187 This test has a flaw because they used 7.0 rendering mode for Internet Explorer 8.0. Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (casuto) Comments Comparing memory usage is hard http://osnews.com/thread?320247 http://osnews.com/thread?320247 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 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) Comments