Hey guys, i've been using firefox for quite sometime now, and it's taking about 214 Mb of ram.
So, i was wondering what web browser is good, and also uses the least resources. Give me some suggestions, thanks.

If you don't like FX's memory usage you could either:
1. Use Opera
2. Use no extenstions with FX and in the about:config disable the caching of previously viewed pages

Opera rocks, i sometimes use it but mainly i use IE7

Firefox uses the most memory out of IE, Opera and Firefox but it has more extensions than other web browsers.

Opera: fastest and uses least memory, most features from plain install, customisable

Firefox: highest memory usage, has most extensions, customisable

IE: cannot customise and has only basic features

Thanks guys, lookin into Opera now. =]

I dont wanna customise my IE - Even if i wanted to id just add BHO like IEPlus which adds session recovery, ad filtering and stuff..

I also dont want my browser full of millions of daft features or features ill never use, i just want it to load fast, browse the internet fast and work..

IE fulfils all these requirements for me.

I dont even know why i use Opera on occasion... I gotta admit its fast as lightning though... think its a throwback to when i used to use it on linux

Resource wise, i have a tie between Seamonkey and Opera.
But i like the features/looks of Opera better so i'll stick with it.
Thanks!

I still use firefox, even though it caches a lot (an awful lot) and sucks up my free RAM. I just close/restart it when it does (every few days, if I have left it open without ever closing it). It would be nice if you could set an upper limit on its usage.

I have 3GB of ram so FF dont bother me much in that respect. If you dont have the ram then look elsewhere but if you do then FF is THE way to go!

I do have the ram. It's just im very.. how do I say this? Picky on how much space something takes up.

I have 512MB. That's why I do my periodic purges. If I had 2G+, I don't think I would care much.

I have 1GB -128MB for integrated video memory.

At the moment in FF, I have 8 add-ons: Get Mail Plus, Hide Menubar, Paste and Go 2, Print/Print Preview, Secure Login, TinyURL Creator, toolbarmode, and Yahoo Mail Notifier.
I use Firetune with the 'Enable performance tweaks common to all configurations' checked......I also have checked 'Optimize Firefox memory usage'. Even with 1g of memory this set-up seems to make Firefox run smoother for longer periods of time. Firefox seems a bit faster (with the add-ons). I haven't noticed any far out memory usage. At the moment I have 8 tabs open to mostly news pages and the 'My Yahoo' beta page. They've been open for about 75 mins. According to the task manager (xp pro), Firefox is at 85,730k.........then it dropped to 83,332k when I clicked the Yahoo Mail Notifier to check for new mail.
When I clicked to 'close other tabs', leaving Neowin open, usage dropped to 75,120k. Then I minimized Firefox and usage dropped to 4,176k. I haven't had any problems on my machine running firefox with this set up............. *crosses fingers*

yea Fx has a lot of memory management issues, they're fixing them, just really slowly. Opera is excellent in that regard though.

If you like , you can use Maxthon 2.0 or IE7 with IE7Pro. Fast and a lot of feature there

But I must say that Maxthon 2 still uses high MEM too. If you really want light, go for Maxthon 1!

Opera's taking up ~180MB of memory in Vista right now, which is somewhat on par for me as with Firefox. This is under 'typical' usage for me - 2 hours of browsing where i visited several graphics-heavy sites, checked gmail, forums, work-related stuff, etc. with a max of 10 tabs open.

I closed half of them and it's still using the same amount.

What's the point?

Is there something wrong with applications using the RAM you've provided for them? What applications are allowed to use memory?

The thing about modern browsers is that they are optimized for performance, not for resource savings. Opera and Firefox both tend to keep the pages in memory in case you want to bring back the tab or window that you closed. If something else needs the memory, they will give it up. Being a resource nazi nowadays is a failing battle...

Yeah goood points.

Hardly you get browser running on low MEM usage with many tabs open. Maxthon2 nope. Firefox nope. Only Maxthon 1 for now. So that's why I am so not willing to switch.

This will be addressed in a future version

Is there official news on this?

I don't understand why people put 1-2GB of memory in their systems, then complain when programs go and use it.

What did you buy it for, decoration?

But because some of us feels it kind of lag .... while using compared to lower sys usage.

I guess the alternatives are to throw that memory into swap on the hard drive (slow), or to discard cache data (inefficient when you browse back and forth through pages).

There is no magical way to "use less memory" without compromising on some other feature or performance enhancer.

... I'm patiently waiting for Maxthon 2 to improve on the MEM usage ...

if your firefox uses that much ram, it either means u're bulking it down with shi#loads of extensions and you;re visiting really really really data intensive sites. i have 3 extensions and 15 themes, i have 5 tabs open, i still only manage to use up about 103MB of ram.


mate, you're doing something wrong
oh +1, if u prefer opera, i wud strongly recommend it

+1 for ya .... If teh guy is picky about teh memory usage of FF while having lots of RAM, then what the point of having so much ram ?

/me puzzled here ...

+1. Im more concerned about the browser using 100% CPU since theres not much else you can do.

Yeah a lot still boils down to "Why have so much RAM and dun make use of it?" Right?

What blows my mind is that people think that looking at a number in the task manager is actually a reliable measure of the use of system resources.

I think a lot of people just don't know any better and need to be taught about that.

I used Opera for speed, Fx for extensions (for Urban Dead :lol:).

Still, don't leave too many tabs open. Mine is using 208MB Mem and 303MB Virtual ATM. Still running sweet as a sweet thing. Oh, I have... *counts* 36 tabs. So you should be okay

EDIT: Going by task manager. Too lazy to run any other tools tonight

I'm using Safari right now, on XP Pro. It's using a whopping 153 MB with 5 tabs open. By far, the most resource hogging browser on Windows I've used.

I don't use Safari very much, but the text displays very nicely. Other than that, my primary browser is Opera, and Firefox. The resource usage on those varies from ~40 MB to ~110 MB.

So how do you measure it then?