So Which Browser Consumes The Less Memory?

[Scorbing]

So of all the major browsers out there, which one is currently the king of less memory usage?

[devn00b]

Wild Guess here (more Wild Guesstimate based on my own experience) But I would say the browser with the least features AKA Edge.

[Elliot B.]

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

[adrynalyne]

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Wasted used RAM is wasted RAM, ala Chrome.

[Noir Angel]

You'll probably find that Firefox will use the lowest because it doesn't have tab process isolation, but it's an incredibly useful stability feature that I personally wouldn't want to be without.

Your memory is a cache, it's there to be used. Unless you're opening thousands of tabs, you'll be unlucky to hit your limits.

[Anibal P]

Who cares how mush it uses? Use the one with the features you want

I'll echo Elliot B with the Unused RAM is Wasted RAM comment 

[Ironman273]

 

[adrynalyne]

Who cares how mush it uses? Use the one with the features you want

I'll echo Elliot B with the Unused RAM is Wasted RAM comment 

You care when you have limited ram to use in the first place. Chrome uses far more than it needs to and it has no advantage for doing it.

 

I use Firefox DE on my Spectre x360.

[adrynalyne]

You'll probably find that Firefox will use the lowest because it doesn't have tab process isolation, but it's an incredibly useful stability feature that I personally wouldn't want to be without.

Your memory is a cache, it's there to be used. Unless you're opening thousands of tabs or using Chrome, you'll be unlucky to hit your limits.

FTFY.

[Noir Angel]

You certainly seem amusingly obsessed with Chrome. I guess today's your mandatory shillin' day?

I've personally got no problem with Chrome or it's memory usage.

[oldtimefighter]

You are worried about how much memory your browser uses? I would suggest you upgrade your PC.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I think Firefox currently uses the least on average, but they're moving to a process isolation model so that's going to bloat out their memory usage a fair bit (On my Mac the main process is using 1GB and the child process 800MB, of course it's also a ~6 hour old testing build)

I don't think it has any effect as long as you've got a 64bit OS and browser, you want to keep memory usage low under 32bit because the browser can only access 2/4GB (2GB under a 32bit OS) in total, with a 64bit browser and OS, you're limited only by hard drive space (I've had an application allocate 16TB of RAM on my system before, thrashed the hard drive, but that was it)

[+Warwagon MVC]

Well we can take chrome off that list. Yes unused ram is wasted ram, but if a person only has 2GB of ram .. chrome still doesn't care ....

[adrynalyne]

You certainly seem amusingly obsessed with Chrome. I guess today's your mandatory shillin' day?

I've personally got no problem with Chrome or it's memory usage.

Is that why Google has been working to optimize ram usage, because its not a problem? Just because you are not paying attention doesn't mean it's not a real issue.

 

[adrynalyne]

You are worried about how much memory your browser uses? I would suggest you upgrade your PC.

How does one upgrade soldered ram?

[The Evil Overlord]

How does one upgrade soldered ram?

Um, no one specified a tablet or 'limited hardware', so one would assume we're dealing with a desktop that has expansion slots

[Boo Berry]

Glad I have tons of RAM, this is a non-issue for me as I use Chrome as my main browser.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Lynx?

[The Evil Overlord]

IE4

[adrynalyne]

Um, no one specified a tablet or 'limited hardware', so one would assume we're dealing with a desktop that has expansion slots

He made an assumption and so are you for some reason. Clearly there are cases you cannot upgrade your PC. To tell someone to upgrade their hardware without knowing the situation is worthless.

 

[DevTech]

Microsoft Edge is very aggressive on releasing RAM and will most likely be a good fit for RAM constrained environments. But if you are a "power user" then Edge won't be a great experience. They still have a ton of work to do just to meet basic features other browsers have had for years.

Google Chrome for the last year aggressively eats up all available RAM and somehow snakes it's way into your computer and eats up even more resources until your computer is begging for mercy.  It used to be my lean and mean main browser but now I don't even install it even as a backup.

Practically, this leaves one of the various Firefox versions as the best all round solution. I use CyberFox which is compiled for 64 bit Intel or AMD and so runs just slightly better than vanilla Firefox.

The state of Browsers in 2015 is just insanely stupid as if monkeys from another planet were put in charge of making a program to display websites that has the primary requirement of impacting every computer while running much more than a Video Editor or Adobe Photoshop or 3D Modeling!

And webby nutcase "standards" people want this horrible clunky delivery vehicle to be the universal way to deliver applications to people. Take a modern computer, go to one of the HTML5 demo sites and open about 20 of these demos in tabs and watch CPU and GPU peg to 100% - the entire computer slows to a crawl. But on the same modern computer you can open up the entire Adobe Creative Suite and throw in a few 3D modeling windows and everything will run just fine.

Notes for power users:

My tweaked version of CyberFox can run about 1200 tabs (slowly) but computer runs fine.

Chrome can get to about 100 tabs and will slow down the computer like it's 1998.

Microsoft Edge and recent Internet Explorers run very fast but start exhibiting flaky stuff around 50 tabs and possible due to deeper O/S integration is the only browser that will crash the computer when overloaded.

Conclusion:

Edge for "Average Joe" with only email and Facebook tabs

Firefox with appropriate extensions for active users. Very good on RAM, a bit slower at times.

Chrome for people who want to see how bad coding can still be in 2015 (until they fix their years-long "performance issue")

(On the bare justification side of things Chrome is tailored to provide fast performance for "Average Joe" and so is very aggressive with RAM stealing and GPU acceleration to speed up the 5 tabs Average Joe has open)

 

[adrynalyne]

Glad I have tons of RAM, this is a non-issue for me as I use Chrome as my main browser.

I have 32gb on my workstation and 16 on my desktop at home and I use chrome as well. Their developer tools are top notch.

When it comes to machines with smaller amounts of RAM, there are better browsers.

[remixedcat]

ie11.. rely on it for stuff like tablets with ony 1-2GB RAM

[adrynalyne]

ie11.. rely on it for stuff like tablets with ony 1-2GB RAM

Gross.

[The Evil Overlord]

Gross.

I feel I have to come to her defence here adrynalyne, I use IE11 as my main browser also, I have no issues with it (probably because I have no add ons or extensions attached to it)
I have firefox as a backup, but I honestly don't remember the last time it was launched