Mem usage: Chrome 3.0 Dev highest spikes, Opera 10b highest overall

[shakey_snake]

http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

  Quote

Problem. You are interested in how the Google Chrome 3.0 Dev, Firefox 3.5 RC, Safari 4.0 for Windows, and Opera 10b web browsers manage memory on the Windows Vista operating system over moderate usage, such as with 150 top web sites. These numbers can be measured but there are complexities involved in measuring memory. Solution. Here we look at a program that simulates a user visiting the top 150 web sites from Alexa from the command line, with visits occurring at short but varying intervals in many tabs.

...

9. Summary

Here we saw an experiment that tested the memory usage of Firefox 3.5 and Google Chrome 3.0, along with Safari 4.0 and Opera 10 (some pre-release versions). The memory watcher program that recorded and accumulated memory every three seconds over 19.2 minutes of intense browsing in four browsers at semi-random intervals reported figures that place Firefox 3.5 in the clear lead in memory usage. Firefox 3.5 showed the best memory efficiency in the average, maximum and final measurements.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Was just about to post this myself! Its very surprising about Firefox, given its memory usage history. But then again, they've been slated enough times that they have made it a priority in recent history.

Shame about IE8, would have been nice to see the results for it.

[L0u1s]

I hope Google fixes this, I'm loving Chrome so far!

[SuperKid]

Chrome used 1.2GB Memory, browsing? seriously? wth, that is high for a browser, i wouldn't mind up to 400mb usage or so but 1.2GB :|

[Vista]

It's true that certain browsers use more memory than others, but that's because they use your computer's memory for different things.

Opera, for example, uses more memory because it stores more information about websites you've visited in the past, so you can rewind your session within a fraction of a second.

Useful for some people, including myself; a waste of resources for others. It's one of the reasons there is no perfect browser for everyone.

[trieste]

Well at least now it stops people trolling about Fx 3.5's memory use.

[shakey_snake]

^Most trolling about firefox's memory is unknowingly caused by extensions.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

It won't. People always hang on to past performance in software.

I mean look at Norton. XD

[Subject Delta]

  spinning_quirK said:

Well at least now it stops people trolling about Fx 3.5's memory use.

My guess is that they used a vanilla install of Firefox 3.5 with no extentions enabled, there are certain ones that have been known to make memory usage much worse. For me the large memory spikes chrome exibits are kind of worrying, and possibly indicative of bad design, but the other browsers appear pretty much to be ###### for tat. The fact that Opera downloads pages in the background and caches them for quick navigation may account for some of its overall higher usage, but in reality the performance of all appears to be pretty close

[trieste]

  jamesyfx said:

It won't. People always hang on to past performance in software.

I mean look at Norton. XD

True, true.

[i_was_here]

Maybe Chrome's high memory usage is related to its seperate tab processes?

[ViZioN]

There's high and there's excessive. 1.2GB?! :unsure:

[ViperAFK]

b-b-b-b-but firefox is a memory hog! /s

[Deathray]

Chrome's trying to cache the whole internet! I would really like to see the reasoning behind such a huge amount of memory consumption

[Subject Delta]

  i_was_here said:

Maybe Chrome's high memory usage is related to its seperate tab processes?

Possible. Sadly, IE8 is the only browser with tab process isolation at the moment, and they declined to test it so until we have another yardstick it would be hard to give a definite answer to that one

[Growled Member]

I feel sure that the Chrome developers will get RAM usage down to sane levels before they release it for general use.

[Draconian Guppy]

yikes 1.2gb... is Chrome having a Crysis with memory usage :shiftyninja:

[Simon Veteran]

Well, it *is* a nightly build, and Opera *is* a beta. Just sayin'. There's probably debug code in there, it probably wasn't optimized for compilation, etc.

[Draconian Guppy]

  simon360 said:

Well, it *is* a nightly build, and Opera *is* a beta. Just sayin'. There's probably debug code in there, it probably wasn't optimized for compilation, etc.

I was waiting for someone to say that :)

[shakey_snake]

And if they had used 9.64 there would have been no excuses, right?

Some people try to convince themselves that their favorite products are infallible, regardless of the facts.

Just sayin'. :)

[Eice]

  Quote

When a process with the same name such as "chrome.exe" is encountered more than once, its total size is accumulated, yielding a total of all the "chrome.exe" figures together. The X axis indicates the time checkpoints and 1 checkpoint is equal to 3 seconds.

There's your problem right there. Sheer incompetence on the part of the testers.

[bangbang023 Veteran]

  Eice said:

There's your problem right there. Sheer incompetence on the part of the testers.

Explain.

[yxz]

http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-ch...od-and-bad.html

[bangbang023 Veteran]

  yxz said:

http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-ch...od-and-bad.html

Thank you.

[x-byte]

  Vista said:

It's true that certain browsers use more memory than others, but that's because they use your computer's memory for different things.

Opera, for example, uses more memory because it stores more information about websites you've visited in the past, so you can rewind your session within a fraction of a second.

Useful for some people, including myself; a waste of resources for others. It's one of the reasons there is no perfect browser for everyone.

Exactly. Opera uses memory caching more extensively than other browsers. You can easily limit it though, or also turn it off.

This is one of the main reasons I use Opera myself. More responsive and fast navigating sites you have visited.