Memory improvments coming to Firefox 7

[Chiefcrowe]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/memory-improvements-coming-to-firefox-7/13556

 

[gevorg]

Catching up to Chrome eh.

about:memory

 

[Megatomic]

Wow. So didn't Firefox 5 just come out? What happened to version 6?

 

[Tsavo]

Heh. FF5 using 240MB with just two tabs open.

 

[lxskllr]

Wow. So didn't Firefox 5 just come out? What happened to version 6?

I'm on 8.0a1. It isn't much different than 4.0 :^D

 

[Texashiker]

I have never understood why a browser takes 100+ megs of memory to display a 100kb website?

There have been times when I had 3, 4 or 5 tabs open, and firefox would be consuming 300+ megs of memory. 300+ megs of memory, while the total webpages probably did not even equal 1 meg of data.

If firefox took up say 20 or 30 megs of memory, then that is I could understand, but 200 - 300 megs? Really?

 

[lxskllr]

I don't know all the ins and outs of web design, but there's a lot more going on than what you explicitly see. Plugins, addons, virtual machines, caching... It all takes memory, even if it isn't directly telling you so.

 

[Nothinman]

I have never understood why a browser takes 100+ megs of memory to display a 100kb website?

There have been times when I had 3, 4 or 5 tabs open, and firefox would be consuming 300+ megs of memory. 300+ megs of memory, while the total webpages probably did not even equal 1 meg of data.

If firefox took up say 20 or 30 megs of memory, then that is I could understand, but 200 - 300 megs? Really?

All of the settings, JavaScript engine, support for 15 years of legacy HTML tags, whatever memory is required to draw the actual image to the screen via Win32, GTK+ or whatever it used on your platform and lots of other things that I'm not thinking about right now.

I'm not saying FF couldn't be better, but there's a lot more going on under the hood than just displaying 100K of text.

 

[pyonir]

Heh. FF5 using 240MB with just two tabs open.

I have 6 tabs open and it's using 213MB. *shrug*

 

[gevorg]

Mozilla usually blames extensions for FF memory problems.

 

[Cerb]

Mozilla usually blames extensions for FF memory problems.

Yup. Disable them and gets worse. Now what? Well, hey, they just ignore it (over half of my extensions are to not DL and run crap).

 

[JimKiler]

Mozilla usually blames extensions for FF memory problems.

I thought history was the reason for memory usage. I notice the more webpages i click thru at work the more memory is being used, definitely a correlation.

 

[spikespiegal]

Given that desktops have such cheap access to large amounts of RAM FF's poor memory management is usually no big deal.

However, once you start supporting VDI, XenDesktop, etc., it becomes a very big deal real fast. I routinely see Firefox sessions taking half a gig of RAM on my network, which is a BIG DEAL when you have to provision an additional server just to take the load off.

 

[hclarkjr]

my aurora updated to 7 yesterday, now today there was another update that was 17mb in size. i got email this morning from Mozilla that listed the new features in 7 mainly being memory improvement -

[FONT=&quot]New in Firefox Aurora: [/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Performance Enhancements: Faster startup time on Mac, Windows, and Linux[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Optimized Memory Use[/FONT]
  • [FONT=&quot]Improved memory management: for many users, memory use is reduced by 30 percent or more, responsiveness is enhanced[/FONT]
  • [FONT=&quot]The JavaScript garbage collector runs frequently to free up more memory when Firefox is idle[/FONT]
• Firefox Sync: bookmarks and passwords now sync instantly

 

[0roo0roo]

needs task manager and separate process tabs before anything else!

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I'm pretty sure they're working on that but don't know the status as of now...

needs task manager and separate process tabs before anything else!

 

[jkroeder]

I have never understood why a browser takes 100+ megs of memory to display a 100kb website?

There have been times when I had 3, 4 or 5 tabs open, and firefox would be consuming 300+ megs of memory. 300+ megs of memory, while the total webpages probably did not even equal 1 meg of data.

If firefox took up say 20 or 30 megs of memory, then that is I could understand, but 200 - 300 megs? Really?

I'm guessing you haven't tried other browsers these days. They all take up 150+ megs.

The problem with Firefox is that it likes to hold on to the memory much longer than other browsers.

 

[Texashiker]

I'm guessing you haven't tried other browsers these days.

I tried opera and chrome for a little while.

They all take up 150+ megs.

Once something is accepted, change is difficult, that is the way mankind is.

Once the programming community says its ok for a browser to take a couple of hundred megs of memory, that is the way its going to be.

Most websites, unless they use images, try to stay under 100k on the home page. Even with all of the stuff running in the background, I do not understand why a browser takes hundreds of megs of memory.

I am willing to be that someone can make a browser that takes up less the 32 or even 16 megs of memory. Its just going to take some programmer to stand up and say we have had enough. But the thing is, memory is cheap. When computers are running 64 bit operating systems and have 6 gigs of memory, who cares if a browser takes up 200 - 300 megs. What is 200 - 300 megs out of 6 or 8 gigs. Programers adopt the mentality that there is plenty of memory, so we do not need to streamline the code.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/89570-firefox-8-is-20-faster-than-firefox-5-matches-chrome-14

another article on firefox 7:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/...-memory-footprint-lands-in-aurora-channel.ars

 

[Nothinman]

I am willing to be that someone can make a browser that takes up less the 32 or even 16 megs of memory. Its just going to take some programmer to stand up and say we have had enough. But the thing is, memory is cheap. When computers are running 64 bit operating systems and have 6 gigs of memory, who cares if a browser takes up 200 - 300 megs. What is 200 - 300 megs out of 6 or 8 gigs. Programers adopt the mentality that there is plenty of memory, so we do not need to streamline the code.

They already exist, but most people don't use them because they'd rather trade the resources for more capable browsers.

 

[Socio]

I am willing to be that someone can make a browser that takes up less the 32 or even 16 megs of memory. Its just going to take some programmer to stand up and say we have had enough. But the thing is, memory is cheap. When computers are running 64 bit operating systems and have 6 gigs of memory, who cares if a browser takes up 200 - 300 megs. What is 200 - 300 megs out of 6 or 8 gigs. Programers adopt the mentality that there is plenty of memory, so we do not need to streamline the code.

I just wish that would finally release an "official" 64bit version so more plugins would be developed for it.

I find the 64bit nightly release version to be hands down faster than the Firefox 32bit version likely due to more resources available to it.

 

[Nothinman]

I just wish that would finally release an "official" 64bit version so more plugins would be developed for it.

I find the 64bit nightly release version to be hands down faster than the Firefox 32bit version likely due to more resources available to it.

As far as I can tell that's a Windows-only problem, the rest of us have had 64-bit browsers for as long as I can remember, maybe you should ask the devs what's holding them back on Windows?

 

[Texashiker]

They already exist, but most people don't use them because they'd rather trade the resources for more capable browsers.

Your post is an example of part of the problem. Why do we have to have this mindset that its one "or" the other?

If windows 95 could run on a computer with only 16 megs of memory, then so should a browser.

There are lots of video games that take up less memory then browsers.

 

[hclarkjr]

i am running the aurora build and did notice nice improvement when it switched to version 7.

 

[Nothinman]

Your post is an example of part of the problem. Why do we have to have this mindset that its one "or" the other?

If windows 95 could run on a computer with only 16 megs of memory, then so should a browser.

There are lots of video games that take up less memory then browsers.

Because having those things available quickly or instantly means they have to be kept in memory. Sure you could save memory on occasion by storing and flushing things like history to disk but then people will complain when it takes 2s to bring up the old page when they hit the back button. And the added complexity to store/load all of that at runtime adds to development, debugging, etc required.

I like my apps as thin as possible, but I understand that you trade features for resources and I would gladly trade a few megs of memory for fast history and such.