16 ms·

“We can learn from the competition,” said Dotzler. “The way they implemented multi-process is RAM-intensive, it can get out of hand. We are learning from them a

by rsp1984 10y ago

“We can learn from the competition,” said Dotzler. “The way they implemented multi-process is RAM-intensive, it can get out of hand. We are learning from them and building an architecture that doesn’t eat all your RAM.” That's the money quote here. I've been waiting for this for a long time actually. Every browser I've tried except Firefox just basically eats all my RAM and other app performance (e.g. compiling stuff) goes down the toilet. Then on the other hand FF has not been so snappy and responsive traditionally. So responsive + soft on RAM is the combination I've really been waiting for. Let's hope they can deliver.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tomp 10y ago
Nevertheless, I prefer Chrome's approach. I can just open the process explorer and kill a few of the most memory hungry tabs/tab groups; with Firefox, there's no other solution than killing the whole browser. Can't wait for this fix!
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I believe in current Firefox you could kill the memory-hungry tabs, then go to about:memory and force a GC. Or restart and let your tabs stay open but not loaded until you use them. Not that either of these is super-convenient.
  - rwmj 10y ago
    In Firefox 47 (or 48?) you can now do: about:performance which displays/kills the CPU hungry tabs directly.
kohanz 10y ago
I was in the same situation as you and found that in the end Safari fit that bill for me (not sure if it is an option on your platform). Responsiveness is probably somewhere between Chrome and FF, but memory usage has been much better.
Angostura 10y ago
If you're on Mac, Safari is good in terms of both memory and cpu.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Safari is great, but doesn't have a great solution for vertical or tree-style tabs, which are heavily used in my workflow. FF is for work, Safari for non-work. Chrome when I need Flash or testing Chrome-only content (some great plugins) - pretty rare.
- rimantas 10y ago
  And battery life.
- newscracker 10y ago
  Safari is my favorite on the Mac since it's quite lean (memory wise, CPU wise and energy consumption wise) and responsive. But I miss extensions from Firefox and don't use Safari if I have to work with several tabs and windows. There are several little things that make using Firefox much better for my experience. Firefox is my favorite browser overall (especially on other OSes), considering its smaller memory footprint and lack of sluggishness with tons of tabs (compared to Chrome) and the fact that it's from Mozilla, a company I hugely respect and admire (even with some of the missteps that have happened in some aspects in the past few years).
hokkos 10y ago
Webkit also learned from the experience of chrome with WebKit2 architecture, and uses less ram https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2 https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2
toxican 10y ago
A few years ago if you'd told me FF would be the RAM-sensitive browser, I'd have laughed you off the internet.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  And they're still at it, too: https://areweslimyet.com/ https://areweslimyet.com/
  - azinman2 10y ago
    Maybe I'm misreading things but it looks like it's been constantly getting worse since 2012?
    - wongarsu 10y ago
      They're getting worse at a linear pace, while hardware improves exponentially. Effectively that's a pretty good improvement each year.
      - AstralStorm 10y ago
        Except mobile hardware which does not. Power usage is always a concern.
        wongarsu 10y ago
        >Except mobile hardware which does not. Source? RAM available in mobile phones seems to grow exponentially [1]. Power efficency of processors also seems to grow exponentially [2] (does anybody have a source for ARM processors?). [1]: https://i.imgur.com/AWkmMJc.png https://i.imgur.com/AWkmMJc.png (note logarithmic scale) [2]: https://www.karlrupp.net/2013/06/cpu-gpu-and-mic-hardware-characteristics-over-time/ https://www.karlrupp.net/2013/06/cpu-gpu-and-mic-hardware-ch...
        RussianCow 10y ago
        Power usage has little to do with memory usage. In fact, if the browser is using more RAM as a cache, it won't hit persistent storage as much, which actually increases battery life.
schoen 10y ago
Can someone describe what the "architecture that doesn't eat all your RAM" here is? Is it possible that it will inadvertently provide weaker security protections between tabs than the more naive and RAM-intensive architecture?
- 0xfeba 10y ago
  Duplicated memory and just overhead from running separate processes (Chrome), as opposed to shared memory and less overhead from a single process (IE? Old FF). As for security, no, unless there's some unknown vulnerability now (or that they create), that will be ported over and somehow more effective between (potential) processes. So, I doubt it.
  - creshal 10y ago
    Chrome uses separate processes for sandboxing purposes, not just for the fun of it. So yes, protecting against "some unknown vulnerability" is the entire point behind it.
    - derefr 10y ago
      As a fun fact, separate virtual machines running under a VMWare ESXi hypervisor—which is about as "sandboxed" as you can get—still share memory: the hypervisor hashes the 'cold' pages of its VMs and, when it finds duplicate page content either within or between VMs, it merges the duplicated pages together into single copy-on-write pages. ESXi has never had a security vulnerability due to this optimization, AFAIK. Ref: https://labs.vmware.com/vmtj/memory-overcommitment-in-the-esx-server https://labs.vmware.com/vmtj/memory-overcommitment-in-the-es... (search "page sharing")
      - creshal 10y ago
        > ESXi has never had a security vulnerability due to this optimization, AFAIK. Should be vulnerable to FFS, if I'm not mistaken: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-attack-steals-private-crypto-keys-by-corrupting-data-in-computer-memory/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-attack-steals-pr...
chakalakasp 10y ago
The thing is, workstation and laptop RAM is so cheap. If your browser is eating an appreciable chunk of your 16 or 32GB of RAM, you need to close some tabs.
- watwatwatwat 10y ago
  I'm tired of this argument. My browser is not the only piece of software I'm running. I usually have virtualbox, a compiler, an IDE running. And sometimes some scripts/programs I wrote that does intensive computing on some data set.
- fnj 10y ago
  Forgive me; your statement does not make sense. First you're implying that all you have to do is get more RAM; then you're admitting that you only have a certain amount, so you should stop using so much. In actuality, very few non-server PCs can be populated with any more than 16-32 GB. It's not a matter of bother or expense at all. It's a design limit. Every single time I've driven a non-server PC into hopeless swap thrashing, it's been the damn browser that was the culprit. Don't bother trying to advise me to bookmark 100 open tabs in 10 windows to save space. That is (forgive me) an insult to one's intelligence.
  - xorblurb 10y ago
    Even more of a problem on laptops since the market has overwhelmingly moved from a technical capabilities standpoint to a race to less weight and more autonomy. Has a result, max memory on high end or configurable models has at best stagnated for a few years. I've a 4 years old laptop with 16GB. It's not yet possible to get that on all flagships laptops today (even though 16GB SODimm is not even expensive anymore).
  - yuhong 10y ago
    To be more technically precise, the limit comes from UDIMMs based on 4Gbit DDR3. DDR4 does have 8Gbit chips, but...
- smsm42 10y ago
  No, it's not cheap at all, because buying the physical chips is not the end of it. For some laptops - like macbook air - there is a limit of how much they support, and it's not that high. Some models are not even upgradable - they just have soldered-in 8G and that's it. > you need to close some tabs This comment is really not contributing anything to the matter. Obviously everybody could think of closing tabs without you advising to do so, and if they don't, it may be because they want these tabs around. I regularly keep a lot of tabs around because this is my work pattern.
blakeyrat 10y ago
I'm not a Firefox user, but considering that 95% of the time about half my RAM is going unused (well, Windows uses it for pre-caching random stuff it thinks I might need), I don't mind high memory usage as long as I get a benefit for it. If it's just inefficient, that's a different story.
- xorblurb 10y ago
  The thing is HD caching is extremely elastic. Memory consumption by a browser, less so (maybe even nearly not at all elastic). So what you might think of a benefit one day might be a drawback the next if you want to open twice the same amount of tabs, or run a big build in the background.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by rsp1984 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tomp 10y ago

Nevertheless, I prefer Chrome's approach. I can just open the process explorer and kill a few of the most memory hungry tabs/tab groups; with Firefox, there's no other solution than killing the whole browser. Can't wait for this fix!

NoGravitas 10y ago
I believe in current Firefox you could kill the memory-hungry tabs, then go to about:memory and force a GC. Or restart and let your tabs stay open but not loaded until you use them. Not that either of these is super-convenient.
- rwmj 10y ago
  In Firefox 47 (or 48?) you can now do: about:performance which displays/kills the CPU hungry tabs directly.

kohanz 10y ago

I was in the same situation as you and found that in the end Safari fit that bill for me (not sure if it is an option on your platform). Responsiveness is probably somewhere between Chrome and FF, but memory usage has been much better.

Angostura 10y ago

If you're on Mac, Safari is good in terms of both memory and cpu.

r00fus 10y ago
Safari is great, but doesn't have a great solution for vertical or tree-style tabs, which are heavily used in my workflow. FF is for work, Safari for non-work. Chrome when I need Flash or testing Chrome-only content (some great plugins) - pretty rare.
rimantas 10y ago
And battery life.
newscracker 10y ago
Safari is my favorite on the Mac since it's quite lean (memory wise, CPU wise and energy consumption wise) and responsive. But I miss extensions from Firefox and don't use Safari if I have to work with several tabs and windows. There are several little things that make using Firefox much better for my experience. Firefox is my favorite browser overall (especially on other OSes), considering its smaller memory footprint and lack of sluggishness with tons of tabs (compared to Chrome) and the fact that it's from Mozilla, a company I hugely respect and admire (even with some of the missteps that have happened in some aspects in the past few years).

hokkos 10y ago

Webkit also learned from the experience of chrome with WebKit2 architecture, and uses less ram https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2 https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2

toxican 10y ago

A few years ago if you'd told me FF would be the RAM-sensitive browser, I'd have laughed you off the internet.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
And they're still at it, too: https://areweslimyet.com/ https://areweslimyet.com/
- azinman2 10y ago
  Maybe I'm misreading things but it looks like it's been constantly getting worse since 2012?
  - wongarsu 10y ago
    They're getting worse at a linear pace, while hardware improves exponentially. Effectively that's a pretty good improvement each year.
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      Except mobile hardware which does not. Power usage is always a concern.
      - wongarsu 10y ago
        >Except mobile hardware which does not. Source? RAM available in mobile phones seems to grow exponentially [1]. Power efficency of processors also seems to grow exponentially [2] (does anybody have a source for ARM processors?). [1]: https://i.imgur.com/AWkmMJc.png https://i.imgur.com/AWkmMJc.png (note logarithmic scale) [2]: https://www.karlrupp.net/2013/06/cpu-gpu-and-mic-hardware-characteristics-over-time/ https://www.karlrupp.net/2013/06/cpu-gpu-and-mic-hardware-ch...
      - RussianCow 10y ago
        Power usage has little to do with memory usage. In fact, if the browser is using more RAM as a cache, it won't hit persistent storage as much, which actually increases battery life.

schoen 10y ago

Can someone describe what the "architecture that doesn't eat all your RAM" here is? Is it possible that it will inadvertently provide weaker security protections between tabs than the more naive and RAM-intensive architecture?

0xfeba 10y ago
Duplicated memory and just overhead from running separate processes (Chrome), as opposed to shared memory and less overhead from a single process (IE? Old FF). As for security, no, unless there's some unknown vulnerability now (or that they create), that will be ported over and somehow more effective between (potential) processes. So, I doubt it.
- creshal 10y ago
  Chrome uses separate processes for sandboxing purposes, not just for the fun of it. So yes, protecting against "some unknown vulnerability" is the entire point behind it.
  - derefr 10y ago
    As a fun fact, separate virtual machines running under a VMWare ESXi hypervisor—which is about as "sandboxed" as you can get—still share memory: the hypervisor hashes the 'cold' pages of its VMs and, when it finds duplicate page content either within or between VMs, it merges the duplicated pages together into single copy-on-write pages. ESXi has never had a security vulnerability due to this optimization, AFAIK. Ref: https://labs.vmware.com/vmtj/memory-overcommitment-in-the-esx-server https://labs.vmware.com/vmtj/memory-overcommitment-in-the-es... (search "page sharing")
    - creshal 10y ago
      > ESXi has never had a security vulnerability due to this optimization, AFAIK. Should be vulnerable to FFS, if I'm not mistaken: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-attack-steals-private-crypto-keys-by-corrupting-data-in-computer-memory/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-attack-steals-pr...

chakalakasp 10y ago

The thing is, workstation and laptop RAM is so cheap. If your browser is eating an appreciable chunk of your 16 or 32GB of RAM, you need to close some tabs.

watwatwatwat 10y ago
I'm tired of this argument. My browser is not the only piece of software I'm running. I usually have virtualbox, a compiler, an IDE running. And sometimes some scripts/programs I wrote that does intensive computing on some data set.
fnj 10y ago
Forgive me; your statement does not make sense. First you're implying that all you have to do is get more RAM; then you're admitting that you only have a certain amount, so you should stop using so much. In actuality, very few non-server PCs can be populated with any more than 16-32 GB. It's not a matter of bother or expense at all. It's a design limit. Every single time I've driven a non-server PC into hopeless swap thrashing, it's been the damn browser that was the culprit. Don't bother trying to advise me to bookmark 100 open tabs in 10 windows to save space. That is (forgive me) an insult to one's intelligence.
- xorblurb 10y ago
  Even more of a problem on laptops since the market has overwhelmingly moved from a technical capabilities standpoint to a race to less weight and more autonomy. Has a result, max memory on high end or configurable models has at best stagnated for a few years. I've a 4 years old laptop with 16GB. It's not yet possible to get that on all flagships laptops today (even though 16GB SODimm is not even expensive anymore).
- yuhong 10y ago
  To be more technically precise, the limit comes from UDIMMs based on 4Gbit DDR3. DDR4 does have 8Gbit chips, but...
smsm42 10y ago
No, it's not cheap at all, because buying the physical chips is not the end of it. For some laptops - like macbook air - there is a limit of how much they support, and it's not that high. Some models are not even upgradable - they just have soldered-in 8G and that's it. > you need to close some tabs This comment is really not contributing anything to the matter. Obviously everybody could think of closing tabs without you advising to do so, and if they don't, it may be because they want these tabs around. I regularly keep a lot of tabs around because this is my work pattern.

blakeyrat 10y ago

I'm not a Firefox user, but considering that 95% of the time about half my RAM is going unused (well, Windows uses it for pre-caching random stuff it thinks I might need), I don't mind high memory usage as long as I get a benefit for it. If it's just inefficient, that's a different story.

xorblurb 10y ago
The thing is HD caching is extremely elastic. Memory consumption by a browser, less so (maybe even nearly not at all elastic). So what you might think of a benefit one day might be a drawback the next if you want to open twice the same amount of tabs, or run a big build in the background.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]