5 ms·

I am personally using a lots of browser extensions because of my dev job. I have switched some years ago to Chrome when it was faster than Firefox for a short m

I am personally using a lots of browser extensions because of my dev job. I have switched some years ago to Chrome when it was faster than Firefox for a short moment. Now i consider going back because Chrome eats so much RAM there is little left for node.js and vscode. Even more with every extension installed. I had to disable bunch of these for that reason. I know it is off topic. However, can anyone share info if Firefox is better at this point considering memory usage?

h0p3 6y ago
It's not. I'm sorry. I'm regularly dumping 30GB into FF. There's nowhere else to go though. =/.
- bscphil 6y ago
  The frustrating thing about modern browsers is that none of them try to be good desktop citizens, for the lack of a better term. If you have 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 GB of memory, and you open enough tabs, your browser will eventually consume all of it, even though most browsers are perfectly capable of suspending unused tabs when they're under memory pressure. They simply don't register a problem until your memory is nearly gone. If you have swap space, it's even worse, because there's not noticeable memory pressure until you've always consumed a good bit of your swap. So I frequently find myself in a situation where I start compiling something or launch a game, and have my computer immediately slow to a crawl. Check htop, and it's always the browser I have open, taking ~13 GB of memory and another 4 GB of swap. It's certainly true that "unused RAM is wasted RAM", but that only holds when you can reclaim low priority RAM when you need to launch something new. Browsers are really bad at doing that, so they sit rather uncomfortably next to the other programs on your desktop.
  - h0p3 6y ago
    Bingo. You got it. `/salute`. Given sandboxing security features, it's too easy to balloon up too. I periodically have to restart the application (which incurs some costs on this external cognition process, unfortunately). Browsers aren't built for people like me (and the way standards maliciously churn qua Google doesn't inspire confidence in finding a long-term, meaningful solution), and I appreciate that it's seemingly a lot to ask. Btw, my name is h0p3. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your charitable response.
ohgodplsno 6y ago
I am extremely surprised at what the other poster is saying. I've had 400+ tabs running and my highest memory usage is 5GB. Some things like Slack will of course be horrible, but it's the same as Chrome.
- h0p3 6y ago
  Hey, I'm surprised too! I also think it's fair to say I'm a hardcore addict (https://philosopher.life/#Link%20Log https://philosopher.life/#Link%20Log). I dreamt of mainlining T1 lines as a kid, and it's never stopped. ( ՞ਊ ՞). My eGF says I'm a link dragon, but I'm really just an oldfag schizo neckbeard basement-dweller (https://philosopher.life/#2020.06.22%20-%20MJos%3A%20The%20Man%20from%20H.0.P.3 https://philosopher.life/#2020.06.22%20-%20MJos%3A%20The%20M...) searching for the meaning of life on his plebstation (https://philosopher.life/#Monster-%CE%A6 https://philosopher.life/#Monster-%CE%A6). It's a pleasure to meet you, nomad (https://philosopher.life/#Find%20The%20Others https://philosopher.life/#Find%20The%20Others). Life is full of delightful surprises.

h0p3 6y ago

It's not. I'm sorry. I'm regularly dumping 30GB into FF. There's nowhere else to go though. =/.

bscphil 6y ago
The frustrating thing about modern browsers is that none of them try to be good desktop citizens, for the lack of a better term. If you have 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 GB of memory, and you open enough tabs, your browser will eventually consume all of it, even though most browsers are perfectly capable of suspending unused tabs when they're under memory pressure. They simply don't register a problem until your memory is nearly gone. If you have swap space, it's even worse, because there's not noticeable memory pressure until you've always consumed a good bit of your swap. So I frequently find myself in a situation where I start compiling something or launch a game, and have my computer immediately slow to a crawl. Check htop, and it's always the browser I have open, taking ~13 GB of memory and another 4 GB of swap. It's certainly true that "unused RAM is wasted RAM", but that only holds when you can reclaim low priority RAM when you need to launch something new. Browsers are really bad at doing that, so they sit rather uncomfortably next to the other programs on your desktop.
- h0p3 6y ago
  Bingo. You got it. `/salute`. Given sandboxing security features, it's too easy to balloon up too. I periodically have to restart the application (which incurs some costs on this external cognition process, unfortunately). Browsers aren't built for people like me (and the way standards maliciously churn qua Google doesn't inspire confidence in finding a long-term, meaningful solution), and I appreciate that it's seemingly a lot to ask. Btw, my name is h0p3. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your charitable response.

ohgodplsno 6y ago

I am extremely surprised at what the other poster is saying. I've had 400+ tabs running and my highest memory usage is 5GB. Some things like Slack will of course be horrible, but it's the same as Chrome.

h0p3 6y ago
Hey, I'm surprised too! I also think it's fair to say I'm a hardcore addict (https://philosopher.life/#Link%20Log https://philosopher.life/#Link%20Log). I dreamt of mainlining T1 lines as a kid, and it's never stopped. ( ՞ਊ ՞). My eGF says I'm a link dragon, but I'm really just an oldfag schizo neckbeard basement-dweller (https://philosopher.life/#2020.06.22%20-%20MJos%3A%20The%20Man%20from%20H.0.P.3 https://philosopher.life/#2020.06.22%20-%20MJos%3A%20The%20M...) searching for the meaning of life on his plebstation (https://philosopher.life/#Monster-%CE%A6 https://philosopher.life/#Monster-%CE%A6). It's a pleasure to meet you, nomad (https://philosopher.life/#Find%20The%20Others https://philosopher.life/#Find%20The%20Others). Life is full of delightful surprises.