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Anecdata: I find browser RAM usage varies enormously depending on which specific websites you use. The Flotato test uses Twitter and Gmail (for the first set;

Anecdata: I find browser RAM usage varies enormously depending on which specific websites you use. The Flotato test uses Twitter and Gmail (for the first set; it doesn't specify the sites used for the 2nd set). Both Twitter and Gmail are large, complex, slow webapps which likely do some sort of advanced active memory management (extensive use of service workers, local storage, etc.). They also load mainly (exclusively?) 1st party resources. The Brave tests use a large varied set of sites[0], which seem to be a combination of simple news & ecommerce sites. There are no complex webapps in the list. Modern news sites do have a reputation for being slow and heavy, but this will mostly be due to 3rd-party resources from ad companies; the sites themselves are simple and lightweight in terms of 1st-party content. So they seem to be comparing very different browser usage patterns. Given that, and looking again at the Brave tests: Safari does actually have lower memory usage than Chrome for most of their graphs. It just creeps slightly ahead of Chrome in the later tests. [0] https://github.com/brave-experiments/browser-comparison-toolkit/blob/master/scenarios/fullset.txt https://github.com/brave-experiments/browser-comparison-tool...

ASalazarMX 6y ago
As a side note, GMail memory usage has improved vastly (probably because it was monstruous to begin with). Years ago my GMail tab consumed almost 500 Mb, but nowadays it uses less than 100, with my same usage patterns.
- mayli 6y ago
  300MB onload, dropped to 240MB after idling for few minutes. Are you sure it's using less than 100MB? in comparison with the post, it takes about 500MB ram, which is weird for such simple webpage. This HN page takes 40MB.
  - ASalazarMX 6y ago
    Oh sorry, I measured it on Firefox. Chrome on Linux started at 160 Mb, and it settled around 150. I've disabled Hangouts, and the right sidebar, so that might account for the differences. Funny how Firefox reports a third of that, although IDK if Chrome and Firefox task managers are directly comparable.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  Four years ago, I found Gmail to tend to use 80–200MB in Firefox, mostly in the lower half of that range. Certainly I found the figures in this test utterly unbelievable for this reason; Safari ain’t lighter on memory than Firefox, let alone that much. But also for reference, it’s not like something of Gmail’s complexity has to use that much memory. Fastmail provides equivalent functionality minus chat in a 10–15MB budget, and you can add calendars and contacts (which are separate in Google land) and still keep it to 16–25MB.
- lucideer 6y ago
  Gmail specifically has massively improved recently for me, but I feel it tends to be more of a spikey graph than a steady trendline over time. Memory usage went through the roof when they first rolled out their current redesign, despite already being far too high before. I assume Gmail will get worse again at some stage. Similarly, Google Docs & Sheets are abysmal currently; not really sure if they were ever significantly better or worse in the past. In terms of webapps, Google's approach has always seemed to be to make things that are powerful, sometimes usable, but with no focus on performance, cross-browser compat, or general industry best practice at all from a frontend engineering perspective. Any engineering quality in Google products has never in my experience lived in client-side code. This is exacerbated by the fact that "code quality" drives in other companies are often sneaked onto managerial priority lists under the guise of SEO requirements, something Google have never needed to meet.

ASalazarMX 6y ago

As a side note, GMail memory usage has improved vastly (probably because it was monstruous to begin with). Years ago my GMail tab consumed almost 500 Mb, but nowadays it uses less than 100, with my same usage patterns.

mayli 6y ago
300MB onload, dropped to 240MB after idling for few minutes. Are you sure it's using less than 100MB? in comparison with the post, it takes about 500MB ram, which is weird for such simple webpage. This HN page takes 40MB.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  Oh sorry, I measured it on Firefox. Chrome on Linux started at 160 Mb, and it settled around 150. I've disabled Hangouts, and the right sidebar, so that might account for the differences. Funny how Firefox reports a third of that, although IDK if Chrome and Firefox task managers are directly comparable.
chrismorgan 6y ago
Four years ago, I found Gmail to tend to use 80–200MB in Firefox, mostly in the lower half of that range. Certainly I found the figures in this test utterly unbelievable for this reason; Safari ain’t lighter on memory than Firefox, let alone that much. But also for reference, it’s not like something of Gmail’s complexity has to use that much memory. Fastmail provides equivalent functionality minus chat in a 10–15MB budget, and you can add calendars and contacts (which are separate in Google land) and still keep it to 16–25MB.
lucideer 6y ago
Gmail specifically has massively improved recently for me, but I feel it tends to be more of a spikey graph than a steady trendline over time. Memory usage went through the roof when they first rolled out their current redesign, despite already being far too high before. I assume Gmail will get worse again at some stage. Similarly, Google Docs & Sheets are abysmal currently; not really sure if they were ever significantly better or worse in the past. In terms of webapps, Google's approach has always seemed to be to make things that are powerful, sometimes usable, but with no focus on performance, cross-browser compat, or general industry best practice at all from a frontend engineering perspective. Any engineering quality in Google products has never in my experience lived in client-side code. This is exacerbated by the fact that "code quality" drives in other companies are often sneaked onto managerial priority lists under the guise of SEO requirements, something Google have never needed to meet.