4 ms·

They are moving in the right direction. Browser vendors should optimize for low memory usage and not for speed in bechmarks at the cost of memory usage, because

They are moving in the right direction. Browser vendors should optimize for low memory usage and not for speed in bechmarks at the cost of memory usage, because when the system runs out of memory everything becomes so slow that benchmark performance doesn't matter anymore. The only people who win from benchmark optimization are those with 16-32 Gb of RAM (for example, Google employees). So I would rather choose a browser with 2x-3x lower benchmark performance if it could consume 2x-3x less memory. Firefox is basically unusable on a 2Gb system as long as you useit more than 15 minutes. One of the solutions could be to freeze and compress background tabs. There is no need to keep in memory HTTP caches, localstorage, heavy JIT caches, CSS selector dependency trees, JS bytecode, DOM nodes without JS expandos attached. Freezing background tabs also allows to save energy.

mananaysiempre 4y ago
> The only people who win from benchmark optimization are those with 16-32 Gb of RAM (for example, Google employees). Limiting RAM has become a silly market segmentation tactic, and I’d say there is absolutely no reason to buy a PC with less than 16 GB of RAM these days. It’s downright stupid you can still buy machines with 6 GB. Better to buy several generations down or used—old CPUs are still perfectly serviceable unless you’re planning to submit to some serious C++/Rust compiler punishment. (Says the person with an 8GB dual-core Haswell that is showing definite signs of obsolescence, but I still stand by my words.)
- eyko 4y ago
  Is it also downright stupid that people still use computers with 4 GB of RAM for browsing? Asking for a friend.
  - codedokode 4y ago
    4 Gb is not enough for browsing, at least with Firefox on Linux with more than 10 tabs.
    - Adverblessly 4y ago
      4Gb is more than enough with Firefox on Linux with more than 30 tabs assuming you use uBlock Origin and uMatrix :) Source: did just that on a daily basis on my recently replaced 10 year old laptop. I probably would have even been able to handle 2Gb assuming Firefox was the only application running.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    People use what they have, I won’t blame them for it. (Although the notion that web apps—such as Facebook, GMail, Google Docs, or PDF.js—are less resource-intensive than “normal” desktop usage does not seem to hold much water to me, and those are usually included when a machine is said to be used “just for web browsing”. So if the experience ends up quite miserable I won’t be surprised.) But I’ve shopped for a laptop for a relative some months ago and am a bit testy about how manufacturers seem to be saving money on frickin’ RAM (or more realistically segmenting the market using it). Just... don’t fall for it if you have a choice.
  - black3r 4y ago
    if the RAM is upgradable then I'd say yes.. 8GB RAM stick costs ~25€ and anyone with a screwdriver can make the swap... if it's not upgradable then it's up to the user to determine if it's worth it to replace the whole laptop, but if it has 4GB of RAM its other specs are probably gonna be outdated as well and you can buy very good refurbished laptops for under 300€ these days...
- codedokode 4y ago
  Exactly. The examples are Mac laptops with soldered memory, which several years later will still have a great screen, case, fast CPU, but will be unusable due to having too little RAM. In the best case the user will have to buy a new motherboard and throw away perfectly working CPU and GPU, and in the worst case buy a new device. Also, even 15-year old CPUs are still pretty fast and can do billions arithmetic operations per second. Only because Intel decided not to add several more address lines which cost them basically nothing, these machines have to be thrown away.
- xigoi 4y ago
  > I’d say there is absolutely no reason to buy a PC with less than 16 GB of RAM these days. You know, people don't have unlimited money.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    > You know, people don't have unlimited money. Of course. I mean that as far as I can see one should normally save on just about everything else, including going back multiple CPU generations (let alone giving up on a discrete GPU) and buying a used laptop instead of a new one (in case it’s a laptop), before opting for less RAM. (I’m not including Chromebooks in this calculation, as those have never been available to me.)
andai 4y ago
I use (an old version from GitHub, it was bought by a spyware company) of The Great Suspender to save RAM. Though I think both FF and Chrome added such features natively, though they are less aggressive and (afaik) cannot be configured. Edit: someone mentioned chrome://discards
maccard 4y ago
> The only people who win from benchmark optimization are those with 16-32 Gb of RAM (for example, Google employees). > Firefox is basically unusable on a 2Gb system <...> I just had a look at one of the largest laptop retailers in the UK, and they don't sell laptops with less than 4GB anymore. Checking the steam survey [0] (which is biased towards gamers but still a very representative sample of PC owners and users), almost 95% of people have more than 4GB. Realistically, 2GB and even 4GB devices are at the absolute bottom end of devices that are in use in desktop computing. Mobile is a different beast, but android has a specific lightweight OS for 2GB devices, and 4GB devices are budget at this stage. 6GB is the requirement for full-fat android. [1] You may or may not agree that it's necessary, but the reality is that 2GB device are bordering on obsolete in 2022. > One of the solutions could be to freeze and compress background tabs. Firefox supports this already [2] [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-performance-class/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-performance-class/ [2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/unload-inactive-tabs-save-system-memory-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/unload-inactive-tabs-sa...
- codedokode 4y ago
  The laptop I had supported 4 Gb (due to artificial limitations by Intel), but it started to switch off randomly and I found out that if you remove one (any) of RAM cards, then it can work without any issues. So this is how you can have a 2Gb device in 2022. Having two laptops is twice better than having just one, so I decided to continue using it. Maybe I will connect it as a virtual monitor for a second laptop (then 2 Gb should be enough), but I am not sure if Wayland supports this. Also, even if new laptos have 4+ Gb of RAM, there are still 5-10 years old models in use.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >So this is how you can have a 2Gb device in 2022. Can you please point out which laptop in 2022 is being sold with 2GB of ram limitation? Really curious. The smallest I could find for sale in my country is 4GB and I had to look really hard as they're not cheaper than buying something with 8GB of ram or they're just ARM Chromebooks. Even most budget chinese Android phones rarely ship with less than 4GB of RAM anymore. So you made me very curious about 2GB laptops retailing in 2022. Edit: wow, why the downvotes guys? Is it against the rules to aske questions?
orangeoxidation 4y ago
> One of the solutions could be to freeze and compress background tabs. FF can do it, but it only triggers in low ram situations and detection is wonky, disabled on Linux. I found the auto tab discard addon [0] to be a game changer on my low ram machine. It just works (though not on mobile). [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
crazygringo 4y ago
> because when the system runs out of memory everything becomes so slow that benchmark performance doesn't matter anymore Huh? When the system is getting close to running out of memory, isn't the least-recently-used memory swapped out to disk by the OS? And if you're using an SSD like nearly everyone these days, it isn't even noticeable. Freezing tabs is a good idea to ensure the memory stops being accessed precisely so it can be swapped... but besides this, why not let the browser use all the memory it needs, and just let swap do its job? It seems entirely redundant for a browser to try to save memory by essentially implementing its own secondary swap strategy.
- codedokode 4y ago
  > When the system is getting close to running out of memory, isn't the least-recently-used memory swapped out to disk by the OS? After all least-recently used memory is swapped out, the time comes to swap out recently used memory and it becomes noticeable, especially with a spinning disk with 400Kb/sec random write speed. Swapping is extremely ineffective. Unloading a tab allows to use sequential write which is orders faster than random write even with SSD.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    If you're in a position where you're swapping out recently used memory then you have specific computing needs (like running VM's) where you should have purchased more memory. For keeping things open in the background that aren't being actively used, swapping is extremely effective. I don't see any good reason why background applications should get swapped out by the OS, but background tabs should be handled by a different mechanism. (And I have no idea what sequential write has to do with anything...? If you're talking about coming back to an old tab, loading it from swap will nearly always be faster than reloading over the internet, no?)
    - codedokode 4y ago
      For HDD and SDD, it is much faster to write a large chunk of data at once than write many small chunks. For example, writing 500 Mb at once is faster than writing 50Mb worth of 4Kb chunks. For HDD, sequential write speed can be 50 Mb/s and random write speed for 4Kb chunks can be as low as 400 Kb/s. For SSD, there is also a difference in speed on order of 50x. Swapping uses 4Kb chunks and therefore uses the drive in the most inefficient mode. Alternative mechanism can employ faster and effective sequential access.
basch 4y ago
With NVME drives, paging is fast. You can optimize for low memory if you have fast storage and good swap. I would much rather incur a swap load time than a page refresh.
holbrad 4y ago
If you look at Windows 11 minimum requirements it lists 4GB. Seems like a reasonable bar to test against. 2GB even a decade ago was very low end.

mananaysiempre 4y ago

> The only people who win from benchmark optimization are those with 16-32 Gb of RAM (for example, Google employees). Limiting RAM has become a silly market segmentation tactic, and I’d say there is absolutely no reason to buy a PC with less than 16 GB of RAM these days. It’s downright stupid you can still buy machines with 6 GB. Better to buy several generations down or used—old CPUs are still perfectly serviceable unless you’re planning to submit to some serious C++/Rust compiler punishment. (Says the person with an 8GB dual-core Haswell that is showing definite signs of obsolescence, but I still stand by my words.)

eyko 4y ago
Is it also downright stupid that people still use computers with 4 GB of RAM for browsing? Asking for a friend.
- codedokode 4y ago
  4 Gb is not enough for browsing, at least with Firefox on Linux with more than 10 tabs.
  - Adverblessly 4y ago
    4Gb is more than enough with Firefox on Linux with more than 30 tabs assuming you use uBlock Origin and uMatrix :) Source: did just that on a daily basis on my recently replaced 10 year old laptop. I probably would have even been able to handle 2Gb assuming Firefox was the only application running.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  People use what they have, I won’t blame them for it. (Although the notion that web apps—such as Facebook, GMail, Google Docs, or PDF.js—are less resource-intensive than “normal” desktop usage does not seem to hold much water to me, and those are usually included when a machine is said to be used “just for web browsing”. So if the experience ends up quite miserable I won’t be surprised.) But I’ve shopped for a laptop for a relative some months ago and am a bit testy about how manufacturers seem to be saving money on frickin’ RAM (or more realistically segmenting the market using it). Just... don’t fall for it if you have a choice.
- black3r 4y ago
  if the RAM is upgradable then I'd say yes.. 8GB RAM stick costs ~25€ and anyone with a screwdriver can make the swap... if it's not upgradable then it's up to the user to determine if it's worth it to replace the whole laptop, but if it has 4GB of RAM its other specs are probably gonna be outdated as well and you can buy very good refurbished laptops for under 300€ these days...
codedokode 4y ago
Exactly. The examples are Mac laptops with soldered memory, which several years later will still have a great screen, case, fast CPU, but will be unusable due to having too little RAM. In the best case the user will have to buy a new motherboard and throw away perfectly working CPU and GPU, and in the worst case buy a new device. Also, even 15-year old CPUs are still pretty fast and can do billions arithmetic operations per second. Only because Intel decided not to add several more address lines which cost them basically nothing, these machines have to be thrown away.
xigoi 4y ago
> I’d say there is absolutely no reason to buy a PC with less than 16 GB of RAM these days. You know, people don't have unlimited money.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  > You know, people don't have unlimited money. Of course. I mean that as far as I can see one should normally save on just about everything else, including going back multiple CPU generations (let alone giving up on a discrete GPU) and buying a used laptop instead of a new one (in case it’s a laptop), before opting for less RAM. (I’m not including Chromebooks in this calculation, as those have never been available to me.)

andai 4y ago

I use (an old version from GitHub, it was bought by a spyware company) of The Great Suspender to save RAM. Though I think both FF and Chrome added such features natively, though they are less aggressive and (afaik) cannot be configured. Edit: someone mentioned chrome://discards

maccard 4y ago

> The only people who win from benchmark optimization are those with 16-32 Gb of RAM (for example, Google employees). > Firefox is basically unusable on a 2Gb system <...> I just had a look at one of the largest laptop retailers in the UK, and they don't sell laptops with less than 4GB anymore. Checking the steam survey [0] (which is biased towards gamers but still a very representative sample of PC owners and users), almost 95% of people have more than 4GB. Realistically, 2GB and even 4GB devices are at the absolute bottom end of devices that are in use in desktop computing. Mobile is a different beast, but android has a specific lightweight OS for 2GB devices, and 4GB devices are budget at this stage. 6GB is the requirement for full-fat android. [1] You may or may not agree that it's necessary, but the reality is that 2GB device are bordering on obsolete in 2022. > One of the solutions could be to freeze and compress background tabs. Firefox supports this already [2] [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-performance-class/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-performance-class/ [2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/unload-inactive-tabs-save-system-memory-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/unload-inactive-tabs-sa...

codedokode 4y ago
The laptop I had supported 4 Gb (due to artificial limitations by Intel), but it started to switch off randomly and I found out that if you remove one (any) of RAM cards, then it can work without any issues. So this is how you can have a 2Gb device in 2022. Having two laptops is twice better than having just one, so I decided to continue using it. Maybe I will connect it as a virtual monitor for a second laptop (then 2 Gb should be enough), but I am not sure if Wayland supports this. Also, even if new laptos have 4+ Gb of RAM, there are still 5-10 years old models in use.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >So this is how you can have a 2Gb device in 2022. Can you please point out which laptop in 2022 is being sold with 2GB of ram limitation? Really curious. The smallest I could find for sale in my country is 4GB and I had to look really hard as they're not cheaper than buying something with 8GB of ram or they're just ARM Chromebooks. Even most budget chinese Android phones rarely ship with less than 4GB of RAM anymore. So you made me very curious about 2GB laptops retailing in 2022. Edit: wow, why the downvotes guys? Is it against the rules to aske questions?

orangeoxidation 4y ago

> One of the solutions could be to freeze and compress background tabs. FF can do it, but it only triggers in low ram situations and detection is wonky, disabled on Linux. I found the auto tab discard addon [0] to be a game changer on my low ram machine. It just works (though not on mobile). [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...

crazygringo 4y ago

> because when the system runs out of memory everything becomes so slow that benchmark performance doesn't matter anymore Huh? When the system is getting close to running out of memory, isn't the least-recently-used memory swapped out to disk by the OS? And if you're using an SSD like nearly everyone these days, it isn't even noticeable. Freezing tabs is a good idea to ensure the memory stops being accessed precisely so it can be swapped... but besides this, why not let the browser use all the memory it needs, and just let swap do its job? It seems entirely redundant for a browser to try to save memory by essentially implementing its own secondary swap strategy.

codedokode 4y ago
> When the system is getting close to running out of memory, isn't the least-recently-used memory swapped out to disk by the OS? After all least-recently used memory is swapped out, the time comes to swap out recently used memory and it becomes noticeable, especially with a spinning disk with 400Kb/sec random write speed. Swapping is extremely ineffective. Unloading a tab allows to use sequential write which is orders faster than random write even with SSD.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  If you're in a position where you're swapping out recently used memory then you have specific computing needs (like running VM's) where you should have purchased more memory. For keeping things open in the background that aren't being actively used, swapping is extremely effective. I don't see any good reason why background applications should get swapped out by the OS, but background tabs should be handled by a different mechanism. (And I have no idea what sequential write has to do with anything...? If you're talking about coming back to an old tab, loading it from swap will nearly always be faster than reloading over the internet, no?)
  - codedokode 4y ago
    For HDD and SDD, it is much faster to write a large chunk of data at once than write many small chunks. For example, writing 500 Mb at once is faster than writing 50Mb worth of 4Kb chunks. For HDD, sequential write speed can be 50 Mb/s and random write speed for 4Kb chunks can be as low as 400 Kb/s. For SSD, there is also a difference in speed on order of 50x. Swapping uses 4Kb chunks and therefore uses the drive in the most inefficient mode. Alternative mechanism can employ faster and effective sequential access.

basch 4y ago

With NVME drives, paging is fast. You can optimize for low memory if you have fast storage and good swap. I would much rather incur a swap load time than a page refresh.

holbrad 4y ago

If you look at Windows 11 minimum requirements it lists 4GB. Seems like a reasonable bar to test against. 2GB even a decade ago was very low end.