The other flip side is we also keep things mapped into memory more often. So that tab you haven't opened in a while will have the media in it memory mapped. It

The other flip side is we also keep things mapped into memory more often. So that tab you haven't opened in a while will have the media in it memory mapped. It won't actually be loaded in RAM. The mapping just allows it to be more easily loaded if you ever opened that tab again. This leads to users with 'just enough knowledge to be dangerous' looking at total memory allocated and making outlandish claims. "My browser shows 4GB allocated when I open a single tab, you obviously need 128gb minimum for multiple tabs these days" they will say as they post from a mobile device with 256mb of RAM running the exact same browser and which would show the exact same allocation patterns if htop was as easy to access on a phone. So we have this problem where various apps show outlandish ram usage to end users who just don't understand memory allocation. The apps will be snappy and responsive because memory mapping is a really efficient way to not load things like unused browser tabs into memory but they'll ignore the actual high performance and make ridiculous claims that you can't use chrome/safari/edge with 8GB of ram. It's a bit of a losing battle. I've even seen tech sites post articles '8gb isn't enough!!' complete with a screenshot of 'memory allocated' rather than an actual deep dive into page misses and performance issues. If those users actually ran the same memory usage tools on their phone they might be in for a shock. Chrome has the same allocation patterns on phones too and the phones don't have 8gb of ram. Because they simply never had a view that showed '4gb allocated' for a single tab on their phone they think mobile chrome is super special and doesn't need that while their perfectly performance 8gb laptop does. It's super frustrating.