6 ms·

just because I had about a hundred tabs open That is a lot of tabs, though.

kintamanimatt 14y ago
Not really, especially if you're doing a lot of research, or for whatever reason the page is particularly complex and it causes the process that tab is running under to consume a lot of memory.
- DavidHogue 14y ago
  I end up with quite a few tabs open myself. I find if I bookmark a tab, add it to Pocket, or copy the URL into my notes that I'm far more likely to go back and actually read it. Before I would keep tabs open for weeks "just in case".
  - chenster 14y ago
    I can relate, I do the same to keep the tabs open so to read them later. Most of them end of not reading them weeks later. Never use Pocket. Presumably, it's similar to ReadItLater or Instapaper? Perhaps indeed that's better approach.
- adventured 14y ago
  No, a hundred tabs is still far beyond a lot. If a hundred tabs is not really a lot, what would be? 250? 1,000?
  - kintamanimatt 14y ago
    Whatever the brightline test for "a lot" is, there's no compelling reason each tab should be consuming about 70MB. Under Chrome, each tab runs in its own process, which is certainly a contributing factor. I appreciate this is for stability and security, but it's not the best solution for the problem and has some serious drawbacks, i.e. horrible memory usage.
    - ibrahima 14y ago
      As I said in another reply to one of your comments, I don't think 70MB is a lot per tab. I'm fairly certain that if you run Firefox 2 for instance it'll use close to that amount for one tab.
    - kcbanner 14y ago
      The fact that it is its own process is a very small contributor to per-tab memory usage.
- hnriot 14y ago
  tabs are not a replacement for bookmarks, the idea is not to open an ever increasing number of tabs, but rather bookmark and folder things if you need 100 concurrent research tabs. It's just the wrong way to use the browser. It would be like me arguing that driving my car with the parking brake on makes it get hot, of course it does, it's user error.
  - kintamanimatt 14y ago
    Well, no. If you've got all those tabs open and you're flitting between their contents, it's appropriate. It's not the wrong way to use the tool, it's a way to use it that's perfectly appropriate in some cases. There's no reason I should be fighting against my browser because my optimal workflow causes it to chew through memory!
    - hnriot 14y ago
      no. when number of open tabs < 10-20, yes sure, but when that number reaches 100, your doing it all wrong. Its not about how much memory it consumes, that's irrelevant, if you need more memory just go to crucial.com, it's dirt cheap. Its about using the tools properly.
      - kintamanimatt 14y ago
        I can't argue the position for this workflow better than I already have. I refute the idea that I'm "doing it all wrong". No, I'm not and this was the only efficient way to get what I needed to do done. My laptop's motherboard can't handle more than 8GB, so I don't even have the option of putting more RAM in it as it already has 8GB. Also, I shouldn't have to keep throwing in memory to handle applications whose coders feel it is fine and dandy to gobble memory with reckless abandon. Why should I bear the financial cost of a poorly designed application? I'm most certainly using my tools properly whether you agree or not. I'm not bitching about 5,000 tabs causing excessive memory usage, I'm complaining about 100 which is not that many during research that requires going from page to page, or opening lots of links without having to remember where I was at in each part of my stack; I've got less working memory than my computer!
halviti 14y ago
I average over a hundred tabs regularly. Although once the favicons disappear, I usually open a new window, or group windows by subject matter. I've tried to alter my browsing habits over the years to ease the load on my computer, but I've just come to accept that I am just one of those people. This tool is either the best thing that's ever happened, or it's about to exacerbate my problem 10 fold.
- hnriot 14y ago
  if you have a 100 tabs open, you're using it wrong.
  - bd_at_rivenhill 14y ago
    How do you suggest to handle the fact that there are many websites which break the "back" button these days? I've gotten to the point where I open a new tab practically every time I follow a link. Not to mention news sites where you need to open all of the interesting articles that you see before the page updates and they go away.
  - simonster 14y ago
    Well, if you have 100 tabs open, you might be using the wrong browser. Chrome is obviously not designed to work with that many tabs, either from a UI standpoint or, apparently, a memory use standpoint. However, I don't really see why there needs to be a strict limit on the number of tabs you can have open before your browser starts trashing all your memory. This is a problem that can be solved by designing your software to deal with that use scenario, either by pausing unused pages and serializing the resources to disk or by disposing of the unused pages entirely without removing the tabs. You'd want a pref for this, but it seems entirely reasonable to me.
    - hnriot 14y ago
      there isn't a strict limit, its just not a viable use case for current browsers. Maybe what we need is Chrome/FF to consider the very high tab count as a use case and handle it better, when you have so many tabs it's not easy to find the 1 in 100 that you're looking for, we would need a new find tool, possible the browser should build a client side tf/idf index and make the whole working set (workspace) searchable. You see what I mean? Until the browser changes to support this usecase, the usage will be klunky and fraught with problems.
tripzilch 14y ago
Probably but it's still 70MB per tab.

Not really, especially if you're doing a lot of research, or for whatever reason the page is particularly complex and it causes the process that tab is running under to consume a lot of memory.

DavidHogue 14y ago
I end up with quite a few tabs open myself. I find if I bookmark a tab, add it to Pocket, or copy the URL into my notes that I'm far more likely to go back and actually read it. Before I would keep tabs open for weeks "just in case".
- chenster 14y ago
  I can relate, I do the same to keep the tabs open so to read them later. Most of them end of not reading them weeks later. Never use Pocket. Presumably, it's similar to ReadItLater or Instapaper? Perhaps indeed that's better approach.
adventured 14y ago
No, a hundred tabs is still far beyond a lot. If a hundred tabs is not really a lot, what would be? 250? 1,000?
- kintamanimatt 14y ago
  Whatever the brightline test for "a lot" is, there's no compelling reason each tab should be consuming about 70MB. Under Chrome, each tab runs in its own process, which is certainly a contributing factor. I appreciate this is for stability and security, but it's not the best solution for the problem and has some serious drawbacks, i.e. horrible memory usage.
  - ibrahima 14y ago
    As I said in another reply to one of your comments, I don't think 70MB is a lot per tab. I'm fairly certain that if you run Firefox 2 for instance it'll use close to that amount for one tab.
  - kcbanner 14y ago
    The fact that it is its own process is a very small contributor to per-tab memory usage.
hnriot 14y ago
tabs are not a replacement for bookmarks, the idea is not to open an ever increasing number of tabs, but rather bookmark and folder things if you need 100 concurrent research tabs. It's just the wrong way to use the browser. It would be like me arguing that driving my car with the parking brake on makes it get hot, of course it does, it's user error.
- kintamanimatt 14y ago
  Well, no. If you've got all those tabs open and you're flitting between their contents, it's appropriate. It's not the wrong way to use the tool, it's a way to use it that's perfectly appropriate in some cases. There's no reason I should be fighting against my browser because my optimal workflow causes it to chew through memory!
  - hnriot 14y ago
    no. when number of open tabs < 10-20, yes sure, but when that number reaches 100, your doing it all wrong. Its not about how much memory it consumes, that's irrelevant, if you need more memory just go to crucial.com, it's dirt cheap. Its about using the tools properly.
    - kintamanimatt 14y ago
      I can't argue the position for this workflow better than I already have. I refute the idea that I'm "doing it all wrong". No, I'm not and this was the only efficient way to get what I needed to do done. My laptop's motherboard can't handle more than 8GB, so I don't even have the option of putting more RAM in it as it already has 8GB. Also, I shouldn't have to keep throwing in memory to handle applications whose coders feel it is fine and dandy to gobble memory with reckless abandon. Why should I bear the financial cost of a poorly designed application? I'm most certainly using my tools properly whether you agree or not. I'm not bitching about 5,000 tabs causing excessive memory usage, I'm complaining about 100 which is not that many during research that requires going from page to page, or opening lots of links without having to remember where I was at in each part of my stack; I've got less working memory than my computer!

halviti 14y ago

I average over a hundred tabs regularly. Although once the favicons disappear, I usually open a new window, or group windows by subject matter. I've tried to alter my browsing habits over the years to ease the load on my computer, but I've just come to accept that I am just one of those people. This tool is either the best thing that's ever happened, or it's about to exacerbate my problem 10 fold.

hnriot 14y ago
if you have a 100 tabs open, you're using it wrong.
- bd_at_rivenhill 14y ago
  How do you suggest to handle the fact that there are many websites which break the "back" button these days? I've gotten to the point where I open a new tab practically every time I follow a link. Not to mention news sites where you need to open all of the interesting articles that you see before the page updates and they go away.
- simonster 14y ago
  Well, if you have 100 tabs open, you might be using the wrong browser. Chrome is obviously not designed to work with that many tabs, either from a UI standpoint or, apparently, a memory use standpoint. However, I don't really see why there needs to be a strict limit on the number of tabs you can have open before your browser starts trashing all your memory. This is a problem that can be solved by designing your software to deal with that use scenario, either by pausing unused pages and serializing the resources to disk or by disposing of the unused pages entirely without removing the tabs. You'd want a pref for this, but it seems entirely reasonable to me.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    there isn't a strict limit, its just not a viable use case for current browsers. Maybe what we need is Chrome/FF to consider the very high tab count as a use case and handle it better, when you have so many tabs it's not easy to find the 1 in 100 that you're looking for, we would need a new find tool, possible the browser should build a client side tf/idf index and make the whole working set (workspace) searchable. You see what I mean? Until the browser changes to support this usecase, the usage will be klunky and fraught with problems.

tripzilch 14y ago

Probably but it's still 70MB per tab.