Partly it's just that the browser is getting more features. Things like WebRTC are a ton of code. More generally, AWSY is useful for identifying some regressio

Partly it's just that the browser is getting more features. Things like WebRTC are a ton of code. More generally, AWSY is useful for identifying some regressions, but it's one specific, unrealistic workload. You can't use it to judge Firefox's overall memory consumption. For example, looking at AWSY you'd think Firefox 13 had the best memory consumption. But I guarantee you that Firefox 28 has better memory consumption. In particular, Firefox 28 has fewer bad cases where memory consumption spirals out of control, and those are the cases that really hurt performance and stability. Using 10 or 20% more memory at start-up, for example, isn't a big deal in comparison.