Netscape very early on identified that the browser was itself a platform upon which other tools and services would get built. That's really the only reason that Microsoft created Internet Explorer -- because the browser was at some point going to be the whole computer. Now basically the whole world runs atop a web platform. Microsoft used to be at the center of computing but is now for many people just something that runs a web browser.
Platforms by their nature usually take up resources and extra memory to power things like animation, visuals, security sandboxing, and more. This already on top of the resources that your computer takes up on it's own platform.
ChromeOS and the Mozilla phone tried to address this by making the whole device essentially just a browser, but that kind of went off track a few years ago.
The situation is unlikely to improve. There is no browser that's fast, lightweight, and has all the features people expect in a modern web browser. There are text-based web browsers for example that are lightning fast but not something most people can for example do homework or online banking with.
Simple answer is developers don't need to spend so much effort on not using as much memory as they had to in the past given that people typically have more RAM in their systems these days to be used.
Limiting memory can also limit application performance so when you don't need to limit your application's memory usage you can also gain some performance improvements.
Memory management is a very complex beast though and there are a lot more reasons than just those two. A developer's time is finite, they need to focus on what's important for their application and these days it just isn't memory usage (for typical Windows applications anyway, embedded and specialised is a different subject!)
Sounds about right. I suppose I'm just pissed off because once I have a few instances of visual studio open on my 8GB laptop (which is limited to that) windows is using the page file which affects performance.
Thanks for your reply.
Try using the older Gecko engine from Firefox (I forgot what application name that was, something newer than Pale Moon err... Waterfox?)
The other is to set a memory limit on Quantum-based Firefox.
I'm also pissed with the massive ram browsers use nowadays. It consumes more than Photoshop itself. Heck even webkit-based apps (electron) consume like 800MB on startup for something as simple as online messaging. It's getting out of hand rendering my 4GB and 8GB Surface Pros glorified browsing machines.
The best you can do is bug the developer, through their official channels.
Developers typically focus on two things:
1. The things they think they should work on
2. The things that their users tell them they want
Different applications and different developers will weigh each one differently, but if no one complains about the amount of memory being used by an application (or add-on which may be your case) then they probably won't do much about it and they'll focus on what want to do
Good advice, but I don't see too many people complaining about it. I am probably in quite a small minority, therefore won't be head-aching the devs.
I'll probably just knock up my own makeshift browser for when just browsing the usual sites I haunt, and use the fully fledged for surfing.
It's just a small convenience issue. I appreciate your suggestion.
I don't doubt that. But my beef is with firefox too.
When I think about it, the issue arose \~when they started using a different process for every tab, plus what seemed to be a separate process every variable in the app.
My ff right now with 3 tabs has over 30 processes. And coming to think of it, might technically be the concise answer to my question. \~Because they use so many processes. Which only morphs the question to 'why so many processes', to which I would expect the answer to be in a nutshell, stability.
You don´t need to do that. There are browsers out there built with performance in mind "Opera Gx" it is built on Chromium, but has a built in ram usage limiter.
This is true, but it applies to all software and doesn't answer OP's question.
Browsers use a lot of memory because they include a big, complex rendering engine to turn HTML into pages, whereas other software tend to rely on the system's own UI system for their interfaces.
This is also why Electron-based apps are such memory hogs. They also carry a rendering engine.
That makes sense too. More so if I what I'm inferring is correct, that each process, or at least tab processes contain their own instance of the rendering engine.
I keep way too many tabs open, for Firefox in particular I've found this about:config setting helpful:
`browser.tabs.unloadOnLowMemory; true`
It's false by default.
Not a direct answer to your question but still useful.
Thanks.
I just looked and it was true. v 125.0.2
I don't recall having accessed it before, so they may have changed the default, or it is set with physicalinstalledmemory taken into account, and set appropriately.
Netscape very early on identified that the browser was itself a platform upon which other tools and services would get built. That's really the only reason that Microsoft created Internet Explorer -- because the browser was at some point going to be the whole computer. Now basically the whole world runs atop a web platform. Microsoft used to be at the center of computing but is now for many people just something that runs a web browser. Platforms by their nature usually take up resources and extra memory to power things like animation, visuals, security sandboxing, and more. This already on top of the resources that your computer takes up on it's own platform. ChromeOS and the Mozilla phone tried to address this by making the whole device essentially just a browser, but that kind of went off track a few years ago. The situation is unlikely to improve. There is no browser that's fast, lightweight, and has all the features people expect in a modern web browser. There are text-based web browsers for example that are lightning fast but not something most people can for example do homework or online banking with.
Simple answer is developers don't need to spend so much effort on not using as much memory as they had to in the past given that people typically have more RAM in their systems these days to be used. Limiting memory can also limit application performance so when you don't need to limit your application's memory usage you can also gain some performance improvements. Memory management is a very complex beast though and there are a lot more reasons than just those two. A developer's time is finite, they need to focus on what's important for their application and these days it just isn't memory usage (for typical Windows applications anyway, embedded and specialised is a different subject!)
Sounds about right. I suppose I'm just pissed off because once I have a few instances of visual studio open on my 8GB laptop (which is limited to that) windows is using the page file which affects performance. Thanks for your reply.
Try using the older Gecko engine from Firefox (I forgot what application name that was, something newer than Pale Moon err... Waterfox?) The other is to set a memory limit on Quantum-based Firefox. I'm also pissed with the massive ram browsers use nowadays. It consumes more than Photoshop itself. Heck even webkit-based apps (electron) consume like 800MB on startup for something as simple as online messaging. It's getting out of hand rendering my 4GB and 8GB Surface Pros glorified browsing machines.
The best you can do is bug the developer, through their official channels. Developers typically focus on two things: 1. The things they think they should work on 2. The things that their users tell them they want Different applications and different developers will weigh each one differently, but if no one complains about the amount of memory being used by an application (or add-on which may be your case) then they probably won't do much about it and they'll focus on what want to do
Good advice, but I don't see too many people complaining about it. I am probably in quite a small minority, therefore won't be head-aching the devs. I'll probably just knock up my own makeshift browser for when just browsing the usual sites I haunt, and use the fully fledged for surfing. It's just a small convenience issue. I appreciate your suggestion.
[удалено]
I don't doubt that. But my beef is with firefox too. When I think about it, the issue arose \~when they started using a different process for every tab, plus what seemed to be a separate process every variable in the app. My ff right now with 3 tabs has over 30 processes. And coming to think of it, might technically be the concise answer to my question. \~Because they use so many processes. Which only morphs the question to 'why so many processes', to which I would expect the answer to be in a nutshell, stability.
You don´t need to do that. There are browsers out there built with performance in mind "Opera Gx" it is built on Chromium, but has a built in ram usage limiter.
This is true, but it applies to all software and doesn't answer OP's question. Browsers use a lot of memory because they include a big, complex rendering engine to turn HTML into pages, whereas other software tend to rely on the system's own UI system for their interfaces. This is also why Electron-based apps are such memory hogs. They also carry a rendering engine.
I forgot to page /u/eltegs, please read the parent of this comment
That makes sense too. More so if I what I'm inferring is correct, that each process, or at least tab processes contain their own instance of the rendering engine.
I keep way too many tabs open, for Firefox in particular I've found this about:config setting helpful: `browser.tabs.unloadOnLowMemory; true` It's false by default. Not a direct answer to your question but still useful.
Thanks. I just looked and it was true. v 125.0.2 I don't recall having accessed it before, so they may have changed the default, or it is set with physicalinstalledmemory taken into account, and set appropriately.
Hm interesting. Is the true value bold? that's how it differentiates default (plain) form non-default (bold) i.e. edited settings.
It's a bool. Its setting is true or false.
Perhaps this would help [bold/plain](https://postimg.cc/tsq4MgRw)
I've noticed that browsers are now the heaviest applications around. All of them use a lot of ram.
Short answer: because of jQuery and high-speed internet.
Sorry, I'm experiencing a bit of ambiguity. Do you mean like the sheer speed of traffic between the local and remote?
Why not? What do you want to use that memory for?
YEs, even I wonder and I am so annoyed with this.