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Firefox 3 May Be More Memory Efficient Than Either IE or Opera
Edy52285 writes "Ars Technica has an article showing benchmarks pitting Firefox 3 Beta 4 against other browsers. Contenders include IE7, Firefox 2, Opera 9.5 Beta, and Safari 3.0.4 Beta. The piece includes a graph depicting FF3's memory usage well below that of the other browsers. The in-testing browser even trumps Opera, which has long been regarded as the fastest browser around."
I just love this when someone provides a graph without even a detailed scale!
May I use your sig please?
It's one thing to know that IE7 is a resource hog, but another thing entirely to view the graph in the article and be confronted with hard evidence of just how abysmal it is.
I'm going to print out that graph and put it on my wall. Then, when my users come to me and ask why our enterprise isn't rolling out IE7 on our systems, I can just point to it.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Firefox 3 will certainly be a blessing to my company if this holds up through official release. My company is standardized on Firefox for all web browsing and intranet apps. Our PCs are not necessarily cutting edge technology filled with copious amounts of RAM. The average speed is 1GHz and 512Mb RAM running XP. Now if only all apps took the route of less/improved memory usage with each new version instead of the bloat I am suffering with Microsoft Word, Citrix, etc.
Bearded Dragon
Rejoice: FF3 has some garbage collection improvements that should fix many leaks caused by browser add-ons.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
We've being peppered with articles about FF3 lately. Most have been fairly light on content but the consistent high praise (and personal experience using beta2) has made it clear to me that FF3 will be very, very good. I'm actually looking forward to the official release.
Getting excited about a new version of a web browser: how 90's is that?
Serve Gonk.
That is basic web browsing if you aren't using pop-up blocking, and going to the wrong sites
How about the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, produced by the WebKit developers?
The latest Firefox 3 nightly beat Safari 3.1 as well as the latest WebKit nightly on my iMac (2.0 GHz C2D, 2 GB RAM). You might want to run your own tests; you'll find that Firefox 3 is pretty damn quick.
"Slashdot - the one place on the internet where guys brag about how small it is." - that IT girl
But what about threading?
I'm tired of every browser tab and window I have open locking up so Flash can render in one of the windows.
Even IE doesn't do this!
Question everything
The drop-off you see near the end of the graph is where both versions of Firefox crash. I'm excited, because unlike the old version, this now actually really helps reduce its memory usage.
I burned it to CD and it still let through water from the middle, ergo it leaks
which is totally what she said
I happened to have a Fedora system, so I stuck with FF 1.5.x right up until the first day of FF 3b1. I do a lot of work in MediaWiki environments, often pounding away the whole day in FF. Somehow, I rarely manage to have less than 50 tabs open, occasionally as many as 200, in four to eight windows scattered over four desktops.
Memory usage under 1.5.x was unbelievably bad. After a week of heavy use, it would routinely plateau in the 1-1.5 GB range, at which point it would become intolerably slow and force me to restart.
I've downloaded every FF 3 beta the day of first release, and pounded on them all.
3b1 crapped out after just over 2 weeks of heavy use. 3b2 was noticeably better, but not perfect. I wasn't thrilled with 3b3. Page transitions to previously open tabs became more sluggish, back/forward browsing was slower, and they really messed up window to window tab move (didn't take the tab history along for the ride, causing me to lose some major unsaved edits while discovering this unpleasant fact, which happily is now fixed in 3b4).
3b4 has been tremendously solid over the relatively short period since its release. Virtual 540MB, resident 330MB. That's spectacularly low by the standards of previous releases for the intensity of my use. Back/forward page transitions on aged tabs remains slower than for 3b1, but not annoyingly so. Overall, it just feels solid now.
I'm having trouble comprehending that *anyone* once said Firefox had no serious memory leaks. Say what? Firefox 1.5 was the Ginny Sacramoni of web browsers. I'm happy to confirm that Firefox has successfully excised the 90-pound mole from its waddling derriere.
Actually you will be surprised to note that cows do indeed breed, and so do whales. Of course, they don't breed with apostrophes the way your words do.
IE lies. Much of its memory is hidden in system DLLs that don't show up in the Windows Task Manager. To get an accurate read on how much memory IE is using, you need to use special tools that track memory across the system.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Your system is overheating. I keep mine below 0 degrees celsius, and wasn't able to recreate the leaks you described.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!