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On a mac, which browser hogs the least memory

Rod Hagen

By Rod Hagen
in Tech Talk

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honcho Grand Master

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The amount of memory definitely climbs for each tab you have open as well ... (and any window with video in it especially so).

(but my guess is would be that safari consumes less memory than firefox does for rendering the same set of pages).

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honcho Grand Master

+ honcho

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The amount of memory definitely climbs for each tab you have open as well ... (and any window with video in it especially so).

(but my guess is would be that safari consumes less memory than firefox does for rendering the same set of pages).

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Lookin Grand Master

Lookin

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I've used Safari since forever and, for the first time in decades, I'm not experiencing any regular performance lags. I've got a dozen tabs in the window I'm using now and often have another handful of windows open. Not sure why, but I think it may have to do with improved memory management, especially swap memory when the Mac shuttles bytes between RAM and the hard drive.

 

I got a MacBook Pro a couple years ago and it has one of those solid-state SSD hard drives, so memory-swapping happens pretty fast.

 

But I also think Apple did something to improve memory management. I've got 8GB of RAM and I never see more than 6.5 GB being used, no matter what. The only time I see the spinning ball in Safari is when it's trying to open my Political bookmarks folder, which has over 800 entries. (Some dating back to the Harding administration. http://www.boytoy.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

 

I used to clear cache constantly, but haven't done it once in the last two years.

 

This is the only computer I've had in forty years that hardly ever makes me wait while it's doing something, Safari included.

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sync Grand Master

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I've tried Opera, but the extensions I want aren't available.

Maybe I'll switch to chrome. I'm guessing most of my extensions will be available. Thank you everyone!

I recently began using Chrome. I still like Firefox, but Chrome is faster for me and videos play better than with Firefox. My only complaint is that my password manager's autofill does not function in Chrome.

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orville Grand Master

orville

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Firefox is way lighter, similar interface to Chrome, and has equivalents for every Chrome extension. I just don't quite like Safari's interface.

 

browser-scores-chart2.png

 

I love the visual analogy of the video below. Chrome actually uses more RAM than Photoshop (guy with the Ps shirt), which already uses A LOT more RAM than most programs, as it needs it for complex image processing. So when using a laptop with fewer resources, it can cause Photoshop or other programs open at the same time, to crash. For those interested,

 

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orville Grand Master

orville

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True as this may be, for me Firefox would randomly get the vapors so often on content heavy websites that I had to ditch it for Chrome.

Fair enough. If you use your laptop mostly for navigating the web and Chrome performs better than Firefox without crashing other programs, then go for it.

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honcho Grand Master

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Firefox is way lighter, similar interface to Chrome, and has equivalents for every Chrome extension. I just don't quite like Safari's interface.

 

browser-scores-chart2.png

(i.e. ]https://img.raymond.cc/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/browser-scores-chart2.png )

 

If you read the URL, you'll notice that this chart is from 2012. Chrome is now at version 81.<something>; safari is at version 11.1.2 (at least on my mac), and firefox is version 76.0.1.

 

I have all 3 on my laptop; I have to use chrome for some things; and some other only function on safari. I do the bulk of my browsing with firefox and have not had an issue, but I tend to keep very few pages open at a time.

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orville Grand Master

orville

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If you read the URL, you'll notice that this chart is from 2012. Chrome is now at version 81.<something>; safari is at version 11.1.2 (at least on my mac), and firefox is version 76.0.1.

 

I have all 3 on my laptop; I have to use chrome for some things; and some other only function on safari. I do the bulk of my browsing with firefox and have not had an issue, but I tend to keep very few pages open at a time.

I know, the ranks haven't really changed as per more recent articles, so being this chart the only visual aid I found, I posted it here to give perspective of where is every browser sitting at. Chrome is a top performer if you don't care about your privacy being constantly breached by Google and Facebook. I prefer Firefox because it really is lighter and I can use multiple extensions to stop Google and Facebook tracking and advertising, which is almost non-sense on Chrome given that it's developed by Google.

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