5 ms·

I honestly can't give hard numbers, but I really did switch back to FF because of the memory usage. My ancient-by-HN-standards but not-too-ancient-by-normal-sta

by ewencp 14y ago

I honestly can't give hard numbers, but I really did switch back to FF because of the memory usage. My ancient-by-HN-standards but not-too-ancient-by-normal-standards desktop with 4GB RAM (Ubuntu 10.04 if that's relevant) was starting to thrash like crazy with a moderate number of tabs (maybe 6-12 on average), but most importantly, with a few open for long periods of time. Firefox seemed to really clean up their act wrt memory, where Chromium seemed to grow without bound and keep a lot of it in the working set, doubling the pain. Firefox isn't perfect, but it seems to be more of a problem with Flash than the browser (clearing out my Rdio tab has the most effect). And measuring memory usage through top isn't perfect, but FF does seem to use significantly less RES even after long sessions. So, anecdotal evidence, but I was using Chromium as my regular browser for years and ended up switching back to FF because I found the performance on my reasonable-but-aging machine to be far superior to Chromes under regular, long-term usage.

ok_craig 14y ago
Makes sense. I wonder if Chrome is particularly bad on Linux? (My desktop runs Windows.)
- ewencp 14y ago
  Not in my experience -- I have the same issues on my MBP, though I use it maybe 1/10th the time, so I'm less certain of that impression.
  - beaner 14y ago
    Yeah, that's suspicious. On my Macbook Air, which is noticeably weaker, I don't experience any of that with Chrome.
    - ewencp 14y ago
      Should probably qualify: MBP from 3-4 years ago... But I don't expect it should suck this bad this quickly....
- slacka 14y ago
  I have a win7 laptop with 4GB of RAM. After using Chrome from the beginning, I also was forced to switch back to Firefox because recent builds of Chrome began thrashing with 10+ tabs open. Firefox has it's issues. It still doesn't silently update when run under a normal user account. Also the UI freezes when running heavy HTML5 pages. Chrome is beginning to feel like FF 3. Google needs to take a page from Mozilla and start their own MemShrink program.
  - mnarayan01 14y ago
    > Also the UI freezes when running heavy HTML5 pages. Any examples? I've never seen this (other than blatantly broken JS), and would be interested in seeing what would cause it.
    - slacka 14y ago
      My trading platform, tradeking.com, has a web app called Live Trading. According to the task manager, it maxes out 1 of my cores, and makes Firefox's UI unusable in both my home and work computers. My solution has been to run that app in Chrome, and do my light duty browsing in FF. Chrome's CPU usage is also high, but the UI stays responsive.
      - mnarayan01 14y ago
        Heh...it would be something I can't go to. It sounds more like inefficient JS than any HTML5 issues, but that is one drawback to not separating tabs; if the JS on one is maxing a core, you can't do anything anywhere else.
- AUmrysh 14y ago
  It is, I've had nothing but issues with it on Linux, including problems where it would lock up the entire computer. There's no choice for me on Linux but FireFox, even though I prefer Chrome on Windows.
- khill 14y ago
  I use Ubuntu for both work and home use. Chrome is the only browser I use and I never have any problems with it. I don't use sites like gmail or google docs, though, so maybe it has more to do with the sites visited than the OS platform.

by ewencp 14y ago

ok_craig 14y ago

Makes sense. I wonder if Chrome is particularly bad on Linux? (My desktop runs Windows.)

ewencp 14y ago
Not in my experience -- I have the same issues on my MBP, though I use it maybe 1/10th the time, so I'm less certain of that impression.
- beaner 14y ago
  Yeah, that's suspicious. On my Macbook Air, which is noticeably weaker, I don't experience any of that with Chrome.
  - ewencp 14y ago
    Should probably qualify: MBP from 3-4 years ago... But I don't expect it should suck this bad this quickly....
slacka 14y ago
I have a win7 laptop with 4GB of RAM. After using Chrome from the beginning, I also was forced to switch back to Firefox because recent builds of Chrome began thrashing with 10+ tabs open. Firefox has it's issues. It still doesn't silently update when run under a normal user account. Also the UI freezes when running heavy HTML5 pages. Chrome is beginning to feel like FF 3. Google needs to take a page from Mozilla and start their own MemShrink program.
- mnarayan01 14y ago
  > Also the UI freezes when running heavy HTML5 pages. Any examples? I've never seen this (other than blatantly broken JS), and would be interested in seeing what would cause it.
  - slacka 14y ago
    My trading platform, tradeking.com, has a web app called Live Trading. According to the task manager, it maxes out 1 of my cores, and makes Firefox's UI unusable in both my home and work computers. My solution has been to run that app in Chrome, and do my light duty browsing in FF. Chrome's CPU usage is also high, but the UI stays responsive.
    - mnarayan01 14y ago
      Heh...it would be something I can't go to. It sounds more like inefficient JS than any HTML5 issues, but that is one drawback to not separating tabs; if the JS on one is maxing a core, you can't do anything anywhere else.
AUmrysh 14y ago
It is, I've had nothing but issues with it on Linux, including problems where it would lock up the entire computer. There's no choice for me on Linux but FireFox, even though I prefer Chrome on Windows.
khill 14y ago
I use Ubuntu for both work and home use. Chrome is the only browser I use and I never have any problems with it. I don't use sites like gmail or google docs, though, so maybe it has more to do with the sites visited than the OS platform.