Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#1

Post by Uptrenda » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 1:54 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#2

Post by bitpush » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 3:06 AM UTC

Isnt chrome doing process isolation per tab? The cost of RAM comes with strict security guarantees.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#3

Post by coalstartprob2 » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC

are you ram poor come on

Re: Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#4

Post by Uptrenda » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 5:25 AM UTC

coalstartprob2 wrote: post #3

are you ram poor come on

we went to the moon with 15 kb of ram. 15 kb. There's no way that chrome needs to use that many resources per tab. Something terrible has gone wrong there.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#5

Post by coalstartprob2 » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

Uptrenda wrote: post #4

coalstartprob2 wrote: post #3

are you ram poor come on

we went to the moon with 15 kb of ram. 15 kb. There's no way that chrome needs to use that many resources per tab. Something terrible has gone wrong there.

then try to make a browser with 15kb of ram

those c++ engineers know what theyre doing, and at times they seem like they dont, im pretty sure there were some sensible tradeoffs at play

Re: Ask HN: Why does Chrome use 100+ mb of memory per tab?

#6

Post by khurs » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

Its google, they are probably allocating 99mb to make sure adverts are displaying for max revenue and tracking is being sent by the truck load.

And 1mb for the page content.