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Browsers eating RAM

flotato.com

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Re: Browsers eating RAM

#31

Post by Cthulhu_ »

rovr138 wrote: post #5

Flotato, From homepage, >From browser tab to magic Mac app. >Break free from the browser and add web pages to your Mac dock. How about a mac app for Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, and literally millions more? From their help page, > Dig in to making real Mac apps from websites with Flotato. Looks like you can create apps of your websites. And it looks like it does it using Safari's engine.

Isn't that just the same as installing a PWA? (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...)

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#32

Post by strmpnk »

zamadatix wrote: post #11

Don't have a Mac so can't look into it but can anyone confirm this test is actually right? E.g. Brave claims (I don't use Brave I just know they had this claim) Safari is worse for memory usage https://brave.com/brave-one-dot-zero-performance-methodology... while this product that uses Safari claims it's 10x better. Obviously both claims can't be true. From what I remember with Edge (pre Chromium) and Firefox I'm goi…

I’d suppose some of it relates to sites with heavy ads. Safari with no extensions will likely require more resources which makes the comparison a little skewed vs Safari with some ad blocker support added via extensions.

It looks like their test includes plenty of ad heavy sites like news articles which seems to confirm that the results are cherry picked.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#33

Post by Cthulhu_ »

> I reached a point where I could barely hear the podcast I was trying to listen to. That's how loud the fan was.

> focuses mainly on memory usage

I mean I get it, Chrome is not the most efficient browser out there and Safari is more efficient in terms of memory and power usage. I'd probably use Safari as my daily browser if I didn't depend on Chrome's dev tools.

What's the tradeoff though? Usually you sacrifice memory to spare the CPU, and vice versa.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#34

Post by rovr138 »

nerdponx wrote: post #16
rovr138 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the audience. HN audience wouldn't be too bad.

8 cores and 32 GB of RAM is a seriously big computer. That's close to maxed-out for any off-the-shelf laptop or desktop, especially considering it's using a recent CPU architecture and chipset. Edit: as of Feb 18, 2021, you can't even buy a 13-inch MBP with 32 GB of RAM. The 16-inch model with 32 GB of RAM and all other specs set to their minimum/default comes out to $2800 on the Apple online store. That is far, far…

The 13 inch does, but not the M1. You have to use the Intel ones. That's an issue with Apple/M1. No i9 though on them or dedicated graphics.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#35

Post by atfzl »

lettergram wrote: post #22
tpetry wrote: post #19

https://chromeisbad.com/ I did not have time yet to schow whether the claims are true but i found this when searching why i have insanely high windowserver cpu activity. Seems chrome on mac is heading into a strange direction. For normal browsing i use safari since a long time as the battery will last the longest compared to firefox and chrome. But the chrome developer tools are so damn good i can‘t get rid of it for…

I find Firefox dev tools sufficient pretty much 100% of the time... have you considered it?

Have you used the firefox performance timeline, it is awful. Chrome's performance timeline is amazingly smooth and has much more features.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#36

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

I use Safari because it's best by a mile on macOS for power consumption, but if you ever use a memory hungry site like Facebook for more than a few minutes it throws up a memory usage warning and everything becomes extremely slow and you get astronomical scroll jank. I'm guessing that's because it throws a hard cap on tab memory usage and if you go over that it thrashes wildly. So it respects your system, but in doing so is harder on the user for some of the most commonly used websites and might be whacking your drive.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#37

Post by CharlesW »

moksly wrote: post #20
zamadatix wrote: post #11

Don't have a Mac so can't look into it but can anyone confirm this test is actually right? E.g. Brave claims (I don't use Brave I just know they had this claim) Safari is worse for memory usage https://brave.com/brave-one-dot-zero-performance-methodology... while this product that uses Safari claims it's 10x better. Obviously both claims can't be true. From what I remember with Edge (pre Chromium) and Firefox I'm goi…

I use a MacBook Pro 2016 everyday. Safari is easily the best browser memory and systems wise, but I still mainly use chrome because it’s better at addblocking and synchronises with my non-Mac devices. Chrome is fine though, as long as you don’t open 20+ tabs. Beyond that it’s not fine. I replaced Firefox with Chrome because it kept ranging from a great to terrible user experience with various updates. This is all ane…

> …I still mainly use chrome because it’s better at addblocking and synchronises with my non-Mac devices.

(In case you're interested…)

iCloud for Windows now does bookmarks and passwords sync. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/icloud-for-windows-ov...

For ad blocking, I really like 1Blocker. NextDNS is great as well.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#38

Post by runako »

zamadatix wrote: post #11

Don't have a Mac so can't look into it but can anyone confirm this test is actually right? E.g. Brave claims (I don't use Brave I just know they had this claim) Safari is worse for memory usage https://brave.com/brave-one-dot-zero-performance-methodology... while this product that uses Safari claims it's 10x better. Obviously both claims can't be true. From what I remember with Edge (pre Chromium) and Firefox I'm goi…

I don't have stats handy, but this has been published lots of times by many different authors. As others have said, comparing browsers fairly is difficult.

But Chrome is simply not an efficient browser on Macs. Anecdotally, it uses more memory and measurably consumes more energy. The Mac's fan will run more when using Chrome, and you will need to charge more often. If you use a lot of tabs, your entire computer will slow down.

There's market validation for this assertion. There is a YC-backed company currently working on tech to offload Chrome tabs to the cloud so the browser uses fewer resources. This is not something that would be identifiable as a problem in Safari.

If you have access to a Mac, you don't need to take anyone's word for it. Just use Chrome for a few days and then use Safari for a few days. The difference is pronounced. If you use your browser heavily, you will notice.

Since password managers are in the news, Safari also syncs passwords to iOS devices (password sync also works in native apps). It's free.

Re: Browsers eating RAM

#39

Post by lrossi »

minikites wrote: post #21

Why do people continue to use Chrome? Inertia? Genuine love for Google's "services"?

UX is quite good as long as you don’t have to edit the settings. Most buggy sites work on it, which is no longer true for Firefox. It’s also very stable and secure.

But it does get slower and slower with each update.

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