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Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

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Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#91

Post by mootothemax »

jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

there's little reason not to load out your machine with far more memory than you'd practically need.

Unless you simply can't install more RAM without buying a whole new laptop. That's certainly the case for my laptop; its Intel i5 only can address 8GB max.

Memory is cheap, but buying a new laptop sadly isn't, especially when it's a decent development machine, and a step above standard consumer configurations.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#92

Post by lftl »

While I've switched to a box with ample RAM so that this isn't really a concern any more, my old habit was to open up the Chrome task manager, and just kill any tab that I was just holding in place to read later. All the RAM gets freed up, but the tab is still held in place if I close the window. A simple refresh when I actually want to look at the tab would bring it back up.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#93

Post by kintamanimatt »

jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

Completely disagree. We've seen too much complacency in recent years when it comes to memory usage. Developers think it's ok for their applications to bloat out and have a huge memory footprint. I'd rather applications were developed in such a way that they were more memory efficient.

I've had a recent incident in which Chrome was consuming about 7GB of memory, just because I had about a hundred tabs open! It was really, really, insane. This reckless disregard for memory usage caused more problems in terms of performance, and it wasn't apparent what was happening until things started OOM'ing. (Swapping is really just as bad as an OOM - the computer's practically useless if it's trashing due to low memory.)

Your ideal situation of having more memory used will, in many cases, lead to degraded performance.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#94

Post by cevaris »

revelation wrote: post #33

This is the equivalent of closing all tabs, with the added bonus of having a list of what you just closed. I refuse to compromise on functionality because Chrome can't get its memory deal together.

Agreed. There is no bonus here. Now if you can hot switch between tabs, or rather use some key shortcuts to better manage the switching, that would bee good.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#95

Post by pavanky »

jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

It is not about money, it is about sloppy programming. Sure you can use more memory, but not at the cost of disrupting everything else on the system. For example most of the netbooks / ultrabooks or whatever you call them (including macbook air) used to come with 4GB at most. Upgrading them is a pain, and having a memory hog is definitely an issue in those cases.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#96

Post by jbarrow »

I really like the functionality of OneTab, as I'm someone who frequently has 3 concurrent Chrome windows, each with dozens of running tabs.

The one thing that's going to prevent me from using this regularly, though, is that once you reopen a tab, there's no back state. I find that some of the most valuable information that I can get from a webpage isn't necessarily the page itself, it's the process leading up to the page.

That being said, this is an absolutely beautiful Chrome extension and I commend the developers on what they've accomplished.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#97

Post by rmk2 »

martinced wrote: post #90
rmk2 wrote: post #69

I absolutely fail to see the point here. Why should I use this? Is this again one of these instances where, magically, free RAM is good? 30 tabs opened simultaneously (with AdBlock, Ghostery and Disconnect), alongside Thunderbird, Emacs (+daemon) and a full DE run up to 1.8GiB of RAM used on my machine, which is everything but fast, new, or fancy. Consequently, I still have 2GB of RAM remaining that are not directly…

"...when exactly does any computer bought at the same time (or since) have actual problems of running out of memory?" Ah yes, I remember the days being a dev that didn't use VMs. It kinda sucked as a development environment that said: no easy way to test software on different OSes locally, no easy way to try other software which you don't necessarily trust in a confined environment (to see if it may be worth using, i…

So, in that case, when you are developing, you are actively using multiple VMs and 30++ tabs? Maybe I am just bad at multitasking, but while I do see the point of the VMs, I don't see how they fundamentally change the overall picture.

I don't doubt that you can manage to fill an arbitrary amount of RAM running multiple browsers, VMs and other programs, however, I do fail to see how that in turn enhances (or constricts) productivity. Multiple VMs? Sure. Multiple browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs and browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs, browsers and multiple dozen tabs? I don't see a use case here.

If you have multiple multi-gigabyte VMs running, chances are its not your brower's RAM usage that is hamstringing you by using all available RAM.

edit: I'm not saying I don't see a use case were theoretically there are tangible limits on RAM which become a problem, but to me, it remains exactly that: theoretical.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#98

Post by rikkus »

srgseg wrote: post #86
jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

Not only does it save you memory, it also reduces CPU usage because Chrome would otherwise continue to run scripts in all of your open tabs. Depending on the complexity of the web pages, having 100 open tabs can easily cripple a brand new laptop with 8GB ram.

Having 100 open tabs would be unmanageable from a UI perspective. I can't deal with more than about 8 open at once, per window. I just bookmark stuff to come back to later if I'm dealing with more.

So ... it's not a technical problem.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#99

Post by Fargren »

jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

Memory is cheap in the the first world. I live in Argentina, which is not a particularly poor or undeveloped country, and my 8GB of RAM are almost impressive. I know of no one who has 16 GB, and a few of my friends have 8. Most people I know of have between 1GB and 4GB, with 2GB being by far the most common configuration.

Re: Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

#100

Post by asafh »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #93
jdietrich wrote: post #79

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either D…

Completely disagree. We've seen too much complacency in recent years when it comes to memory usage. Developers think it's ok for their applications to bloat out and have a huge memory footprint. I'd rather applications were developed in such a way that they were more memory efficient. I've had a recent incident in which Chrome was consuming about 7GB of memory, just because I had about a hundred tabs open! It was rea…

I agree with you, but 7GB for 100 tabs sounds likes something unusual happened. I usually have around 200-350 tabs open (Yes, I'm hoarding, I'm aware of it). I usually terminate their processes and respawn them when I need them (their state is not lost) but IIRC, when I don't I get around 3GB for 200 Tabs
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