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Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

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Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#101

Post by lutusp »

coldtea wrote: post #100
reubano wrote: post #93

This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Despite all the improvements, Firefox still has some pretty bad memory leaks and often runs over a gig of memory with just 5 or 6 tabs open. If they go this route, mem leaks will be harder to spot.

> This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Seeing "how much memory is being used" is a major use case for you using a browser? If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

> Seeing "how much memory is being used" is a major use case for you using a browser?

Yes, certainly. My development machine has 8 GB of RAM. On a number of occasions I've recovered from a marginal memory problem/commencement of disk swap by dumping Chrome. I should have more RAM, but still.

Chrome uses a lot of memory. Unless you have a ridiculous amount of RAM, there will be times when you'll notice the load.

> If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

Not really. Not if you care about performance.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#102

Post by reubano »

coldtea wrote: post #100
reubano wrote: post #93

This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Despite all the improvements, Firefox still has some pretty bad memory leaks and often runs over a gig of memory with just 5 or 6 tabs open. If they go this route, mem leaks will be harder to spot.

> This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Seeing "how much memory is being used" is a major use case for you using a browser? If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

> If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

That's a big assumption. Realistically speaking, there's only FF, Safari, and Chrome. FF leaks like crazy (sometimes on it's own but sometimes it could be a plugin). Safari doesn't support all the plugins I use and Chrome may but I'm don't like their dev console layout. And if you don't see how much mem is being used, you have no way of telling if a newly installed plugin just caused a memory leak (unless it just totally prevents you from using the browser).

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#103

Post by ben__p__w »

aen0 wrote: post #20
blueskin_ wrote: post #7

Yay, now firefox can waste just as much memory as Chrome. Guess 1GB for the whole browser wasn't enough; they had to go for ~100MB/tab. Got to keep up with Chrome after all. If I use chrome for normal browsing (I don't normally because its feature set is poor, customisability is a dirty words, and I don't like the privacy risk), it can rapidly slurp 4GB or more of memory (with perhaps two key addons, adblock and DoNo…

Be aware that Adblock Plus for Chrome increases significantly RAM usage for each open tab. uBlock author has extensive benchmarks about this issue. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-vs.-ABP:-...

Some more info on how Adblock Plus is trying to fix the issue: https://adblockplus.org/blog/on-the-adblock-plus-memory-cons...

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#104

Post by riquito »

cpeterso wrote: post #83
riquito wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be worse, the problem is that it loads too many info per tab. If you do it on multiple processes it will not get any better.

Multiprocess Firefox currently only uses one process for all tabs (plus a browser UI process). The tab process will be sandboxed, so users will get some of the security benefits of multiple tabs without the memory overhead of tab-per-process. If you want to experiment with more than one tab process, you can tweak the about:config pref "dom.ipc.processCount".

Thank you for the informations, I'll experiment.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#105

Post by mindcrime »

possibilistic wrote: post #99
mindcrime wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that you're getting downvoted. I totally agree that this "RAM is cheap" thinking is problematic. Sure, if you only ran one program at a time on a computer, it would make perfect sense. But when I have a finite amount of RAM to spread among a multitude of applications, screaming "RAM is cheap" is bollocks. Never mind that on my current laptop I'm already at the max it can physically support, which means if I…

Sometimes RAM is cheaper than engineer salaries. Sometimes it isn't. It depends on problem domain, scale, and what you're tying to optimize for. Debating this just seems pointless. In any case, the number one evaluation criterion for browsers is not the RAM profile. If performance matters that much, perhaps you should instead be asking why we are writing applications and UI in an ugly evolution of SGML. Before you fa…

I'm not faulting the Moz developers per-se, just saying that - as a group - developers should not just throw up their hands, shout "RAM is cheap" and then be totally cavalier about how their programs use RAM. It's a refrain that has become, IMO, all too common, and I think it's harmful.

Sure, Firefox, and every other program should use as much RAM as it needs. But we should be mindful of keeping that need as low as possible, at least for any program that falls into the category of "runs in a multi-program environment and probably won't be the only program running from a finite RAM pool".

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#106

Post by coldtea »

reubano wrote: post #102
coldtea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Seeing "how much memory is being used" is a major use case for you using a browser? If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

> If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used. That's a big assumption. Realistically speaking, there's only FF, Safari, and Chrome. FF leaks like crazy (sometimes on it's own but sometimes it could be a plugin). Safari doesn't support all the plugins I use and Chrome may but I'm don't like their dev console layout. And if you don't see how much mem is being us…

Here's an idea: don't install plugins. They are mostly irrelevant to browsing.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#107

Post by reubano »

coldtea wrote: post #106
reubano wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used. That's a big assumption. Realistically speaking, there's only FF, Safari, and Chrome. FF leaks like crazy (sometimes on it's own but sometimes it could be a plugin). Safari doesn't support all the plugins I use and Chrome may but I'm don't like their dev console layout. And if you don't see how much mem is being us…

Here's an idea: don't install plugins. They are mostly irrelevant to browsing.

I only use plugins that are relevant to my browsing. ABP, Boomerang, Buffer, DownThemAll, Firebug, NoScript, Wallaby...
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