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by nnethercote 3914 days ago
Firefox's memory usage is much better than it used to be, thanks to the MemShrink project (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink). Judging from sites like Hacker News, more people have trouble with memory usage on Chrome than on Firefox these days, and the same is true of performance in general.

YMMV, but it might be worth trying Firefox again.
2 comments
karlshea 3914 days ago
I switched to Chrome about 6 months before MemShrink, right around the time everyone from Mozilla kept blaming addons for memory problems and saying there wasn't a problem with Firefox. When the MemShrink project was announced I just laughed.

I've got it installed for development and I have no complaints, but now that I've got Chrome set up for syncing and all that it's just become my default. I'm sure I'll get annoyed at Chrome at some point and switch back.

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nnethercote 3914 days ago
Add-ons were certainly a big part of it. Firefox 15 fixed most of the add-on problems, see here: https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2012/07/19/firefox-15-p...

But there were plenty of other problems fixed too. See https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/category/memshrink/ for lots of details.

With that in mind, in the future perhaps you could think twice before posting snarky comments based on your experiences from five years ago.

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PhantomGremlin 3913 days ago
With that in mind, in the future perhaps you could think twice before posting snarky comments based on your experiences from five years ago.

In a rational universe that would be a reasonable request. Too bad we don't live in a rational universe.

Bad experiences weigh much more heavily on us than good experiences. For example, there is a chain of stores I won't go to, because I bought some inferior products from them over 35 years ago. Is that rational? No. But it is human nature.

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digi_owl 3913 days ago
Never mind that if you want to find out what is hogging the ram, there is about:memory.
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euyyn 3914 days ago
> more people have trouble with memory usage on Chrome than on Firefox these days

Maybe it's just that Chrome has more users.

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nnethercote 3914 days ago
That could be part of it, yes.

But the general sentiment four years ago, when I started MemShrink, was very clear that Firefox's memory usage was a problem. Every discussion thread about browsers on this very site would degenerate at some point into discussion about Firefox's memory usage. (Indeed, this was a big part of why I started MemShrink.)

That's no longer true. Comments about Firefox's memory usage are much rarer now. And when somebody does say that Firefox has bad memory usage, more often than not they'll get pushback from other commenters who have a different experience. Not to say that they're wrong or Firefox is perfect, but the situation is so much better than it used to be, particular when it comes to avoiding the bad memory spikes that cause the worst problems.

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slacka 3913 days ago
Out of control memory bloat on vital apps like my stock trading platform forced me over to Chrome around the FF 4 days. Missing the great Add-ons, I returned to Firefox about a year ago, and can't believe the difference. The MemShrink team has done a fantastic job. Thank you!
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