RAM requirements of modern browsers

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Moonchild
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RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-16, 18:57

Seems quite a few people still think that 1 GB usage for a browser is unbelievably much...
You have to understand the way websites are being made these days -- everything is offloaded to your browser, pretty much. Even just opening a few sites can and will eat up your RAM and that isn't a problem with the browser, per se.

Although... Chrome is way worse than anything else in that respect.

Well don't take my word for it. Linus Tech Tips (a well-known tech info channel on YouTube) literally suggests that if you are buying a laptop for the new school year that you should always get 16 GB of RAM. "Windows and Chrome are going to make quick work of 8 Gigs" So yeah that's where we're at now. If you just run Windows and Chrome, you can quickly eat up all your RAM with just that.
https://youtu.be/3sYNn9RlyOw?t=330

Anyway, just wanted to drop this here so it's actually someone quite well-known saying that 16GB is just necessary even if you just browse with Chrome. I'm sure we do a extremely well in comparison, so... please stop complaining about sub 2GB usage numbers?
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-08-16, 20:43

tl;dr Download more ram.

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonraker » 2021-08-16, 22:36

I seem to be able to plod on quite happily with 2gb of RAM..of course i don't use windows and pale moon is my main browser of choice.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonbird » 2021-08-17, 06:39

I think it has to do with the way, how one uses the internet. JavaScripts are the most important thing to block and only allow it, when it's necessary (use an addon for that). That should reduce the amount of RAM needed.
I suggest to keep track on open tabs, too. Don't let it become too many. And if you can afford it, don't use badly programmed websites.

Don't know... browsing three forums at once... using 300 MB of RAM with a current Pale Moon... nice and smooth is all I can say! On a poorly equipped desktop from 10 years ago with a slow hard disk drive.

What about clearing the cache automatically on closing the browser? There was a discussion here in the forum somewhere, if it has a good effect... but where was that?

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-17, 09:47

Moonbird wrote:
2021-08-17, 06:39
JavaScripts are the most important thing to block and only allow it, when it's necessary
You'd have to allow them manually on all sites then. are you using NoScript?
Moonbird wrote:
2021-08-17, 06:39
And if you can afford it, don't use badly programmed websites.
Well that's the problem, isn't it? How would you know beforehand? How many badly programmed websites are out there? How many have started using JS frameworks to display content? etc. etc.
Moonbird wrote:
2021-08-17, 06:39
What about clearing the cache automatically on closing the browser?
No. That will hurt your performance and won't do anything to reduce RAM usage. I still don't know why people keep thinking killing the cache does anything but increase the amount of data you need to download again next visit.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-08-17, 10:04

Wouldn't killing or disabling cache only result in increased ram as stuff needs to be allocated in full to ram for each request before being eventually reflushed to disk if even enabled?

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-17, 11:21

No, RAM web cache will be used for reads and writes so it makes no difference whether that data comes from the net or from the disk cache. Of course it does have more computing overhead but that's besides the point in this topic.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Massacre » 2021-08-17, 12:29

Current Pale Moon with no tabs loaded and ublock origin uses like 200mb of RAM, indeed. It increases up to 700+ when executing some javascript, though... For example, https://webstatic-sea.mihoyo.com/app/ys ... lang=en-us when clicking on any "pin" (point of interest). I wonder, why. Just showing the map, without clicking on any points, uses like 400mb.

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-17, 14:28

Massacre wrote:
2021-08-17, 12:29
It increases up to 700+ when executing some javascript, though... For example, https://webstatic-sea.mihoyo.com/app/ys ... lang=en-us when clicking on any "pin" (point of interest). I wonder, why. Just showing the map, without clicking on any points, uses like 400mb.
Static versus dynamic allocation.
The "click" activates all map data which is dumped into large dynamically allocated classes. This isn't a particularly good way to design this but my guess is this was converted from some different kind of data storage method to make "web compatible". about:memory is your friend.
That site is particularly heavy, but it clearly underlines my point: "modern" websites that are client-side applications running in a browser more than they are websites, depending on how that they are created, can easily allocate half a gig or more to work. Also note that our GC will reclaim that memory a short while after you close that tab.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-08-17, 18:08

Moonchild wrote:
2021-08-17, 14:28
Also note that our GC will reclaim that memory a short while after you close that tab.
GC will try it's hardest to reclaim that memory and it does a damned good job in nearly all circumstances. Nearly.

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by athenian200 » 2021-08-17, 20:41

I've seen browsers hit 20GB of RAM with less than 20 tabs open before, which is why I moved to 32GB about 5 or 6 years ago. However, when it came time to build a new machine... I hadn't found a good enough reason to pay the premium for 64GB or 128GB RAM, so for the first time ever I wound up buying a new computer with the same amount of RAM as my old one. It seems like 32GB is still a fairly decent choice for a new desktop system. 16GB is fine for a laptop, I would agree, but it would start to get tight if you're actually sitting in front of the computer with maybe a couple of monitors and several applications open. I have a feeling I'll be comfortable with 32GB for quite a while based on recent trends, though I could be wrong.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Lunokhod » 2021-08-17, 21:38

16GB of RAM is a huge amount for most purposes, currently using Mate desktop which isn't even especially lightweight on Linux with Pale Moon, 5 tabs open:
MiB Mem : 7946.3 total, 5749.4 free, 721.0 used, 1475.9 buff/cache
Less than 1GB needed.
An entire Linux OS unpacked on the hard drive is usually less than 10GB, perhaps half that for a more minimal one. Many internet packages have say a 10GB monthly data download limit, yet you can do an awful lot of web surfing with that plus get all your updates and downloads.
I believe the reason so much RAM is apparently used on Windows is because of preloading things into RAM, a whole bunch of stuff gets read from the HDD and put into RAM at boot on the off chance it's needed later. That feature can be disabled too.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-17, 21:46

lunokhod: don't confuse size on disk with what something needs as working memory!
and 16GB is very rapidly becoming the standard for any PC, which was my point.
Great if you can use less than a gig but programs CAN AND WILL use your free memory, especially browsers. Pale Moon is no exception but it as I said does a pretty good job in comparison to the big players -- even so, don't expect that as a given because you are running remote programs on your system when you visit heavy sites.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by shevy » 2021-08-18, 19:36

I have 16 GB RAM and I compile everything from source. My main machine was quite cheap, around 300 Euro (excluding monitor ... just re-used the old
one).

Browser usage in general, though, is kind of becoming my main bottle neck. This is not solely confined to palemoon; I have the same issues, more or
less, when using vivaldi, firefox etc... (I have fallback browsers but I use palemoon most of the time).

The two main areas I see problems in regards to performance are:

(1) videos (e. g. on youtube)
(2) javascript related stuff (but not all of javascript; some is super-fast, other things take quite a long time or don't even work).

If I am going to buy a new oldschool desktop computer, I would probably go for above 16 GB RAM. But I also feel a bit as if I am
"chasing the stick" because every time my computer becomes faster, the speed of execution of web-related stuff (e. g. webpages
or video or whatever) doesn't quite scale up in a similar way. So I feel like keeping on feeding a monster here, no matter which
browser is used. Even 10% performance differences wouldn't make a huge difference ... slow is slow when it comes to comparing
snail versus snail.

Perhaps part of the issue may be related to using tons of tabs, but I experience slowness only on some webpages and what not.
Might be useful for palemoon to have some kind of statistical aggregation of the key performance issues IF a computer system
has quite a lot of RAM. Even compiling from source is, most of the time, super-fast - only the larger software suites take quite
some time to compile. llvm+clang, or libreoffice, are quite a pain to compile when I am actively working, so I tend to do that
when I am asleep or away, or simply download binaries (I am fine using binaries too, in particular for bigger software).

Having said that, I think you can use a TON of things just fine even with less RAM. For example, rather than watching videos
in a browser tab, I always found youtube-dl + mpv to be much more efficient (even though not as convenient ... I just use
the tabs on the browser in a fire-and-forget way, quick open, quick closing ...).

The thing that worries me the most is JavaScript though. Will we ever see WebAssembly help or just bloat things up as well ... :P

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Lunokhod » 2021-08-21, 02:07

Managed to get over 2GB with 2 browsers and multiple heavy sites:
MiB Mem : 7946.4 total, 3928.0 free, 2226.2 used, 1792.2 buff/cache
https://www.freeonlinegames.com/game/ci ... mulator-3d plus CNN, Amazon, Vimeo, Twitter, FaceBook, eBay, and YouTube in Chromium tabs
And in Pale Moon tabs open at the same time - eBay, DuckDuckGo, Stack Overflow.
Not saying having more isn't better, but at present even heavy sites have to contend with download speeds, that 3d game page took a long while to just load. But if you are doing preloading it will never be enough unless you have more RAM than HDD space. The other thing about preloading as I understand it, is that like stuff in Trash it's available to be reallocated, so even though in Windows you might see this huge amount used, it is also freeable if needed. But that is why I mention the space used by the OS and apps because that's exactly what's getting put into RAM to cut access times. If I saw all my RAM used while online I'd be wondering what was causing the memory leak :D
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-21, 08:34

shevy wrote:
2021-08-18, 19:36
Having said that, I think you can use a TON of things just fine even with less RAM.
That wasn't my point at all when making this topic.
Lunokhod wrote:
2021-08-21, 02:07
But if you are doing preloading it will never be enough unless you have more RAM than HDD space.
What does preloading have to do with this? RAM usage of browsers has gone up because more is used as working memory, not as buffering or preload cache.
Also, I'm pretty sure all browsers have mechanisms to deal with so-called memory pressure where they will scale back caching and buffers if there's not enough working memory for the content loaded.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by WiseWolf » 2021-08-26, 13:44

For me, I barely use 2GB of ram, even with my browser open

I use a basilisk based browser of course, but yeah, even with a bunch of applications open, 4GB of ram is hard to reach.

I will say though, I am a user of a linux distro, so that may help enormously.

It's kind of not a fair fight using basilisk via linux vs windows 10 or higher.

That being said, I do not complain about high ram requirements for these and other reasons.

More specficially, this is what I have using my web browser: 15G total used 804mb 12G free 86mb shared 2.3GB buff/cache
Available 14G

just checking with the free -h option.

At the moment it seems I am using more than usual...

That being said, I love how you guys are debloating firefox's xul toolkit and making it so awesome.

Basilisk Browser and Palemoon should be more popular and more common.

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-08-26, 15:53

Also irrelevant to my topic post :crazy:

My point is (I'll try to dumb it down to Twitter size, maybe that helps):

Any modern website can easily eat up a ton of RAM, regardless of OS or browser. Single sites can use 1, 2 or more GB. So browsers using a lot of RAM is entirely expected.
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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by Alister » 2021-09-29, 19:19

I have only 4Gb ram, that's the main reason why I use Pale Moon. If I just start Opera, it eats almost all my ram.

Just a few years ago, this was more than enough to launch a browser while having other programs in memory. Now, if I have to run Chrome to open websites unsupported by Pale Moon, I feel like I have to close almost all running programs to free up RAM.

Most of the time on my PC I only use the browser. I never thought before that there would come a time when I would have to buy more memory in order to just use a browser to read simple websites.

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Re: RAM requirements of modern browsers

Unread post by victor11 » 2021-10-27, 10:04

4 GB is working fine for me. Of course with time the performance degrades but still I think 4 GB is good option. It mostly depends on what activities you are doing on the browsers.

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