alex wrote:
since version 1.5? (not sure if it was earlier) firefox puts all the tabs into memory so if you have multiple tabs open, you will use a lot of ram in firefox.... just putting that out there.
By this, are you saying that IE7 regenerates the pages for each tab?
By choosing to be, in a sense, honest about it, Firefox has let itself show the tabs as part of its memory map. When there are tabs open that you have not clicked on, they will eventually be swapped out to disk, so they don't really matter (but they are still showing as Firefox RAM space). They are no longer part of its "Working Set" of pages of RAM.
If IE7 does not keep tabs in memory, it must rebuild them each time. That will be from cached versions of various bits, but the regeneration will cost CPU time (as if MS would care about that). This will impact differently on the working set. There may be far less total memory tied up in the cached items, all told, but they will be spread out. It is more than likely that the net effect is to cause more pages of memory to be accessed (swapped in) than is the case with Firefox, where it will be a single contiguous chunk.
If my analysis is anywhere near the truth, I would expect switching between tabs to almost instantaneous in Firefox and noticeably hiccupy in IE7. I would not expect there to be an awful hit on performance (memory or speed) when each has a lot of tabs open, except than Firefox would need the swap file to be large enough to accommodate the tabs.
I have to say, I've only used IE7 a couple of times since it appeared. Other than it screwing up my connection (somehow it suddenly want me to go back to dialup!), and it having hidden some buttons, I can't comment.
I also use Seamonkey, versus Firefox, but that's not a huge difference.
06 Mar 2007, 11:28 am
