Which Browser Uses The Least Memory Osx 2017

One of the biggest problems with modern browsers is just how much memory or RAM they consume. Google Chrome, for example, might not be that efficient at all, taking up almost 2.5-3GB with just a couple of tabs open.

May 24, 2016 - The problem isn't that people are using inferior browsers — it's that they. Chrome is the fact that it uses less CPU and RAM to accomplish the. Compare quicken for mac with quicken for windows. Software developer Eric Rahm, who works for Mozilla's 'MemShrink' group, decided to pit Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 11 against each other in a battle of memory usage.

For most people, that is around 3/4 of the total RAM their computer has. As you might already know, that can really slow down your computer and make programs all that less responsive. Today, we’re going to show you some tricks to reduce the amount of RAM your browser takes up or possibly make it easier for your computer to handle it. Why browsers use so much RAM All browsers these days seem to use quite a bit of RAM. Google Chrome is the most notable one, and most recently, even Firefox Quantum.

It’s not all bad though. It’s important to remember that any RAM that isn’t being used is free, useless RAM not really doing anything. For Chrome to take up a substantial amount isn’t necessarily a bad thing and is to be expected. It does this so that it can deliver you pages almost instantly. Chrome isn’t just showing you a page, but it’s loading HTML, CSS, JavaScript, media containers and so much more in the background. It could be loading elements for 3D games, a movie, etc — it’s basically an operating system in itself. There’s a lot of media to load in 2017, and that’s just one of the reasons why RAM consumption is so much.

On top of that, Chrome handles its tab in a unique way. When you open Task Manager, you might see a whole bunch of Chrome processes open. This is because Chrome treats each tab as a process. The way, Chrome uses less memory in the background, but on top of that, if a tab were to crash, you would only lose that tab, and not have to close your entire browser, losing some of the websites you might’ve had open. Chrome using more RAM to display elements faster to you is ultimately a good thing. The bad thing is when tabs or external plugins begin to leak memory.

Often, even closing Chrome won’t clean that up — it usually requires a full computer reboot. That’s generally what slows your PC to a crawl — when your RAM is always full, your computer begins to act sluggish. This is because you’re using more RAM than your PC has to offer, and so it starts sending some of that short-term memory to your hard drive, which is a whole lot slower than short-term memory. This is where the sluggishness kicks in. While browsers using more RAM is a good thing, it isn’t that great for computers that are already low on memory (i.e. Only equipped with a meager 4GB). Thankfully, it’s a fairly easy problem to resolve.

Extensions As we earlier mentioned, a big problem with Chrome’s memory usage is that each tab is treated as an individual process, so each tab is a separate process that takes up a certain amount of memory. The more tabs you have open, and depending on how media-heavy the website is, the more RAM it takes to keep those tabs open. One way to curb Chrome’s RAM appetite in this area is by downloading and installing an extension called The Great Suspender. The idea is that, after a certain amount of inactivity in a tab, it dumps the data from that tab, freeing up RAM on your PC.

The tab stays open, but when you click on it, Chrome has to reload the site. It takes a little longer to load when you go back to that tab since the extension dumps the data, but it’s a small price to pay for more memory space, especially on computers that don’t have much RAM to offer. You can download. You can find a similar. In addition, you might consider getting rid of extensions and add-ons you just don’t use anymore. These can needlessly take up system resources in the background, so if you don’t use them, you’d be better off uninstalling them out of your browser.

Depending on the add-on you’re using, you could save yourself a ton of memory usage, especially if that plugin is known for memory leaking problems. Hardware Acceleration One way to decrease RAM usage is to turn on your browser’s Hardware Acceleration feature. This can help with things like idle processes, which can ease RAM usage, but it will especially help when you’re loading media-heavy content — hardware acceleration will use the GPU to load that content, freeing up your system RAM for other tasks. You can turn this on pretty easily in both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. For Chrome, simply open your Settings menu. Alternatively, you can simply type in chrome://settings in the Chrome address bar. From there, scroll to the bottom of the page and select the “Advanced” button.