The great Firefox 2 vs. IE 7 memory test

Sorry to disappoint everybody, but that is not a reliable test.
For example, I am using Maxthon 1.5.8.112, and with 50 tabs opened the memory usage is not even 30MB (and there is YouTube, flash website, etc.). Moreover Maxthon being a front end to IE, I am using IE7 Final.

Same results, IE 7 is a little bit more resource hungry, but Firefox, really is keeping the consumption low…

Besides RC1, I was having some issues with Flash heavy sites (too many tabs and i was on a turtle-pc)

But on the latest version, Is al going well, most of the time im with 20-30 tabs with a consumption of 100-120 mb

sweet!

Dillon, great tip! How cool is that!?

Zimbra says IE 7 is a lot better than IE 6: http://www.zimbra.com/blog/archives/2006/10/ie_7_a_better_b.html

I am using Windows XP. Not Vista. I know Vista is better, but most people don’t have Vista yet.

Zimbra says IE 7 is a lot better than IE 6: http://www.zimbra.com/blog/archives/2006/10/ie_7_a_better_b.html

I am using Windows XP. Not Vista. I know Vista is better, but most people don’t have Vista yet.

Wow, talk about indepth conversations. Im still using Firefox 1.5.0.7 at the moment, but on my way to get 2 ;]
I left IE behind when I found Opera, and then later moved to Firefox. I find it to be generally better in everything, and less crashwise than Exploder.

At the moment of first tabs opening FireFox take less memory than IE, but I frequently observed that after 2 hours usage FF (latest version) consumes 300MB for 3 tabs.

All front page links: 250mb, a little sluggish, IE7.

Christopher Null, The Working Guy from Yahoo! Tech post an hands-on reviews on IE7. He received over 470 comments over 2-3 days. You can see a lot more problems with IE7. Imagine many may be using Yahoo Optimized IE7.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/5116;_ylt=A9G_f.gt4zpF5ycAwlErLpA5

what i’m seeing is the IE7 hangs just as much as IE6. Just ridiculous. And my flash player isn’t working with a beep. In other words, it’s not working at all.

Sorry guys. Memory leaks we refer to is about the Javascript Object. Javascript and DOM are part of AJAX.

Watch this video to understand and how to detect memory leaks. It also shows you the tool you can accurately measure the private memory, not virtual memory. The site use a AJAX tab that is commonly used in web 2.0 on the test.
http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/javascript/memory-leak/

Douglas Crockford http://www.crockford.com/javascript/memory/leak.html
explains IE’s own memory manager get confused and IE DOM is not managed by JScript.

Microsoft has documented the memory leak issues in many places including http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;830555. It mentions “This memory leak occurs because DOM objects are non-JScript objects”. And it states “This memory leak will end when the browser opens a new Web page or when the browser window is closed.”

Who do I trust more? I trust Douglas Crockford’s expertise and his extensive knowledge in browser. As long as IE is staying with their DOM strategy, web 2.0 developers will have to spend more time debugging IE7 and write more codes to handle memory leaks.

Firefox and Opera’s DOM strategy is on right track.

Now which headache is bigger? Hacking IE CSS on IE6 OR debugging memory leaks on IE7

Jeopardy question – music please…

CSS is usually handle by designer or interface engineer. Usually it is a one-person job. It is visual hack.

Almost all of the web 2.0 developers must handle AJAX. It is going to add burdens to the entire developer team. It is not visual fix. You have to use tool to audit the memory leaks. It is more time consuming to handle the memory leaks.

This bring up another issue. What you are experiencing on the memory overload on multiple tabs is something that IE has to work on. It seems like IE architectural strategy that IE team inherited is stepping on their own toe.

Firefox 2 is hands down a better browser than IE 7. I don’t even know why Microsoft still makes IE – I want it off my computer.

I just recently switched to Firefox, simply because I want apps on my computer that I can build up myself. I still find IE7 pressuring me to use new functions, I don’t need all those “user-friendly” boogiewoogie! I only want the things I use. So the extensions in FF are still the best option for me.
Apps nowadays get packed with stuff I don’t want (think mobile phone with so many functions you hardly use).

@Dillon , Mossman

Re: typing a name in the address bar and getting a relevant result (bill gates microsoft profile or george clooney’s imdb page)

This is the result of the “I’m feeling lucky” option of google’s search.

I am sorry people, What the hell are you all on. If you want a browser that uses very little RAM try Mosaic. I think I still have a copy on one of my old Windows 3.1 machines if anybody wants a copy.

both are still memory hogs…i would use konqueror or galieon, but neither have flash support as far as i know!!

I’m not using FF 2.0 (I’m using 3.0a, Minefield, so the memory situation is slightly improved when compared to 2.0), but I find that FF tends to be faster than IE7 (although, granted, I’m still using RC1 – do I even apply to this situation anymore?). But IE7 stalls. A lot. It also freezes. A lot. Could just be my system, but it just dies. A lot.

Try

Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Internet Explorer (no add-ons)

I have been using FF since a long time and then I checked out IE7 due to fr8 amount of hype that it had created.

I am sorry to say that I was utterly dissapointed by IE7. It has greater tendency to crash as compared to FF 2. Memory consumption of IE7 is much higher than FF. I usually open around 25 tabs at a time and IE7 becomes sluggish in this case as compared to FF. On top of that, it cannot open many sites properly such as gmail etc.

Now Microsoft has admittedd this fact and have provided a tool “User Agent String Utility” for people through which they can use IE6 engine to open a site in IE7.

Apart from this, I was amazed that there was no “Check Updates” link in IE7. You have to use Windows Update for it. They should have provided this link in the Help section of IE7 itself. Moreover, they have not given much tweaking tools to the users. The settings are almost same as IE6 and the new features such as Tabbed Browsing should have options to personalise.

All in all, Microsoft has reitrated the fact that they ship old wine in new bottles. So it would be insane on the part of users to expect something new from Microsoft.

Cool Developer says:
“All in all, Microsoft has reitrated the fact that they ship old wine in new bottles. So it would be insane on the part of users to expect something new from Microsoft.”

This is not correct. Have you looked at Vista, IE7, Office 12? They have tons of new code in it. Also, Software devlopement does not mean that you release a new OS, or a tool and you write it from scratch. Only insane people will do that. There are tons of things new from MSFT. Look at Xbox 360, Zune (coming up), Windows Live. You cannot make a cmpany this big by selling repetitive and bad software.

IE7 release never claimed that MSFT has written the browser from scratch. Yes, IE7 came a bit late in the game but I believe realising mistake and learning from it is a much bigger thing. There are tons of improvement done in IE7. This is not only limited to tabbed browsing, phishing filter and RSS feed. There is a lot of improvement in printing, choosing multiple search provider and a cool new look. Not to forget number of bug fixes, tons of improvement in javascript engine and all. And pretty of smaller stuff like ‘Delteing the entire cache in one go’, ‘Having a X in the tab’, ‘Hiding the menu bar’, a better favorite organizer, capability to Import/Export fav/settings in a better way, Quick tabs. All this has involved lot of effort.

I have been using IE6 throughout my life and I simply loved IE7. If a page displays a second late here and there I really don’t care. Plus, I open 5-6 tabs at the most. I have a laptop at home which is having XP Home and 256 MB RAM and I am pretty happy with IE7.

A lot of dumb asses here that shouldn’t even attempt to test. Yes, IE7 is must different on vista than XP. The guy that claims to be a web developer and hates IE. lol, makes me laugh. Ok, here’s one thing that sucks about FF. If you highlight an area on a webpage and say view specific source, it doesn’t give you the exact source, it reorders it. Ex: it will move parameters around, add quotes, etc. How is this helpful? it’s retarded! As a “real” web dev., I want the “real” source! Hahaha.. catch the jab there? at the wannabe web dev’s that work on their buddies site and hate one browser or the other cause they don’t know $hit. No real web dev. hates any browser. They all have their good and bad points. Just code and shut up. I’m anti MS, but you have to hand it to them. They don’t make a browser for 6 years. Release one and it’s just as good as the competition. And FF only managed to get a max of 10% of the market at best in that time. Pretty sad. MS basically let them. IE is integrated with the OS, FF is not. It’s hard to compare the 2.

The whole comment above from “DJb” has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve read in a long time. Thanks for the laugh, moron!