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tbd · Apr 22, 2005, 10:47 AM

Safari seems to be a hog with memory (right now I have 3 tabs open and its using 80mb) if it is left open for a long time. Is firefox any better with memory management?

Are there any apps than can force my powerbook to run through its list of programs and free memory that isnt being used (I dont know how RAM allocation works, but I guess its similar to garbage collection?).

bmedina · Apr 22, 2005, 12:43 PM

If you're that worried about RAM, just get more of it.

Are there any apps than can force my powerbook to run through its list of programs and free memory that isnt being used

Free memory is wasted memory.

Twister · Apr 22, 2005, 01:37 PM

Currently my Firefox is using more. However I have Firefox, Safari, iCal, Mail and more open with no issues. If you don't have issues, then why worry? Are you having issues?

Zimphire · Apr 22, 2005, 06:09 PM

Wait till you try out the Safari in Tiger.

10x faster and less resources taken up.

Millennium · Apr 22, 2005, 07:19 PM

Firefox uses less RAM, but only in the beginning. It has several problems called memory leaks, by which it takes up more and more RAM the longer it runs. This doesn't harm your system -except, of course, that it uses up RAM- and it can be reversed by quitting and restarting Firefox, but it can be a pain if you're in the habit of leaving apps running.

ManOfSteal · Apr 22, 2005, 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by Zimphire

Wait till you try out the Safari in Tiger.

10x faster and less resources taken up.

Safari in Tiger is really that much faster than on v10.3.9?

tbd · Apr 22, 2005, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Firefox uses less RAM, but only in the beginning. It has several problems called memory leaks, by which it takes up more and more RAM the longer it runs. This doesn't harm your system -except, of course, that it uses up RAM- and it can be reversed by quitting and restarting Firefox, but it can be a pain if you're in the habit of leaving apps running.

My whole point in this topic is that Safari has leaks too. I get up to 80-100+ mb being allocated to safari with just 1 window and a couple tabs open if I leave it running. I just wondered if firefox was better in this regard on macs, guess not =\.

Cadaver · Apr 22, 2005, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by tbd

My whole point in this topic is that Safari has leaks too. I get up to 80-100+ mb being allocated to safari with just 1 window and a couple tabs open if I leave it running. I just wondered if firefox was better in this regard on macs, guess not =\.

Not sure if Safari's issue is a memory leak or if its by design.

Firefox, on the other hand, does have a true memory leak. However, even the Windows version has a memory leak problem of its own.

Millennium · Apr 23, 2005, 08:06 AM

Originally Posted by Cadaver

Not sure if Safari's issue is a memory leak or if its by design.

Leaking memory by design is an extremely rare practice, and generally considered a mark of incompetence unless a very good reason (and "making it run faster" is not considered good enough) can be shown. I doubt that the Safari developers would do such a thing.

bmedina · Apr 23, 2005, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Leaking memory by design is an extremely rare practice, and generally considered a mark of incompetence unless a very good reason (and "making it run faster" is not considered good enough) can be shown. I doubt that the Safari developers would do such a thing.

He meant that he wasn't sure if Safari's excessive memory use was by design (say, caching a lot in RAM) or because of a memory leak. Of course memory leaks aren't done by design.