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Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera

arstechnica.com — Benchmarks show that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Internet Explorer 7 and Opera. A number of significant fixes and improvements have brought down the open-source browser's memory footprint and could make it a more viable choice in mobile environments.

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wjrogers, on 03/17/2008, -9/+108Excellent illustration of how Firefox's memory management has improved.
Dokument, on 03/17/2008, -22/+6wait what were we talking about?
glinsvad, on 03/17/2008, -3/+5using IE eh?
cawpin, on 03/17/2008, -18/+3What they need is an illustration of WTF happened between FF3b3 and FF3b4. Beta 3 ran faster than any Firefox I've ever used and never crashed. Beta 4, however, crashes multiple times a day and is sometimes almost unusable.
latova, on 03/17/2008, -0/+20Hense why its "beta". If you can't handle the fact that theres a possibility of potential problems then use the Firefox 2 which is stable.
morguth, on 03/18/2008, -1/+3Except for the slow DNS lookups, which FF3 apparently has as well...

And before anyone goes raging fanboy on me...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=firefox+slow+ ...
connorwilson, on 03/18/2008, -1/+4Beta 3 on Mac sucked huge. You couldn't copy images (a huge pain in the ass) and it crashed all the time. Beta 4 has been much better. Tenoq, on 03/18/2008, -0/+4Are you kidding? b4 fixed most of the bad scripting issues on Digg for me - I'm in love. :P
cam503, on 03/17/2008, -1/+24This guy came through my Starbucks the other day touting a credit-card that benefits open-source projects.

Nice to see that people are starting to recognize the inherent genius that is open-source.
zachblume, on 03/17/2008, -2/+18That's...actually pretty cool. dealseeker, on 03/18/2008, -0/+6The catch: It's just a regular Visa... but your card number and security code are automatically sent to some guys in Russia. zongamin, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2Maybe not a great idea to sign up to a credit card that some annoying idiot tried to push in a coffee shop.
RonPaulPres2008, on 03/17/2008, -38/+5Except it's false. The truth is IE7 is faster, more secure, and more attractive. Also if you download IE7Pro you can have mouse gestures, adblock, etc everything you need and STILL waste less memory than Firefox. It even comes in 64-bit.

The truth is IE7 is way better than Firefox. Even Opera is better. Firefox uses tons of memory, even Firefox 3, when you start adding extensions.

This graph is a lie. You can see for yourself just by opening up task manager. Look at IE7 and Firefox and Firefox always wastes more memory. Yes, even Firefox 3.
stormgren, on 03/17/2008, -5/+21ie7 hides its memory use in other system files, because it's linked so closely to the rest of Windows.
TomKarpik, on 03/17/2008, -16/+2Like?

I can't count the number of times I've heard this idea repeated over and over. However, I *can* count the number of times I've heard it backed up with real proof/numbers: Zero.
trogdoor, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2One thing that is telling is that even Microsoft has said that Vista's task manager gives a much better representation of memory usage than XP's and IE 7 on Vista shows up as using much more memory than IE 7 in XP. Another thing which is telling is that ( on my machine ) IE 6 in wine uses much more memory than IE 6 in XP is reported to use.
kalphegor, on 03/17/2008, -3/+9Like MSHTML.DLL and the rest.
glinsvad, on 03/17/2008, -11/+1Although I disagree entirely, I dugg your comment because of that "The graph is a lie" Portal-reference thegreatanti, on 03/17/2008, -4/+14You are as pathetic as IE7/Opera is. stupidStan, on 03/18/2008, -3/+5look how dumb your your screen name is now choopie911, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3You have to be kidding me. stormgren already addressed the memory issue. IE sucks balls
satanswetnipple, on 03/17/2008, -15/+8I agree it is excellent that Firefox is now much leaner. However, I am left amazed at just how much memory it still uses! HTML code is approximately 40KB, some graphics should be no more than 30KB in total... so why on earth does it use 210MB?! Am I the only person that sees that this is not good? We were supposed to be doing great things on our computers with Gigabytes of memory... not wasting hundreds of megabytes doing a job that could be done in a few megabytes in the early nineties. I know AJAX and Java will use some memory, but this still does not excuse this sort of wastage.
polywaffle, on 03/18/2008, -4/+3go back to your 486 and windows 3.1 then.
satanswetnipple, on 03/18/2008, -6/+3Why not? Not that I had one, but a 486 could boot Windows 3.1 in less time than all the current OSs, you could do professional graphics on it... I am talking about graphics that are as good as the graphics today, you could run a WYSIWYG wordprosessor faster, databases faster.

The bloat that has happened in the past decade is disgusting. Software does not just need a ***** more RAM, but the code is badly written and runs slower, cancelling out any CPU, Bus, and media gains.

I have said it before, If modern Operating Systems and software were cars, they would all be Hummers that ran on baby furseal oil. Most Diggers love to limit their effect on the environment, but not when the magnifying glass is turned on them. If you cared about your power usage, then you would push for a system that could handle 10GB of RAM, but would work within half a gig (including software, and no virtual RAM as that runs a spindle of platters). Software was actually faster than the software today, so you would see a 1GHz machine running well written code faster than bloated code on a 5Ghz CPU. Do you want to save the planet? then do yourself a favour and work towards running a low power 1Ghz system with 512MB with no virtual RAM... The end result would be something like the EEPC but running at top end desktop speeds... without burning your gonads.
dealseeker, on 03/18/2008, -1/+4Have fun writing a leaner standards-compliant web browser.

We'll bow down to your genius and pay you lots of money once you unveil it.

Ready... set... go!
thegreatanti, on 03/17/2008, -7/+10The days of Opera are counted.
mateo60, on 03/18/2008, -0/+8It's so odd about Opera. I'll occasionally download it and try to use it. I'll be pleasantly surprised about some really innovative features, and will be impressed. But then a week later, I'll be back to Firefox/Safari. It's a shame, Opera has been innovative for years, but I agree that it appears that their days are numbered. I hope we're wrong. mace2, on 03/18/2008, -1/+3...numbered.
ECas123, on 03/18/2008, -9/+3Your comment isn't funny yet you're being dugg up. Odd... brkhobowriter, on 03/18/2008, -8/+2Hell, I'm getting half a GB of RAM stolen by Mozilla. Hopes FF 3 reduces it. clearwaterlab, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2http://www.quizlaw.com/blog/images/captain-obvious ... crestfall, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1has anyone else noticed that digg comments are becoming more like SU comments - like the user is just making a note to remind themselves what they like? I mean, I digg stuff to bookmark it for later too but...
dynacrylic, on 03/17/2008, -52/+23Actually I'm wondering why someone would have 50 tabs opened, except for, ehmmm, you know.
Sajentine, on 03/17/2008, -3/+45I think you just answered your own question. Virak, on 03/17/2008, -1/+80I don't see why you'd be so reluctant to mention Wikipedia's name, but besides that there's also porn.
CedEx, on 03/17/2008, -0/+13Guess what you get when you combine the two things you love the most? You get chickipedia.com

The internet is now complete.
Syphon8, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3Dugg for being a real site.
solidus636, on 03/17/2008, -2/+41Reading multiple digg stories?
HonoredMule, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3Firefox would choke less on the virus-laden porn. Pritchard, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2The memory usage seems accurate.
gamerzworld, on 03/17/2008, -4/+5Research? Work? YouTube? manitoba98xp, on 03/17/2008, -11/+5I keep tabs from months ago open (I'm a packrat in that way), and I use Session Restore to resurrect them each time Firefox restarts. I'm currently at 74 tabs, but I've been known to pass 100.
grimward, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3No.. you're not a packrat, you've just got OCD :) kinseyincanada, on 03/18/2008, -0/+8my god why? they have things called bookmarks you know
zephyr42, on 03/17/2008, -5/+210This is a big win for the Firefox team. They seem to be getting the memory leak(s) addressed and closed nicely. I can't wait for it to go full release.
Fergy, on 03/17/2008, -12/+19Why are you being dugg up when you should know that 99% of the reduction of memory usage was NOT due to fixing memory leaks. It was because of cache tweaks, fewer memory allocations, a new memory allocator and the xpcom cycle collector.
Jorry7, on 03/18/2008, -3/+11because you touch yourself at night
sd2001, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3Why wait for night?
rpgmaker, on 03/18/2008, -0/+6Not so long ago a Firefox developer post was dugg and he clearly stated that they were addressing most of the memory leaks on this release.
rpgmaker, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1"Most leaks are a pain in the ass to find and fix in any complex piece of software. There are small leaks, big leaks, and in-between leaks."
http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory ...
There were always memory leaks but the Firefox PR always said that it was in our imagination like if we were idiots.
HolyMan28, on 03/18/2008, -6/+6Because no one cares quite as much as you do. zongamin, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2The fact that you 'can't wait' suggests you are a very sad and lonely individual. There are more important things you bell end.
sumeshpremraj, on 03/17/2008, -85/+14They've compared FF3 to IE7 and Opera, both of which are a generation behind. Compare FF3b, Opera's latest beta and IE8b, and things may change.
I'm no FF hater, and love most parts of it, but FF's memory and resource management obviously suck.
Virak, on 03/17/2008, -2/+108Did you even read the ***** article? They used the latest Opera beta, and they tried to use IE8 too but it crashed. frazw, on 03/17/2008, -2/+8Nice unbiased appraisal zephyr! You clearly don't understand that the team realised that and spent great effort fixing it. But you are right even though after all that effort it kicks anything else out there at the moment it's memory usage and resource management sucks. Get a ***** clue, leave your bias and unfounded loyalty at the door and you might be able to experience the best of anything out there in all areas of life. frazw, on 03/17/2008, -0/+16Apologies I meant to say sumesh not zephyr, I fail at reading. iDgg, on 03/18/2008, -4/+1dugg for great justice!
WallnutBoy, on 03/17/2008, -6/+77Cue the inevitable Browser Flame-Wars. -_-
WallnutBoy, on 03/17/2008, -1/+42Apparently my 'cue' was too late!
brkhobowriter, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1If you didn't notice, Safari's line stopped in the middle. Did it crash or something? See, that's why Firefox is better!
(reads WallnutBoy's post again)
Oh right...
joegibes, on 03/18/2008, -0/+6IE sucks a LOT. 0ceanic, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1i have never gotten my opera up to that size. 30 or so so digg tabs brings me to about 80megs. (but im not using opera beta either)

either way, anything is better than ie.
badassninja, on 03/17/2008, -10/+194Awesome. Now the only true reason anyone had to flame firefox is gone. As for the Browser Flame-wars, I don't care what you use as long as you don't use IE.
lnxfi, on 03/17/2008, -50/+7who really cares. Firefox, Opera, even Internet Explorer... who cares. Get off the high horse you didn't build to begin with.

Use what you like people. Thanks and have a good day.
daborg, on 03/17/2008, -6/+25Whoa, hold on! People can't just use what they LIKE. What if they like the WRONG browser! TomFrost, on 03/17/2008, -2/+18Not using IE is more than just elitism. Not even IE 8 can pass the Acid test. The entire browser is a source of major frustration for web developers, and is an icon of Microsoft's notion that they don't need to follow any standards that they didn't personally create. Why support that?
iamegghead, on 03/17/2008, -7/+5So this didn't happen? http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/19/intern ...

I'm really asking, is this untrue?

Maybe I don't want to switch because I have a comfort level with IE. Maybe I like the default color scheme. Maybe my initials are IE and I giggle to myself each time I use it. There are many reasons that boil down to my personal choice. xxNIRVANAxx, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1Praise the IE team for creating a better browser (compared to their previous versions) = insta-bury (tm) TomFrost, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2"So this didn't happen?"

That's news to me indeed. On release day, a few commenters over at Lifehacker took screenshots of Acid2 and there were definitely text boxes over the face. Maybe it's possible that it was updated? It most certainly slaughters Acid3, though. Granted, I've not seen a browser get it entirely right, but it certainly wasn't broken to the extreme IE8 was. praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+2IE8 passed Acid2 for me.
Cronus6, on 03/17/2008, -20/+26FireFox user here.... but....Really, why do you care what others use? Psst...it's none of your business.
prophetpimp, on 03/17/2008, -1/+44Because the other browser became a standard and broke the internet. Remember the IE6 days and then get back to me.
HoratioHellpop, on 03/17/2008, -26/+0//Because the other browser became a standard and broke the internet.// Funny, I don't remember the Internet not working at all because of IE 6 ...
theaceoffire, on 03/17/2008, -0/+13Alzheimers is no excuse. HoratioHellpop, on 03/18/2008, -10/+0//Alzheimers is no excuse.// Neither is rampant famboyism and utter FUD. Then again, this is digg, where 90% of the posters were in fourth grade when XP came out ... melat0nin, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3It's not FUD when it's true. You try writing a cross-browser standards compliant XHTML page with no CSS hacks, then get back to me. HoratioHellpop, on 03/18/2008, -3/+0//You try writing a cross-browser standards compliant XHTML page with no CSS hacks, then get back to me.// Again ... how is that "breaking the Internet?" Screwing up pages, sure. But "breaking the Internet?" Think. Before. You. Post.
Loornadune, on 03/17/2008, -2/+28pssst, it is my business, because IE isn't standards compliant.
xxNIRVANAxx, on 03/18/2008, -5/+1Quit then, I'll gladly take your job.
noahhoward, on 03/17/2008, -3/+78Agreed, as a web designer, if you use IE you are part of the problem. I still love you though and will accommodate you until the day comes when I can drop you off a cliff without remorse or fear of reprisal.
banmaster, on 03/17/2008, -37/+5Why? IE is still the leader in market share by a HUGE margin. Therefore its technically the standard, even if you don't like to admit it.
Nojiko, on 03/17/2008, -1/+27So if the majority of people eat *****, let's just stand by and let them keep eating ***** instead of trying to lead them over to the grove of orange trees just over the hill?

Right. Standard or no, it needs to stop being the standard sooner rather than later. Easiest way is to boycott it. cawpin, on 03/17/2008, -1/+14No, it doesn't follow standards. Mejogid, on 03/17/2008, -1/+12A de facto standard, perhaps, but given inconsistencies between *versions* of IE, it's limited support for newer standards and the fact that it renders pages contradictory to both the formal standards and all other browsers I'm not sure what part of it you consider to be a "technical" standard. hello2usir, on 03/17/2008, -0/+11More oranges for me. prophetpimp, on 03/17/2008, -2/+17Thats the ***** problem retard. It is the standard when it shouldn't be.
CrackyJSquirrel, on 03/17/2008, -1/+10QFT! Down with IE users..
TomFrost, on 03/17/2008, -1/+7You can only quote something for truth if you .. actually .. quote it. For truth. ;-)
gcnaddict, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1Fail for not accomodating to web standards and bitching about IE now that theyre actually listening to you guys.

However, your complaints are still well-versed; IE8's public beta passed acid2 a few days after acid3 came out, so yeah. They have a *long* way to go.
kipmartin, on 03/17/2008, -14/+2they're all good--for different things. FF on the Mac is pretty much a given, but Mac's Mail app isnt bad if all you need is a barebones mailer. it doesnt leak, is based on mozilla, and its semi hard-wired into OS X. i collect mail from one hotmail (sorry!) and one gmail address on Mail and its fine. the more i use it, the more i appreciate its simplicity, integrity, and facility.

and oh yeah, i dont care what you think about my choice of email app. if you like IE, then use the freakin thing. this isnt China!
chousho, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8This isn't China, but over in China it's China.
glinsvad, on 03/17/2008, -1/+2Is that you, Yogi Berra?
RonPaulPres2008, on 03/17/2008, -17/+3Really I'd love to hear your reasoning as to why IE is inferior. Is it because it has the Microsoft logo on it? Yea, I thought so. Truth is, IE7 is faster, more secure, more attractive and if you download IE7Pro you can get all the extra features you need without having a bloated browser full of plugins.

*IE8 supports web standards, now the only true reason anyone had to flame it is gone.*
DNABeast, on 03/18/2008, -0/+7Well I still hate IE6 (and to a lesser extent 7) and will do so until the day when I no longer have to "fix" my code to get it to run on it. Rammsteined, on 03/18/2008, -0/+4Yes, because it's a Microsoft product, and their track record of doing the right thing by the web is poor to say the least. If IE8 gains market share back from the alternative browsers there's no way in hell Microsoft won't use that to their advantage by messing things up again.

Microsoft deserve our hatred. Syphon8, on 03/18/2008, -0/+4Except that all of those things are false and you're a troll.
skyshock1, on 03/17/2008, -11/+6No there's plenty of reasons to flame FF - mostly because of the gecko rendering engine. This is just one less reason to. Kudos for at least fixing the memory issues.
comrade693, on 03/17/2008, -2/+11and why is gecko so bad exactly? You realize that the browser renders itself with gecko, right?
skyshock1, on 03/18/2008, -4/+1Piss poor script rendering, slow CSS rendering speeds, sub-par table rendering speed, slow application start times, slow-as-***** back/forward page rendering.... I could go on. So they managed to bring it into 1999 by adding a memory 'garbage collector'. BFD. The core of the browser (gecko) still blows. It's extensible, and that's nice and all, but what good does that do when the basic browsing functions still suck when compared to other more fleet-footed browsers (opera, webkit, konqueror, etc...).

But nevermind all that, back to your regularly scheduled Firefox Fellatiofest.
thegreatanti, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8What's your problem skyshock1? Your MS Frontpage site doesn't work anymore?
skyshock1, on 03/18/2008, -4/+1Because everyone who dislikes Firefox must be a MS shill right? Get a clue.
WhereAmI, on 03/18/2008, -1/+7Lynx!

Seriously though, Firefox. linuxeventually, on 03/18/2008, -2/+4links2 -g cowboy77061, on 03/18/2008, -3/+1opera opens up faster.
dsmx, on 03/17/2008, -11/+32Can't wait for the excuses from the fanboys on why their browser wasn't better than FF in memory management.
sonnybobiche, on 03/17/2008, -19/+32Oh please, compare it to the fanboys who kept insisting that FF was more usable than everything else even when it slowed their systems to a crawl with anything more than 5 tabs open at once. There are fanboys on either side of the aisle.
cawpin, on 03/17/2008, -9/+27I've never had that problem, never.
Dumbledorito, on 03/17/2008, -13/+7Indeed. I loved the excuses from the FF crowd. My favorite was how FF was "keeping your RAM safe."

I'm glad that the memory problems have been taken care of, but don't start wanking about it as if there was never a problem in the first place.
Flagg3, on 03/17/2008, -1/+17Umm, has anyone actually used IE7 in Windows Vista? IE seems to have caught the Firefox bug, because it eats memory like no ones business now as well!
FlyingSpaghetti, on 03/17/2008, -0/+31Firefox 1: nom nom nom nom nom nom
Firefox 2: nom nom nom nom nom
FIrefox 3: nom
glinsvad, on 03/17/2008, -3/+6Firefox 4: Profit!

Damn, I hope not...
Dumbledorito, on 03/18/2008, -0/+4Let's see... have an experience not uncommon to a browser.
Point out experience.
Point out that said experience has apparently been rectified.

Get buried by the fanboys. Got it. credence, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2I'm digging you for two reasons:
1) Your point is valid, even though I love my firefox.
2) Your username gives me amusing mental images.

Carry on.
kipmartin, on 03/17/2008, -12/+2dugg down both you trendy hipster dudes for use of the worn out, flame invoking, ersatz hacker term 'fanboy'. did you just discover it? bejayel, on 03/17/2008, -12/+9I really think that there are only firefox fanboys, and then peole who just dont care. I see people defend other browsers, but more often than not, firefox users are the ones who are displaying absolutely stupid acts of fanboyism. Firefox fanboys will blame everything from windows having errors to super monkeys to find an excuse for firefox having the problems it did.
I am prersonally glad the memory management is being addressed finally. Maybe now i will actually use it as well as Opera.
Niten, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2I really don't know who these people are, who've had such great problems with Firefox. I haven't met them myself.

Now certainly, Firefox used to have memory efficiency issues, especially when 1.x was loaded to the gills with extensions. On the other hand, in my usage it was always more graceful at handling nonstandard web pages than Safari, and always far more stable than Opera.

Obviously one man's anecdote does not nullify another's, but for what it's worth: from my point of view Firefox has never been quite as troublesome to use as Opera or Safari, because – guess what? – if it had been, then I would have stuck with using Opera or Safari instead. And I'm not a "Firefox fanboy" for saying so.
sonnybobiche, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2In contrast, I always found my experience with firefox infuriatingly slow, and opted instead to use Opera, with which I rarely experienced stability issues. (Rendering issues on the other hand...)
ElectroOverlord, on 03/17/2008, -36/+257Ummmmm...***** the RIAA!
Beowulf2112, on 03/17/2008, -4/+35While I agree with your statement, where the hell did that come from?
badenglishihave, on 03/18/2008, -7/+5IT CAME OUTTA NOWHERE, BITCH!!!
Fockzhound, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1like a ninja
knetworx, on 03/17/2008, -14/+3WINNAR!!!!
CCoe, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1You're doing it wrong.
chousho, on 03/17/2008, -1/+7That is neither here nor there, but meet me at the secret rendezvous area where we can discuss this further.

The uprising shall have cupcakes.
SpeedSteamBoat, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2The cupcakes are a lie!
darlingt, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1Portal is a lie.
morgrar, on 03/18/2008, -4/+2I literally LOL'ed after seeing that comment. Awesome. Completely irrelevant, but totally required. Should follow with a "As seen on Digg" sticker.
Dylson, on 03/18/2008, -1/+4Shut up. Go back to myspace.
Light11, on 03/17/2008, -12/+7i just changed from ff2 to ff3 beta and its much much better. im kind of wondering why they took out the 'go' button. easier to press that then find the refresh button when developing.
chrisharcourt, on 03/17/2008, -2/+36Dude, F5....
noahhoward, on 03/17/2008, -16/+3F5 is volume control :)
cawpin, on 03/17/2008, -0/+10No it isn't. Fn+F5 is volume control. You just have your keyboard settings set to assume Fn with the F keys.
Light11, on 03/17/2008, -3/+1f5 does not work because i usually have my editor in front of the firefox window of the page im editing. so when i upload to the server i want to just click the go button which turns ff into the main window.
thtroyer, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8Alt+tab, F5 ?

If I'm writing code, I don't use the mouse unless I have to. Much faster that way.
SysstemLord, on 03/17/2008, -2/+1F5 does replace refresh but does not replace the "Go" button.
For example I copy and paste some link inside the address bar, and I want to visit it, if I refresh then I get back the page that is currently loaded, and the URL that I pasted disappears.
CoolGoose, on 03/17/2008, -0/+8Press Enter. I didn't even notice the lack of the Go button. But it could be an accessibility problem. rishichhibber, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3"Enter" no good for you?
kinghajj, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6I'm running a self-compiled version of FF3b4, and I still have the good-ol' fashioned theme. I'm not sure what I did (or didn't do) right, but the old theme is still better than the current beta theme. Hopefully they improve that. zwaldowski, on 03/17/2008, -1/+4Ctrl+R Alexio, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6That's really not good. I need the go button there. When you hit F5 or refresh, POST data gets sent again and the contents of forms doesn't go back to it's default, which is not what I want when I'm in the middle of developing many of my pages.
Light11, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3this is another reason too. trisweb, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1Click in address bar, hit enter. Not so difficult...
Whaines, on 03/17/2008, -2/+1Since you're used to pushing the go button to refresh, try pushing the refresh button instead. It's next to the back and forward arrows. Light11, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2also refresh is different from go. look at Alexio's comment. Kral, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2Click, press enter.
Furkle, on 03/17/2008, -7/+134Wasn't this posted last week?
dsmx, on 03/17/2008, -4/+12I was just thinking that, but why not get it too the front page again just to rub microsofts face in it? hueyha, on 03/17/2008, -0/+25Yeah, and the one last week came directly from a Firefox developer's blog. luke16, on 03/17/2008, -1/+9Yes, it was posted last week CedEx, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Well... you know how far memory will go...
*crickets*
What? That bad huh? NoodleGuy, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Welcome to Digg. You must be new here. Repeats make the front page all the time. This particular story was submitted twice (See the # 2 at the end of the URL) with a link to the exact same article, but who's counting (besides digg)
Furkle, on 03/17/2008, -1/+2no no I expect repeats after a month or so on some content but like this was just posted.
Pritchard, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3The one last week was about the new FF3b4 release. This one has a picture of memory usages right next to it's title... That's basically like a totally new thing altogether, didn't you know? Quicksilver4648, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1You, sir, are correct. I thought I was the only one who noticed that. Alfredosauce, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2I bury duplicate stories.
Farik, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2Same here, not that it helps any.
thailand1972, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3So many repeat stories, it looks like it's not only FF that uses less memory....
VladislavIII, on 03/17/2008, -20/+20Shouldn't every new release require *more* resources? That's what I was brought up to believe.
dsmx, on 03/17/2008, -3/+62Ahh the microsoft mentality, remember vista is better than xp because it needs more HDD space, more ram and better processor to run. But you get so many useful new features that just weren't possible from releasing a patch for xp.
ronaldmonster, on 03/17/2008, -2/+18Couldn't the same be said about OSX?
kipmartin, on 03/17/2008, -4/+14...or ubuntu?
theaceoffire, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Next version of Ubuntu is focusing on stability and minimizing duplicate programs.
daborg, on 03/17/2008, -2/+14But then we wouldn't be bashing Microsoft.
closetosomet, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3im running firefox 3 beta 4 on my eee under vista and it flies. i am shocked how well a vlited copy of vista runs on this thing. if only microsoft made it this well out of the box...
leerayIG88, on 03/17/2008, -3/+36IE: has the worms
stalefries, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8I think people are digging you up because they think you said that "Internet Explorer has the worms"
leerayIG88, on 03/17/2008, -1/+10or did I?
konforce, on 03/17/2008, -4/+26I prefer Firefox 3 over all other browsers, but even the latest beta struggles to run well on my Eee PC (XUbuntu). Opera, on the other hand, runs very smoothly on it. So while its memory usage is improving, the overall speed (especially on slower computers) hasn't changed much.
kipmartin, on 03/17/2008, -14/+4that Eee PC/XUbuntu box sounds like you got what you paid for. have you seen the Tandy Model 100? it runs a ton of apps (well, maybe 8-10) and its cheap!
gudnbluts, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8You don't know what an EEE PC is, do you? You don't buy it for its power. You buy it because it's the size of a paperback and weighs two pounds.
theviceroy, on 03/17/2008, -7/+3That's a valid reason to buy a computer now?
gudnbluts, on 03/17/2008, -1/+5Yes. Size, lightness and general portability is why more and more people are buying laptops rather than desktops. This little lappy, even more so.

Do I really need to explain this? Kral, on 03/18/2008, -2/+1Yes. MacSuxWindozSux, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1Don't be stupid.
konforce, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2I suggest you actually use one before you write it off. I was skeptical of the idea at first, but it definitely was well worth the $400. At 900Mhz it's quick enough to emulate N64 games, which is hardly something to scoff at. It can easily decode 800x450 H.264 movies for flawless playback. It can even run Compiz at its 800x480 resolution.

Opera has definitely been built from the bottom up with performance in mind. It runs on a variety of slower portable devices. Firefox, on the other hand, has not and it shows. It is slower than Opera on my Eee PC even with NoScript and AdBlock enabled!

But I don't really care that Firefox struggles on slower hardware; I think it's more of a testament to how well Opera is written.
luke16, on 03/17/2008, -5/+8Deja Vu
thechr0nic, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5jamais vu - the feeling, during a familiar routine, that we're doing it for the first time.
harveywalbanger, on 03/17/2008, -10/+4It's about time. For a while there I thought Firefox was just a rebrand of the Piggish IE 7. MScrip, on 03/17/2008, -1/+17When is the final release?
prophetpimp, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4One more beta after this followed by two Release candidate then the final version. 2 to 4 months in my best guess.
The mozilla page is not very helpful either
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/Schedule anaesthetica, on 03/17/2008, -2/+2"When it's done."
darlingt, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1Sheesh, Mom, sorry we asked...
asadotzler, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3http://blog.mozilla.com/ftr/2008/02/11/when-its-re ...
foxter, on 03/17/2008, -2/+3I'm loving this development. Soon, downstream products like Camino (my browser of choice) will adopt the improvements and make me very happy. One thing I'm not into, however, is the ugly (IMHO) theme for the Mac. zbeast, on 03/17/2008, -4/+5I'm very happy to see this happening.. I love the fox but she's puts on a lot of weight if you just leave her
sitting around. I usually have to kill the process because it often grows as large as 700meg.
 davewashere, on 03/17/2008, -0/+10I use FF because I find several of its third party plugins to be useful. Does FF3 address the memory problem that is often associated with plugins? I haven't experienced many memory problems with FF in recent releases when I'm not using any plugins.
coopa, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2I'm now using FF3, beta 4 and i don't ever remember any of the previous versions being this quick and lite. I'm using the beta as my main browser now. ThreeDee912, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4It depends on how well the person develops the plugins. Some sloppy programmer could introduce a bunch of memory leaks.
theaceoffire, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5They minimized most of the risk of that, by creating a garbage collector.
SpeedSteamBoat, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3RTFA: "Parmenter notes that the cycle collector has notable implications for extensions because it will be able to proactively eliminate certain kinds of memory leaks introduced by Firefox extensions that manipulate Firefox's internals."

So the short answer is "yes."
cmotdibbler, on 03/17/2008, -2/+3Tete's optimized builds for firefox really fly. Only problem is that quite a few extensions don't work as well as FFv2
dsmx, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3That's because at present ffv3 is in beta and is intended for testing by web developers and not general web surfing. MacSuxWindozSux, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1All my extensions seem to work.

Adblock Plus
Download Statusbar
Down Them All
Fission
IE Tab
No Script
Tab Scope
Dictionary
Linake, on 03/17/2008, -3/+5I posted this last week, but you can click here for the original source of this article:
http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory ...

It includes a link to where you can download Firefox 3 Beta 4, which is pretty interesting so far. ecto123, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2I wonder when Firefox 3 will be released?
IdanH14, on 03/17/2008, -0/+1I heard on a podcast the other day that Beta 4 was to be released and that it's kind of a Release Candidate. So be patient, it's going to happen soon.
jerstud56, on 03/17/2008, -0/+1Well....depending if you mean the betas or final, the Beta 4 is out, and beta 5 is on the way. Beta 4 is pretty damn reliable! (But don't use if you're still using add-ons regularly)
colincornaby, on 03/17/2008, -2/+24"Safari 3 and Internet Explorer 8 could not be benchmarked because they crashed during the test." Uh oh, being a Safari fan, I can't say that reflects too well on Safari...
herrshuster, on 03/17/2008, -1/+13they're also both betas
Timmmm, on 03/17/2008, -7/+2Betas shouldn't crash either.
Kral, on 03/18/2008, -0/+6If they didn't crash, they wouldn't be beta..
Kypt, on 03/18/2008, -3/+4So is Firefox 3
Zanneth, on 03/18/2008, -1/+4Still, saying one Beta is better than another Beta doesn't really mean anything. darlingt, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1@Zanneth: *singing* "My beta's better than your beta!" srg13, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1hence the use of the word, 'also'
HolyMan28, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3Psssttt, make the switch!! gmprunner, on 03/18/2008, -1/+3They must be using the Windows version, because I've got the Mac version and it's stable to the point where I had completely forgotten it was still beta.
tba2287, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1The tests were done on Vista...but can somebody explain to me why there is a Windows version of Safari in the first place?
jman583, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3Blah blah blah, developing stuff for the iPhone, blah blah blah..... zzz@tkz, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1Why is there a Windows version of Amarok?
mateo60, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2There is a HUUUGE difference between the Mac and PC version of Safari. Just like how iTunes for PC is awful, but for a Mac, iTunes is fantastic.
Jobo50, on 03/18/2008, -3/+1Because Apple SUCKS.
ShinRaTDR, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3One word (or 2 words?) - WebKit. I saw an article on digg mentioning the loading time of Safari was cut in half by the updates in the WebKit engine, and not only is it fast, it never crashes, its a nightly build that crashes and freezes way, way less than the official Safari. Highly recommended, windows builds are available as well.

http://webkit.org/
IdanH14, on 03/17/2008, -0/+3Way the go Firefox! Keep up the good work. Now all you have to do is to be the number one browser there is! gencha, on 03/17/2008, -8/+4I believe it when i experience it myself.
IdanH14, on 03/17/2008, -2/+3You can download FF beta 4, it's is a lot more stable than the previous betas, so you'll be able to see for yourself. I've downloaded it, and yes, it's faster and less resources consuming.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
Have fun!
gencha, on 03/17/2008, -1/+3I like to wait for the final. And i'd like to see how my extensions behave. It's not like i don't believe it, but i'd like to see it myself ;)
gudnbluts, on 03/17/2008, -2/+1Yeah. I use Opera generally, but if the mouse gesture plugins have started working without that lag, if the caching is as good, and if you can get decent keyboard shortcuts like all the neat ones in Opera, I'd consider switching if it's now comparable in speed, if only for Adblock Plus.
KRNpro, on 03/18/2008, -0/+3Thomas, touch my hands. Do you believe now?
Cemetary, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8I'm not suprised. Firefox 1 and 2 have been wonderful and I expect no less from Firefox 3. Ramble, on 03/17/2008, -2/+19Opera beta 1 vs. Firefox beta 4.
This fight isn't over yet.
IdanH14, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2In my opinion, this fight haven't even started. i think that opera, with all due respect, is not a competitor in the browsers market. It simply lacks the huge community which surrounds the other big browsers.
elfprince13, on 03/17/2008, -13/+13the difference is the number of features Opera has packed in...with NO extensions, whereas firefox gets effed as soon as you add extensions.
HigherLogic, on 03/17/2008, -3/+10Well I asked this the last time this article was on the front page, but got dugg down even though it was a serious question. How well does Firefox perform once you start _adding_ extensions to it? Because I know hardly anyone runs Firefox as it comes packaged. Those are the benchmarks I'll be interested in.
asadotzler, on 03/18/2008, -3/+5>I know hardly anyone runs Firefox as it comes packaged


As for buggy extensions, there's only so much Mozilla can do. We have implemented a cycle collector that should help clean up some after large categories of memory abuses so that should go a long way to mitigating extension memory leak issues
- A That's because you know approximately 0.0000002% of Firefox users. The overwhelming majority of Firefox users don't use any extensions at all. The most popular extensions are only used by a small fraction of Firefox users. Most people are quite happy with it "out of the box." Scaryclouds, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1In answer to your question, it depends on the extension/add-on. If it's a well written program you probably won't notice any difference. If the program is poorly written then you are going to be in for a rough ride. I don't know how much control Mozilla has over extensions/add-ons but seing as FF is open source they can only has so much.
cannonballtrane, on 03/17/2008, -2/+9The article specifically mentions that memory leaks in extensions has been addressed, and that the new technologies for object reference cycle detection and the new garbage collector will help improve performance in this area.
thechr0nic, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6this is very exciting news, I am very anxious to see the final release. I use Firefox on a daily basis, and usually have no less than 25 tabs open when I use it at work.
I usually have to close my browser down and restart it, after 7 or 8 hours at work because of cpu/ram consumption, but its still a lot better than dealing with IE7
thailand1972, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1No less than 25 tabs? Do you have ADD or something?
thechr0nic, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1not really, just a lot of work to do.
ill admit that probably 5 to 10 of those tabs are dedicated to digg :)
scrag10, on 03/17/2008, -2/+22Hey look Safari crashed! Grooblle, on 03/17/2008, -24/+1BURIED
novemberdobby, on 03/17/2008, -1/+7BURIED
angrycat, on 03/17/2008, -8/+32I'd like to see the same graph after all the extensions required to get firefox to the same level of functionality as Opera are installed.
Sure, the firefox dev team were careful with memory allocation, what makes you think the neckbeard developing some extension is going to be as vigilant with memory?
christophelyon, on 03/17/2008, -6/+1Who really needs those extensions anyway, except web developers ?

I've been using Firefox for years now, and the only extensions that have proven useful are Web Developer and - on Windows - IETab. All the other add-ons - not to mention themes - have proven to be perfect useless crap.
SSCrow, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4Uhhh,
FasterFox
FoxyTunes
NoScript
Adblock Plus
Stumble Upon.
Download Status bar

Those are all the ones that I use constantly.
None of which are developer related, but make FF better than IE.
theaceoffire, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4You forgot God: Greasemonkey.
The only way to stop rick roll.
ThreeDee912, on 03/17/2008, -2/+5Quoted from a comment by cannonballtrane:
"The article specifically mentions that memory leaks in extensions has been addressed, and that the new technologies for object reference cycle detection and the new garbage collector will help improve performance in this area."
http://digg.com/software/Firefox_3_goes_on_a_diet_ ...
Omar12, on 03/17/2008, -6/+8whoa. i went to click on the link and a mcskillet burrito came out of my screen!
leetdood, on 03/17/2008, -0/+25and that's why I started using Adblock Plus. Thanks, Digg.
dimthegreat, on 03/17/2008, -1/+7i have been using firebox beta 4 for a couple of days now and i notice the improvements
 TheG2, on 03/17/2008, -1/+13Heres something to keep in mind though:

Opera comes with a ton of features built in that Firefox (I use it 95% of the time) has to install extensions for which bump the memory usage up.

As a web developer however though, this make me happy as hopefully Firefox will stop sucking up tons of my ram (the one real gripe I've had with it).
BRODEL, on 03/18/2008, -7/+1Opera doesn't support socks proxies or at least it didn't the last time I tried to use it. It also doesn't have anything like adblock plus, so I can't even think of using it anywhere.
chamblah, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2Is there somewhere/somehow, other than through trial and error, to find out what addons have been updated to work with Firefox 3?
ThreeDee912, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2Yeah, just head over to the mozilla addons site:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

It shows the versions of FF each addon is compatible with.
ryannerd, on 03/17/2008, -1/+5I'm on 3.0b4 running on XP home and my back button has disappeared. It was there yesterday I swear, and today all I have is refresh, stop, "Display progress of ongoing downloads" buttons. Despite this it has been a very nice beta version. The reduction in the memory footprint is excellent.
int19h, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4It seems like the back and forward buttons are one button now, from the toolbar point of view. I also had this problem. Try this:
- right click one of the toolbar buttons
- turn on all the toolbars
- the back/forward widget thingy should appear on one of the previously hidden toolbars
- right click one of the toolbar buttons
- select "customize"
- drag the back/forward button to where you want it to be
- hide the toolbars you don't want
- if this doesn't work, and you're desperate, you can delete your settings and start fresh
Works for me! Good luck :) mattmcm, on 03/17/2008, -0/+1Try right-clicking the navigation toolbar, customise it, then drag the back button to its usual place. If that doesn't work, I don't know what's wrong. Dodgy extension, maybe? Try clearing your profile (back it up first though) ThreeDee912, on 03/17/2008, -0/+1View>Toolbars>Customize
and add the back button back in.
Flagg3, on 03/17/2008, -3/+2I'm not sure if it's Faster fox or one of the other addons, but I honestly don't have very many memory problems anymore with Firefox 2. I never reboot my PC, and I always have 15-20 firefox AND IE windows tabs open at all times, and truthfully - I have to reboot IE7 more often than I do Firefox. In fairness, even when I do have to restart Firefox every week or so it's hardly a big deal. You just close it and reopen it and all tabs return as they were. Meanwhile I have to disable all of the addons in IE7 under Windows Vista or else I constantly get the dreaded 'black screen of death' in my IE7 and have to restart it constantly. kingUssop, on 03/17/2008, -12/+6Pure ***** in my experience. I prefer FF, but there's no difference in memory use on the latest versions and it is still a memory hog. So... *****. Still a great browser. Nothlit, on 03/17/2008, -2/+6Too bad the new address bar in Firefox 3 is way too visually cluttered, and the throbber keeps spinning on certain sites (like digg) even though they have finished loading... I would have thought they would fix that eventually, but it's still a problem even in beta 4.
Atomic1fire, on 03/17/2008, -1/+2Visually cluttered?
It doesnt look all that cluttered
the keyhole design makes more address room and places isnt really that big plus its easy to add feeds in places so you have a place to look at them without visiting bookmarks MacSuxWindozSux, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2The spinning is also on FF2 as well. It's a Digg thing.
chromerium, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1FF2 is fine for me, FF3 on Linux/Mac spins.
init100, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1Do you possibly use NoScript? If you disable scripts for msn.com, the page loads fine.
ryannerd, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6After fighting a losing battle I finally got the IE8 beta. Word of advise for those who use IE and FF --> Don't bother with the IE 8 beta. It's not worth the pain for the new "features" and bloat. FF beta 3 is awesome and beats IE hands down.
thefinger, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1I couldn't even install the IE8 beta. It made like it was installing, then rebooted with no indication of what if anything had happened, how it went, etc. After the reboot, still at IE6. There was a troubleshooting link that looked promising but ended up not helping in my case. If I ever want this puppy, I'll probably have to do a total reinstall of Windows, something I really don't want to do..... reinstalling XP used to be sortof fun, now it's just a drag, something I avoid if I can.
CrackyJSquirrel, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5I love firefox.. Mainly because of FireBug.. :)

But fixing the memory issue is a god send.. With FF and MyEclipse running at the same time, I feel my machine is slowly plotting my death..

 judicar, on 03/17/2008, -0/+12I left it running for a week, came back, still only using 73mb of ram whereas before it would have hogged up 500-700mb. cyclades, on 03/17/2008, -9/+3It's still unstable as hell on a mac.
herrshuster, on 03/17/2008, -4/+9maybe it's not the browser BRODEL, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1That's odd I've been using firefox since I switched and I don't think it's crashed on me once. Yeah it's slow as ***** to load up, but once it's loaded it's fine. Scaryclouds, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1I agree with herrshunster, I don't think it is the browser. FF has been very stable for me especially since midway through the third beta release. chrysalis, on 03/18/2008, -0/+0Beta 3 was stable for me on OSX, but beta 4 is also quite unreliable.
Shadic, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4I've been using Beta 4 for as long as it's been out, and I love it. I haven't had any errors or crashes with the thing, and I use it almost constantly. neojinge, on 03/17/2008, -2/+4Personally I just like the fact it pwns IE 7 - but would we expect anything less?
Atomic1fire, on 03/17/2008, -1/+22 did that already
IE8 Needs some visual improvements before calling itself complete
neojinge, on 03/17/2008, -1/+0sure - you'd just expect IE7 to better given the competition.

but no.
DeadPlasmaCell, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8I've always used IE because it's always been faster for me compared to other versions of FireFox & Opera, but I've been using this Firefox 3 beta for a week or so now and I'm very very impressed. It responds much quicker and like the article states, it uses very little resources overall. Very nice!
gudnbluts, on 03/17/2008, -1/+1"I've always used IE because it's always been faster for me compared to other versions of FireFox & Opera"

Faster than Opera? I doubt it very much. IE doesn't even cache properly (and I'm hoping the new Firefox does).
fluffyturtle, on 03/17/2008, -3/+5Ummm... Considering IE7 uses less than what they report and Firefox 2 uses more, I am utterly confused as to how they are getting their information.
ThreeDee912, on 03/17/2008, -5/+2How are you getting YOUR information? Note that IE7 masks it's memory usage, as it uses various other system processes to do it's work. Read the original article from the FF dev for more info.
bingobongony, on 03/18/2008, -1/+2Yeah...read the ***** article from the people who DEVELOPED Firefox...who would have no reason to lie, right?
bingobongony, on 03/18/2008, -3/+2It was a Firefox developer that ran the "benchmark test" If you run these tests 100 times you are going to get 100 different results. This guy happened to run it until he got what he was looking for. thailand1972, on 03/18/2008, -1/+1Agree - in my own experience, IE7 uses way less RAM than FF2, yet in this test IE7 uses a lot more RAM than FF2. Think about it: the FF2 RAM issue is now very well known, but I've never heard of a RAM issue with IE6 or 7....so what gives with this test? Only time will tell.
DigitAl56K, on 03/17/2008, -1/+5I think it's important to remember that the biggest criticism against Firefox in terms of memory use is leaks. You'll notice that even the chart provided doesn't show Firefox 2 in a leak situation, it's memory usage is greater than the other browsers but steady over time. I've never been concerned with Firefox 2's memory usage in general, but only time will tell if Firefox 3 actually resolve leaks for those who do suffer from them.
asadotzler, on 03/18/2008, -0/+2"I think it's important to remember that the biggest criticism against Firefox in terms of memory use is leaks."

and this criticism is backed up by testing or other evidence? because everything we found suggested just the opposite, that the leaks were the least impact of the various memory issues. still, over 300 very small and a couple large leaks were fixed.
Kral, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1I've not looked at their actual situation, but from working on memory issues in other software, I would figure even small leaks would be problematic as they cause severe fragmentation issues.
Jareth86, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2Jesus, look at IE. Microsoft really just doesn't care anymore...
Atomic1fire, on 03/17/2008, -0/+1Until Firefox Upstaged MS (see S still exists you dont need to use $)
Then they figured they should try harder and that got XP users IE7 with opensearch and tabs
which meant firefox users got a Microsoft search plugin page
Jareth86, on 03/18/2008, -0/+1Er... that green bar *is* IE7.
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