Ok. As a freelance web designer, Firefox is without a doubt – my Swiss Army Knife. I’m constantly messing with resolutions, .css debugging, working in WordPress, etc… At the same time, I need Gmail, Google Reader,I love to listen to Pandora and I use Freshbooks for time-tracking. Rather than have the ‘extra stuff’ running in tandem with my work in Firefox (which would just take up more tabs and get in the way) I wanted to know which browser had the lightest footprint for my ‘extra stuff’.
Because I use Firefox as my main browser, I don’t want to have a second copy of it open. Windows will just run it under the same process. (Just for fun, I ran it anyway…however it doesn’t count). Since I run x64 (64 bit) version of Windows, I also ran the x64 version of Firefox 3.5 and IE 8. While the results are interesting, they are however, incomparable.
The Mission:
Find out which modern browser can run my ‘extra stuff’ while I work – using the least amount of resources.
The Computer:
Gateway® P-7805u FX Edition (from BestBuy)
The OS:
Windows 7 (x64) RC 1 – Build 7100
The ‘Extra Stuff’:
Gmail
Google Reader
Pandora
Freshbooks
Freshbooks Timer
The Measurement Tool:
Windows Task Manager
(see column definitions here)
Hard Numbers:
Rank | Browser | Average CPU Usage | Peak CPU Usage | Ram (MB) | Virtual Memory (MB) |
Firefox 3.5 | 4% | 7% | 206,952 | 182,612 | |
Opera 9 | 7% | 13% | 169,950 | 159,304 | |
| 1 | Opera 10 | 9% | 14% | 180,020 | 173,576 |
2 | Chrome 3 | 9% | 18% | 310,328 | 309,132 |
3 | Internet Explorer 8 | 12% | 19% | 265,428 | 246,568 |
4 | Safari 4 | 27% | 38% | 269,688 | 269,512 |
1 | Firefox 3.5 x64 (no Pandora) | 0.2% | 1% | 192,668 | 160,688 |
2 | IE 8 x64 (no Pandora) | 2% | 7% | 207,144 | 174,364 |
Results:
Opera 10 – With any new major release you can expect things to get a little more bloated. As you can see from updated chart and screen shot: Opera 10 got fat. Disappointing. As I enjoyed using Opera 9.64 as my second browser.
Google Chrome 3.0 – A close second in CPU Usage but WAY behind in RAM management. What annoyed me were the 8 PROCESSES running! Plus Pandora had one of the 8 processes running at almost 20%.
IE 8 -Better RAM management than Chrome & Safari, however average CPU usage was too high for me. Pandora strikes again…
Safari 4.0 – Ran about as well as a fatty in a game of Dodge Ball. While its RAM management was slightly better thanChrome – it was almost sucking my Core2Duo dry. I guess running Pandora isn’t Safari’s game.
Firefox 3.5 – Even with Pandora streaming away, Firefox beats them all in CPU Usage. Too bad it doesn’t count!
64 Bit Editions (for fun)
Firefox (x64) – Seriously? 0.2% average CPU Usage? Yeah, seriously. Impressive as it was basically invisible to my processor. This is very encouraging AND ALL my plug-ins worked.
IE 8 (x64) – Could be a serious contender. I don’t understand why it ran my CPU at 2-3% constantly, I guess the clock on Freshbooks was making it ‘think’ too much.
Closing Argument:
In closing, I will be using Opera 9.64 as my browser of choice for my ‘extra stuff’.
UPDATE
I recieved a Google Wave invite a few weeks ago, and only Firefox & Chrome only are supported. So…I was forced to switch from Opera 10 to Google Chrome as my secondary browser. I have found it to be very speedy. It handles the java scripts of Gmail/Wave/Reader better than Firefox, plus I enjoy the skinning options.
ANOTHER UPDATE
This blog post is incredibly dated. I’ve since switched to Chrome as my default browser. I’m still running x64 Windows 7 Professional and what I love most about Chrome is the A) Auto-Update featured of both itself, extensions, and Adobe Flash B) Pinning tabs for my most used websites Gmail, Freshbooks, Reddit, etc… C) How well it syncs my bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers – all in the background.
I would suggest you try Chrome too: https://www.google.com/chrome
Agree? Disagree? Comment below.
Hey man great article. I have never really looked at opera but might check it out now. And the reason chrome runs a separate process for everything its doing is stability. If (for example) pandora locks up you can just kill it without killing the browser and everything else its doing.
How many tabs did you have open at the time? Chrome runs each tab in it’s own process – so that if one tab crashes, only one process is killed, instead of the entire browser dying.
You might want to read here: http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-chrome-memory-usage-good-and-bad.html
Chrome generated more threads so that the tabs, and the plugins are all decoupled from each other. In Chrome, if flash crashes, flash crashes. In all of the other browsers if flash crashes the browser crashes. Same goes for laggy tabs. If a tab is lagging, it will not slow down any of the other tabs.
I prefer Firefox over anything else. I have an older computer running XP Pro and Firefox defiantly runs better on it. Also it has one of the most important features of all, spell check. Some may laugh but it is a very important feature for me when I blog.
@steve
you may want to check out the spell check feature :)
(@defiantly)
I absolutely admire the Opera 10 internet browser from Opera Software Inc. I firmly believe the Vikings have finally cracked open a genie out of the bottle.
The Opera 10 internet browsers is so well thought and designed very beautifully so that even a beginner can have a crack at and have so much fun. After all it is a mobile browser design for the well connected mobile community from around the world.
Source:
cheap pay as you go mobile phones
From my experience of using IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, Opera definitely seems to be the fastest, and most. Firefox seems best for widgets, add ons etc, Chrome for its interface, and IE, for umm. Don't get me wrong IE is okay, but has nothing to shout about…
From my experience of using IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, Opera definitely seems to be the fastest, and most. Firefox seems best for widgets, add ons etc, Chrome for its interface, and IE, for umm. Don't get me wrong IE is okay, but has nothing to shout about…
I tested Firefox and Chrome also, and I came up with the same results: despite all the buzz around chrome and how everyone was saying it was “lighter” it still uses more resources. It DOES seem faster, but I think that's because it's using more resources. And maybe customer perspective is what really matters.
Also, I'd like to comment on using “RAM” in your chart: I can only guess that it's total system RAM being used? Otherwise I don't see how it's bigger than virtual memory, unless Windows reports virtual memory in a non-standard way. I think Virtual is the real one to look at.
Here comes another Opera fan. I started using it since version 7.5x if I’m not mistaken. I got fully attracted to it when Opera goes ads-free – version 8. But I do like Safari. :) Firefox? Well…
You can download the x64 version of Flash for Firefox x64 and other x64 browsers here:
Flash Square info:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/square/
Flash Square Download page (select “Download plug-in for 64-bit Windows — for all other browsers “):
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_square.html