[Grall]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

I read that Chrome preloads some links from google results, and that this turns stats up.

You can turn this off in the preferences. I always turn off all preloading shit, I think it's pretty much pointless if you have a connection faster than a few mbit/s.

I didn't try to install a flash blocker though.

Just disabling the flash plugin should do the same thing...

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by Grall

Just disabling the flash plugin should do the same thing...

not if you want to access porn multimedia and gaming content.

[Grall]

You can set it to not autorun, so clicking on the object in question would let you enjoy your......."multimedia".

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

I used chromium for about a month, and couldn't keep it because I only have 2GB memory. the "fast" and "lean" browser is very memory hungry when you wastefully load lots of tabs.

Well yes, every tab gets a separate thread and memory space, and cannot crash the other tabs when one hangs. With of course the lovely exception of Flash, as that hooks back to the same single library or something, and when that dies for some reason everything goes down with it.

I didn't try to install a flash blocker though. I'm not entirely satisfied by the UI, or don't find the preferences layout is simple ("standard options", "advanced options", and "stuff I don't remember what it's for"). it's less simple than "general", "tabs", "privacy", "security" etc.
importantly, my firefox has zooming buttons in the toolbar, too. so I'm back to firefox.

You need them in the toolbar? I prefer shortcut keys for zooming, for those rare instances that I need it. Just hold control and scroll your mousewheel.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Well yes, every tab gets a separate thread and memory space, and cannot crash the other tabs when one hangs. With of course the lovely exception of Flash, as that hooks back to the same single library or something, and when that dies for some reason everything goes down with it.

Interesting, IE 9 doesn't exhibit that behavior. If flash crashes a tab only that tab goes down and is recovered.

You need them in the toolbar? I prefer shortcut keys for zooming, for those rare instances that I need it. Just hold control and scroll your mousewheel.

I prefer the discrete steps in the toolbar myself in IE. With my aging eyes it's nice to easily bump a page up a set amount (100-125-150 percent) if it's just a bit too small to read comfortably. If I need fine grained zooming, then as you said ctrl+mousewheel works decently enough. But for quick pre-determined zooms, toolbar controls are optimal, IMO.

That said, I've recently started trying Chrome. And I have to say it's nice that it just "works." But so many things about it annoy me even more than IE 9 (versus the superior UI of IE 8). Like, for example, I haven't found where to enable pop-up blocking in Chrome. That's probably just me, but considering it's so easy to do in IE, it's rather annoying that I haven't found it in Chrome.

As well, the crash recovery doesn't seem to work consistently. Sometimes it'll offer to reload tabs that were open prior to a crash and sometimes it won't. Meh, still not good enough to replace IE for me, despite IE 9's annoying UI. Wish I could have kept the UI from IE 8, that one was just about perfect, IMO.

There's other things about it that annoy me, but all in all, it's a nice browser alternative for people that don't want to configure anything and just want something that works.

I still use Chrome though. It's handy to use in conjunction with Sandboxie for Flash videos so that I never have to enable Flash in IE and thus open up a potential security hole.

Regards,
SB

[Arwin]

Now that I think about it, the Flash crashes I've had are mostly related to my sound card, so that could be the reason - sound driver crashes, and then Flash doesn't work anywhere anymore.

One other thing I love about Chrome (some other browsers get this right as well), but IE9 still very often screws up, is when for some reason my page moves forward or backward due to something silly in a web-page, is closed accidentally or due to my own stupidity, or a web server session timeout, or whatever, then going back, or reopening the closed page, always recovers the (non-secured) contents of any forms I had filled out at that time.

But in IE9, almost always, the form is cleared when I reopen the page or even often just from a page forward/backward.

[UniversalTruth]

Maybe it's due to my subjective observations or some other factors but at the moment I am testing my internet connection with wireless signal which is fluctuating between nonexistent-poor-and-fair and IE 9 behaves somehow better, faster and more stable than Google Chrome 19, and Google Canary build 21.

Someone to confirm or deny it?

[UniversalTruth]

This thingie is crazy hungry for RAM. From 999 MB of RAM occupied with 3-4 tabs, turn it off and RAM magically goes down to 615 MB occupied. That is astonishing + ~400 MB for a simple web browser.

Just ridiculous.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

This thingie is crazy hungry for RAM. From 999 MB of RAM occupied with 3-4 tabs, turn it off and RAM magically goes down to 615 MB occupied. That is astonishing + ~400 MB for a simple web browser.

Just ridiculous.

I presume you've got a tab with a video player open? I think you seem more memory being used here partly because flash is integrated in the browser process. Each tab has its own process, and having about 40 tabs open, they range from 340KB to 64MB for me, but a video can really push that up to above 200MB easily, as these tend to cache into memory completely eventually.

[Grall]

RAM is so cheap today on PCs. It could be a problem if you're running a 32-bit OS of course, but on a 64-bit system just toss in more or bigger sticks and it's problem solved. I've got 12GB in my box, and it's pretty much impossible for me to blow it all.

[UniversalTruth]

Oh, yeah, so if it is "cheap", then go and waste it for nothing. I suspect that's why the software companies don't care... actually, they do care but to work in cooperation with harware manufacturers to push sales.

And no, I am with my laptop and it is neither easy nor cheap to upgrade my memory.

[Arwin]

So, did you have a youtube tab open or anything else with video or heavy flash use or not? I just tested, and sure enough watching a simple youtube movie brings up the memory of that tab, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be much different for other browsers.

[BRiT]

Unused ram is worthless ram. If you're not using the memory, you might as well not even have it. Why are you so concerned with how much memory is used for buffering techniques? I'm sure the web browser and OS will flush the ram should another application truely need it.

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by Arwin

So, did you have a youtube tab open

No, and I think youtube tabs don't have so significant influence on memory usage.

[Blazkowicz]

it's a sad but okay attitude if you can do it. I'm stuck at 2GB because of ddr2 and two slots not working but would readily have 8GB if I could (I might end up paying for 2x2GB ddr2 used or new even though it's the price of 8GB ddr3)

I read a story about a company spending six monthes of several engineers's time to get memory usage down on an internal application, then the thing is demoed and an intern raises hand and asks "couldn't we just have added memory to the server?"

but here Google is a filthy rich company and cost is passed down to the consumer. But maybe it's because of the design and partial crashes were a must for Chrome OS (too bad, no one uses Chrome OS)

Funnily, firefox crashes have become less and less common, they're less common than Chrome (-ium) partial crashes. Firefox was supposedly a mess and outdated but what we actually got was a big clean up, also its UI doesn't move and I've had about the same layout for 5 years. This contradicts all the nerd rage we could read a few years ago and I wouldn't ever want to go back to FF 3.x

I'm not too concerned, at least IE 6 is dead. Last nitpick against Chrome, the way it handles downloads is bad, I like "open with" and "save to", thanks.

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by BRiT

Unused ram is worthless ram. If you're not using the memory, you might as well not even have it. Why are you so concerned with how much memory is used for buffering techniques? I'm sure the web browser and OS will flush the ram should another application truely need it.

If you have twenty Chrome processes using 2GB out of your 2GB memory, sure the OS will handle it, it will swap like mad just to deal with your task bar, file manager or music player.
In parties you may drink all stray opened beers and cheap alcohol for them not to go to waste, finish that toxic container of wine that nobody wants to drink. You'll be remembered as a bum and your brain and stomach will feel the consequences.

[UniversalTruth]

So, now seriously you are almost there to convince me to refresh my laptop with some new and fresh parts.
Like to replace my 2 GB DDR2 667 Samsung memory with 47 EUR 4 GB A-DATA DDR2 800 and instead of the T5250, to buy for 160 USD brand new T9500 from Ebay.

And a new battery and I will have like a new laptop, saving hundreds of dollars for a new one.

Actually, even the videocard can be upgraded but I don't need it... another stupid geforce.

Is it worth it or not? Or to go for an AMD laptop, or Intel + Radeon?

[Rurouni]

Can they (google) put a limit on how much chrome will use memory? I like that an app can use as much ram as possible (as long as it actually use it instead because leaks), but it would be nice to put a hard limit so we can preserve some of it for the system and other apps.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

Oh, yeah, so if it is "cheap", then go and waste it for nothing.

Wasting it "for nothing" is obviously not ideal, but if it totally solves your problem completely...why bitch about it? Ok, so chrome uses 900MB or whatever. Two 4-gig sticks, even isodimms for a laptop, costs a pittance. That's a crapload of chrome tabs right there, more than you're ever going to be able to spend no doubt.

actually, they do care but to work in cooperation with harware manufacturers to push sales.

I'm sceptical of such claims. What would be the incentive for the softcos to conspire in such a way? Before you say "monetary kickbacks from hardware makers", do you have proof of that? No? Ok, so there you are. Hope that tinfoil hat of yours is comfortable, heh.

[RudeCurve]

The one thing that annoys me about Chrome is the fact it only saves 10 steps of recently closed history. I wish it was 20 or user configurable.

[orangpelupa]

chrome use ram like crazy, I just deal with it by putting 8GB sd card as readyboost.

[Arwin]

So I just did a little test, and I am right - chrome tabs have the flash stuff embedded (youtube comes with a special adobe flash dll that is sort of memory safe, as Chrome tabs are in protected memory and thread-safe containers).

When I watch the same youtube movie in FireFox, I can see the FlashPlayerPlugin_11_4_403_365.exe as a separate process, but it's still eating memory and about just as much of it, firefox and flash combined are currently at 190MB and climbing.

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by Grall

Two 4-gig sticks, even isodimms for a laptop, costs a pittance

Oh, you are ready to buy me a present. Do you want me to give you a shipping address?

Originally Posted by Grall

I'm sceptical of such claims. What would be the incentive for the softcos to conspire in such a way? Before you say "monetary kickbacks from hardware makers", do you have proof of that? No? Ok, so there you are. Hope that tinfoil hat of yours is comfortable, heh.

Oh, come on... When you, guys, start with such a discussion and... it's not about consiracy but how things actually work. In this world full of mistakes and wrong decisions, and different interests, for money, etc.
It can be proven, of course, but now i'm too lazy to write anything.

[Davros]

Originally Posted by orangpelupa

chrome use ram like crazy, I just deal with it by putting 8GB sd card as readyboost.

how would that help, ready boost is not a ram substitute and it wouldnt help with webpages using a lot of memory

[Blazkowicz]

When memory is full you've lost your disk cache, so readyboost would allow it back in some way. Bonus point, if you get to swap a bit while launching a program, the program can be read from the flash card while the hdd is busy swapping.
I have to say a little swapping is tolerable on a modern drive, we had it really bad in the days of IDE mode PIO 4

My worst memory was Descent, it supposedly ran on 4MB ram, 8MB recommended. It was a 32bit DOS game so it did its own swap. It was mostly fine until a certain level with a big area that halted to a crawl (or crawled to a halt). The readme said somewhere, in a wording I don't remember, that you actually need 5MB ram for this game