Edge is catching Firefox User's eye

Just offering some feedback to y'all about Edge vs. Firefox Quantum.

I have a Lenovo Flex 14 that committed 2GBs of 8GBs of RAM to a GPU. This model didn't exist long and get replaced by a 12GB model so that you didn't have to be me with only 6. Luckily that laptop isn't my work horse but it would be nice to find a browser that isn't greedy with RAM.

I have a feeling Edge is pretty good that way. On my main PC I opened the same pages. (This is while I'm ripping some DVDs so don't read the entirety of RAM use as just browser related.) In each test I cleared RAM with the Wise app.

So this is my PC ripping DVDs without any browser open and Memory 'cleared' if you will.



Edge open with 6 pages.



Edge kinda cheat and pretends pages are opened. Not really because when you click on them THEN they load. So I clicked all of them and the result was --



or 1371 megabytes used for those pages.

Okay, close Edge, run Wise, and got pretty much the same amount of free RAM.



Opened the same pages and made sure they had loaded. Firefox feels faster overall.



The RAM usage



1749 Megabytes. That's a noticeable bump of 378 Megabytes. Imagine double the pages open.

If that helped anybody.

You should look at the bigger picture. Browser usage is not about RAM usage. That is like saying how many shopping bags you can get in a new car determines whether you buy it, or whether it can save 50 radio stations. It's also not strictly about how fast they are either. This can and often is heavily influenced by the website being visited, the capabilities of the hardware running the server, competency of those running it, the software they are running, whether they implement lots of web objects ie scripts, XHR, frames and then whether they use third party software as well like CloudFlare, jQuery, CDNs etc. Third party dependencies will greatly affect webpage loading times. It also depends a lot on your internet provider and on the current load on the network and whether FUPs are being implemented, whether DNS is being resolved as quick as it should be, whether there is ongoing infrastructure issues etc.

RAM usage will always be high when using a browser. This is because they are practically an entire system in a software. They do more than load up webpages. They are all-in-one solutions today which are expected to provide a whole range of features that come integrated and ready to use without much experience required from the end user. All this is thrown into the equation and therefore you get a very high amount of RAM usage. Plus, loading webpages correctly and rendering them correctly, especially today with so much to implement, is no easy feat. If you want low RAM usage try using a text based browser or something which does not load scripts, CSS, images, fonts, does not accept cookies, does not load plugins, does not load extensions etc. When you take away all these features you are left with how the web looked right back at the start. This does not serve our complex needs today.

The price we pay for modern browsing capability is substantial RAM usage. Just like the price you pay when running a server will often be the need to flex around the demands on the services you provide in terms of hardware, software, management capabilities etc. Just like the price you pay for wanting to play the latest games will be heavy RAM, CPU and GPU usage. Take all these away and you no longer have what you wanted to begin with.

Also consider security vulnerabilities and general bugs, compatability, privacy features, customization and configuration, transparency and data collection policies, implementation of the latest features and standards, open source vs closed source, the reputation of the developers and the timeline of software they have developed etc.

supermammalego said:

Browser usage is not about RAM usage.

No, but this post is. This isn't complicated: Edge uses less RAM than Firefox, which in a RAM constrained situation is valid information to share.

My post wasn't intended to offend you. And unfortunately things are complicated, that's why RAM usage is so high. Do you know what Edge is doing to keep the RAM down? Or why Firefox has higher RAM? Just out of curiosity I would like to know. Your post feels like non-advice. You're cherry picking one potential point and then neglecting to mention many others. If you're going to share information shouldn't it be impartial and pertain to the full picture instead of highlighting one very small detail?

Windows 10 is a good looking OS. But that doesn't make it lightyears better than previous operating systems. As of 2019 there were more vulnerabilities found in Windows 10 than any other year previous. Some have been so severe the NSA (the guys who break things like Windows for a living so they can get the bad guys) had to tell Microsoft to get their act together and fix really bad issues that could lead to millions of computers worldwide being hacked. Many of these are so trivial you could teach a 12 year old to prey on one particular vulnerability and do something to break into a computer. But let's talk about aesthetics. Fancy themes mean very little when your computer is as good as being a punching bag for worldwide threats to hit whenever they get a chance. Debian is a far more secure OS than Windows but that doesn't factor into account that most people won't even be able to work out to install propertiary drivers (NVIDIA, Intel etc) for things that Windows doesn't even have to notify you about to install and get running. Smartphones are great devices but they are also walking surveillance beacons with apps potentially switching on your camera and microphone whenever they wish and connected to a weak and vulnerable telecommunications network that can so very easily be manipulated. You also have very little control over Android smartphones even though most users think they are the owner in reality their smartphones practically own them. Root your smartphone and you lose your warranty but take back control of your smartphone. But people don't often mention this as one solution for flashing a custom ROM and fixing most of the common issues users face with smartphones. These are everyday realities. And just a few examples.

If I took your advice and started using Edge and found that it wasn't as open and customizable as Firefox reverting back to "Well, it's good on RAM" serves no purpose. I want to be able to tweak it. I want to be able to secure it a little bit more. Use good extensions that really work and make browsing safer and more private. What has RAM got to do with this? There will be many people viewing topics like this who have a lot invested in their current browsers and may not have the experience nor knowledge to rectify things once they fully commit to choosing a different browser.