| Archive for HardCore Gamer Networks Is it in your blood? |
| Badie05 |
Browser Memory Benchmarks and ComparisonWeb browser performance is an often talked-about and flaunted thing, but many claims are not really backed up by solid evidence. I wrote software that collected millions of data points over 14 hours of actual browsing time, and this article reveals my findings.Problem Many people load hundreds of web pages, sometimes at the same time, often over periods of 3+ hours. Users complain about the memory usage of Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer, and we need a way to identify which browsers are better at managing memory than others. Traditional benchmarks do not look at all the things you might do with a program, and we need real-world numbers over a period of hours. Solution I developed a Windows Forms application in .NET called Memory Watcher that "watches" the system memory numbers. It uses a timer to poll the processes every 3 seconds. It then records every number and also prints them out in a grid on the screen. This allows us to keep track of each program's memory usage over time and with real-world usage. Memory Profiles These results are from opening Memory Watcher and then using the browser between 9,000 and 11,000 seconds (close to 3 hours). Each browser is tested in a separate session, and there are brief periods of inactivity throughout the time period. The vertical axis is the memory used in MB, and the horizontal axis contains the memory "checkpoints" my program took (one every 3 seconds). 
Benchmark Details The above profiles are not a direct comparison in any way, but they offer a visualization of trending in the memory behavior of the layout engines and interfaces. This is not a diagnosis or bug report. Let me show some important metrics of the above results. MORE: http://dotnetperls.com/Content/Browser-Memory.aspx |