[nmglug] why are web browsers so memory-heavy?

[Akkana Peck]

Anthony J. Bentley writes:
> Mark Galassi writes:
> > The result was dreadful: you use firefox and it immediately uses all
> > RAM.  Even a 1gig machine cannot work with current versions.
> 
> Yes, browsers are possibly the most apt example of Wirth’s Law in action.

Webkit was quite a bit lighter weight than firefox, and with Python
bindings you can write a minimal browser in a few pages of Python
code. For example, on a Debian-derived system, install python-webkit
and look at /usr/share/doc/python-webkit/examples/browser.py.

Here's how they compare on https://nmglug.org (after a fresh
startup, no other tabs or URLs loaded):

  PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
17197  1.9  3.4 264596 66320 pts/2    Sl   19:05   0:02 python /usr/share/doc/python-webkit/examples/browser.py
17222 36.6  8.9 624612 172764 tty1    Sl   19:07   0:13 firefox

The comparison will be a lot less favorable if you use a
full-featured webkit based browser, like chromium or konqueror.
In other words, a lot of the memory footprint is the browser bells
and whistles, not the underlying layout engine.

I'm forever being tempted to write and maintain my own custom
browser that way ... and then I remember how much I've invested into
customized Firefox settings, noscript and cookie and other privacy
profiles, etc. and I discard the idea. But for a quickie browser on
an old low-power system, it might work fine, and would support all
modern websites ... possibly better than firefox/gecko does.

        ...Akkana