Memory issues and random thoughts
eeePC 901 running XP. 1Gb RAM, no swapfile. Latest & current "normal" release of Firefox.
Browsing, various sites, multiple tabs. After a while all the pictures will vanish - this includes toolbar buttons. Then in a bit FF will "die" with a "Sorry!" message and a request to send a bug report. Meanwhile the Windows '!' icon appears on the taskbar to tell me that Windows is out of memory.
Might be the browser. Might be an add-on. I blame the _browser_ because it cannot tell me otherwise. Really, would it not be hard to add a "memtrace:dump" pseudo-URL to report on what memory claims are active by the browser and by the add-ons? Is this rubbish endemic to Windows? God I miss the RISC OS taskmanager. If I add up all the memory allocations reported by ProcessExplorer, I'd have some 6Gb installed! The numbers just don't add up, and it would be really nice to open the pseudo-URL, see that add-on "X" is claiming 80% of the memory, and uninstall it. Or maybe the browser is just full of memory leaks?
I put up with this because:
1. FF runs the add-ons that provide both a sense of security, and an effective filter against web advertising Whatever it is, I don't want it, thanks.
2. FF will return with tabs loaded, so it's at best a minute of inconvenience. Reload it and use the time for tea&pee.
3. Chrome? Hell no. Perhaps if I *trusted* Google I might trust Chrome, but I don't.
4. MSIE8? Everybody is right. It loads in a flash, seriously. Set "about:blank" as the intro page it appears so damn quick it makes most of the rest of Windows look slow. Sadly, the slowness seeps in when you actually try to use MSIE8 to do anything. And what's this with "Compatibility view"? If they stuck to everybody else's standards instead of inventing their own, we wouldn't need this. And, for what it is worth, the MSIE8 UI is bloody awful. Moving the menus, the reload/stop icon, restricting how likely you are to ever undo their stupidity. Way to make a visual metaphor then cock it up. Nice work Microsoft. Oh, and for the nerdy ones among you, using the WebControl ActiveX to parse custom URLs (like "myapp:blahblah" which is picked up by your app to feed data to the web control on the fly) - how badly did MSIE8 break it?
Safari... Opera... And all the rest. Bugs and irritations aside, I'm happy enough with Firefox, and I'm too lazy to change. I really don't see the point in benchmarking JavaScript tests because there is so much more behind how responsive a browser feels, from how fast your internet setup can retrieve data (try pinging a server in a far-flung place) to basic UI nonsense. Examples? MSIE8 stuck with an obsession to save everything as an .mht file. Oddly it can WRITE these files no problem, but it reckons it needs some version of Outlook to be able to load them back in again. Saving a photo with MSIE8. Doesn't matter if it's the El Reg logo or some out-of-focus oddity on flickr - MSIE8 takes many times longer than FF. I know, I know, I'm comparing with a browser everybody knows to be slow, however it might be useful to compare "real life activity" instead of simple benchmarks.
How quickly on a browser can you open a tab and go to Google? Under a second on Firefox. ^T, type 'G', it autosuggests Google, press Enter, done - there it is.