Memory test - Firefox 2.0.0.9 vs Firefox 3.0 b 1
link: original article - section: common
Does Firefox 3.0 beta 1 do a better job of handling memory than earlier versions? In a test put Firefox 3.0 beta up against Firefox 2.0.0.9 in a series of tests.
Before I go any further, a few disclaimers and notes. First off, I’ve carried out this test on a single system running Windows Vista Home Premium on which Firefox had not been previously installed. The system has 2GB of RAM. Both Firefox 2.0.0.9 and Firefox 3.0 b 1 were installed fresh using a standard install. For each test I visited the same web pages and did my best to make the browsing the same on both versions.
OK, with that out of the way, on with the tests. I simulated three different browsing scenarios:
* Loading a five pages into the browser
* Loading a single page and leaving the browser for 10 minutes
* Loading 12 pages into the browser and wait 5 minutes
Here are the results:
Firefox 2.0.0.9
* The memory test - Firefox 2.0.0.9 vs Firefox 3.0 b 1Loading a five pages into the browser - 35,640KB (img)
* Loading a single page and leaving the browser for 10 minutes - 47,852KB (img)
* Loading 12 pages into the browser and wait 5 minutes - 103,180KB (img)
Firefox 3.0 b 1
* Loading a five pages into the browser - 38,644KB (img)
* Loading a single page and leaving the browser for 10 minutes - 63,764KB (img)
* Loading 12 pages into the browser and wait 5 minutes - 62,312KB (img)
Check out the complete screenshot gallery.
Just to give us a baseline, I repeated the 12 page test using Internet Explorer 7 and found that the browser used 89,756KB (img), more than Firefox 3.0 beta 1 but substantially less than Firefox 2.0.0.9.
