Why are browsers using up so much memory?
Why are browsers using up so much memory?
in the 2000s, possessing 1 gigabyte of memory enabled opening multiple tabs, whereas today with 4 gigabytes, managing more than five tabs becomes challenging, and previously we could handle around thirty tabs without needing excessive hardware.
Because they have to have all their ads and tracking scripts running. Try running ad and script blockers.
It is also because the web page developers are lazy. They don't want to spend the time to optimize the pages.
Many have no real clue how a web page really works they use programs that generate most the web pages for them they just key text into boxes.
I agree with what you mentioned. It seems related to the operating system. In the past, the OS didn’t consume many RAM resources, so applications could use more freely. Now, the OS is using a significant amount of RAM, leaving little for the apps. Four GB isn’t sufficient even for the OS itself. With Windows 10, it would take around 60% or more of that 4GB, leaving less than 2GB available for other tasks. Additionally, more space is reserved and written to the page file, which further limits the available RAM—often down to about 1 to 1.5 GB in the best case scenario.
My second thought is that the browser runs many separate processes alongside web pages (which aren’t always optimized), plus various settings, all of which the browser needs to manage for a better experience. Compared to earlier times, the focus wasn’t on smoothness or fluidity as much as it was on functionality and performance.