Do tabbed browsers use less memory than full browsers?

[yoda313]

I was wondering something. This seems logical but I don't know. Let's say you have two identical web pages up - regardless of content - be it video or just plain text. If you have them open in the same browser but as two tabs does that consume less ram than if you have the same two web pages open in two browser instances instead of tabbed (windows for windows people ).

To me it seems like the tabbed pages would use less memory since you don't have redundant instance of the browser open.

Is this true or would they use the same amount of memory if the two web pages are at the same page?

[rallynavvie]

If there is a difference it's going to be too small to matter.

[yoda313]

If there is a difference it's going to be too small to matter.

So you're saying they would use about the same amount of memory as two instances of the same browser?

[Ai Haibara]

It depends on how the browser handles multiple tabs. IE8, for example, does actually seem to open a separate instance for each tab (so that if one tab crashes in some way, it doesn't bring down the other tabs or the rest of the browser). Chrome does something similar, if I remember correctly.

Firefox and the other tabbed browsers don't do it that way, though, but I'm not sure exactly how each of them handles tabs.

[yoda313]

Thanks Ai Haibara.

This is interesting. This is only something I'm curious about - nothing for a project or anything. Just a "what if" thing.

[lordsmurf]

Both ways suck up lots of RAM.

[vhelp]

I've been reviewing this over the last several months or so. I use Opera, I pref the older version, the one with out "dark" metal/glass look because all the tabcons look alike, so i'm using v9.24, seems to be the fastest of the lot, imho. anyway..

like rally said, if you theres a difference, its too small to notice/matter..ie, two tabs of same contents or other. But a handful of open tabs is not going to hurt you guys (on xp and internet) one bit. Me, and win98 on the other hand, yeah! oh well..i live dangeriously

I like returning back to where I last left off in my while surfing sessions. I also save sessesions (tab layouts) when things get too crazy or near breakdown due to low swapfile size. It makes it easier to return the next day I sign onto the web.

what does matter (and prob going to make a difference) is how many tabs you got open. That will eat up a lot of ram. On my WIN98 system, (my internet pc) it eats up so much ram that by the time I'm ready to really surf I have like 100mb swapfile space left, and explains why I can't make too many website searches for those interesting things that lead me to questions here when I say I can't always review webpages for this reason and because i'm on dialup, etc.

btw, I usually have between 30 and 60 tabs open. I mostly have over 30 when i'm googling, which is tipically every day. Now you see why (and how) taxing it is on my over dialup, and how some content can't be view prop'rly because of dialup and low swapfile size, etc.

I know.. some of you all say, "get a DSL" or something better. true.., I can prob get that, but its too much work to get it in place plus the cost: my $20 vs. their $30 just doesn't seem worth it, yet.

-vhelp 5234