Which is the More Memory Friendly? Four Browsers' Memory Footprint Evaluation

News provided by

Aug 22, 2011, 10:00 ET

BEIJING, Aug. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- The browser war has heated up since last year and is still ongoing. Chrome gained popularity for its fast speed in loading Web pages. Firefox maintained the edge owing to abundant add-ons and functions as well as the high customizability. IE was praised for its good compatibility, varied third-party plug-ins, and furthermore IE9's surprisingly fast speed. Avant Browser was applauded by the huge and faithful advocates for its small size, full-featured functions, high stability and continuously improved memory strategy.

Nowadays, as Internet users, we are spoiled for choice, so how do we know which browser truly brings us the best experience? When it comes to performance, the advanced users may know that the browsers which use less memory can greatly improve the speed by reducing the number of disk exchange. Today we'll do some tests to assess which browser will come out on top with the lowest memory usage.

Tested Browsers:

System: Win7


App Name	Size	Download Link
Avant Browser 2011 build 30	3.20MB	http://www.avantbrowser.com/release/absetup.exe
IE9	17.8MB	http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/6/D/86DB5DC9-5706-4A5B-BD46-FFBA6FA67D44/IE9-Windows7-x86-enu.exe
Firefox 6.0	13.33MB	http://mozilla.mirror.ac.za/firefox/releases/6.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%206.0.exe
Chrome 13.0.782.112	22.84MB	http://www.google.com/chrome?hl=en-GB

Testing procedures:

In order to imitate the common browsing practice, let's set a default homepage for each browser, for example: http://www.ask.com/, then open and close five groups of different web pages severally at the same time with each group containing five pages, and record their memory usage via Windows Task Manager. Each browser clears all history records (Temporary Files) before carrying out the test.

Testing results:

Home Page: http://www.ask.com/

Result of starting browser:


App Name	Action	Memory Usage(k bytes)
Avant	Start Browser	68,384
IE	Start Browser	124,284
Chrome	Start Browser	110,864
Firefox	Start Browser	68,884

Chart 1: Contrast of starting browser http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/1.jpg

IE takes a relatively high memory; Comparatively Avant Browser and Firefox both use less memory.

Web pages in first group:

Result of first group:


App Name	Action	Memory Usage(k bytes)
Avant	Open pages	130,944
Avant	Close pages	60,608
IE	Open pages	265,568
IE	Close pages	201,104
Chrome	Open pages	193,660
Chrome	Close pages	108,536
Firefox	Open pages	112,312
Firefox	Close pages	87,692

Chart 2: Result of the first group http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/2.jpg

Chart 2 shows both Avant browser and Firefox taking less memory comparing with Chrome and IE in opening pages; however, Avant Browser exceeds Firefox by freeing up more memory space after closing pages.

Web pages in second group:

Result of second group:


App Name	Action	Memory Usage (k bytes)
Avant	Open pages	115,072
Avant	Close pages	72,340
IE	Open pages	276,264
IE	Close pages	220,568
Chrome	Open pages	267,676
Chrome	Close pages	120,756
Firefox	Open pages	118,024
Firefox	Close pages	100,608

Chart 3: Result of second group http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/3.jpg

Avant browser uses the least memory in both opening and closing pages. Firefox comes in second in saving memory but still shows poor capability in releasing memory. IE and Chrome apparently take more memory after opening pages but Chrome is excellent in freeing up memory space after closing pages.

Web pages in third group:

Result of third group


App Name	Action	Memory Usage (k bytes)
Avant	Open pages	149,652
Avant	Close pages	67,988
IE	Open pages	348,196
IE	Close pages	265,412
Chrome	Open pages	308,448
Chrome	Close pages	127,100
Firefox	Open pages	137,404
Firefox	Close pages	103,272

Chart 4: Result of third group http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/4.jpg

Until now, IE's memory usage remains stubbornly high while Chrome's drops compared with the first two groups. Firefox doesn't show any significant improvement in memory releasing. Avant Browser maintains the edge with the lowest memory usage.

Web pages in fourth group:

Result of fourth group:


App Name	Action	Memory Usage(k bytes)
Avant	Open pages	148,828
Avant	Close pages	63,292
IE	Open pages	344,828
IE	Close pages	270,440
Chrome	Open pages	340,028
Chrome	Close pages	121,260
Firefox	Open pages	143,680
Firefox	Close pages	112,736

Chart 5: Result of fourth group http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/5.jpg

Avant Browser still maintains the edge with the lowest memory usage. Firefox's memory usage has increased a little after closing pages compared with the testing result of the third group and it opens pages less fluently than before. Despite the high memory usage in opening pages Chrome frees up most memory space after closing pages.

Web pages in fifth group:

Result of fifth group:


App Name	Action	Memory Usage(k bytes)
Avant	Open pages	174,252
Avant	Close pages	59,328
IE	Open pages	407,000
IE	Close pages	230,772
Chrome	Open pages	281,904
Chrome	Close pages	131,108
Firefox	Open pages	155,212
Firefox	Close pages	121,964

Chart 6: Result of fifth group http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/6.jpg

Comparison of all groups: http://www.avantbrowser.com/PRImages/7.jpg

Conclusion:

After several groups of testing, Avant Browser proudly stands out from the crowd due to its lowest memory usage even after a long-time use, and impressively it releases resource extremely thoroughly after closing pages. Following Avant Browser, Firefox is the second memory saving browser but its capability in releasing memory is disappointing. Chrome behaves great in releasing RAM but apparently it consumes much more memory whether before or after closing pages. High memory usage becomes its weakness.

Are you dying for a most memory friendly browser? Avant Browser is your best choice.

SOURCE Avant Force