Does tabbed browsing use less memory?

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Level 1

82 points

Does tabbed browsing use less memory?

Seems like this question should have been answered definitively long ago, but when I search I find as many "no" as "yes" answers.

I ask because my wife prefers open windows to tabs, and she manages to hang every browser she tries. She can typically have 10-50 windows open at a time, in a combination of browser (Safari or Firefox), Word and Outlook. She'll have several different websites, documents and emails open at once. I've installed 16GB of memory to her 2010 Pro, to no avail - and 16 is the max her computer can handle.

I've tried to convince her to use tabs, but she just refuses. And her browser is constantly beachballing. I've told her tabs use less memory, but I don't actually know if that's right. I've told her that minimizing windows uses less memory, but I don't know if that's right either. I've told her to bookmark and close the sites she wants to keep available because I'm certain that would help, but she resists. And then complains about beachballs. She uses Snow Leopard, and of course Apple ended support for that version of Safari long ago - and Safari is her favorite browser. I (and the Mac repair guy) convinced her to switch to Firefox, and now she's beachballing Firefox too. I get her to empty cache and dump cookies, but pretty soon she's back in beachball territory. As I understand it, the benefit of cache/cookie clearing doesn't take effect unless you restart the browser - the nice thing about Firefox is that it will bring back the windows you had open before clearing.

So - do tabs use less memory than separate windows? Does minimizing use less memory than open windows? If she simply must have up to 50 windows open at once, how often should she be emptying the cache and deleting cookies?

I need a voice of authority here because she just doesn't believe me.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 23, 2015 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Sep 23, 2015 3:29 PM in response to william98

At the risk of being cited as co-respondent, you are basically right and she is wrong! You are receiving this from someone whose wife spends much of her waking hours exploring the nice properties advertised on Air-B&B all round the world! 😉

But you should also factor in how much RAM you have, what other applications are open, how large a cache you set in Safari preferences.

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

56,939 points

Sep 23, 2015 4:44 PM in response to william98

It could be the WindowServer process that is stressing out.

Each open window takes up Window Server resources. A tab is managed by the browser and shares the same single window so the WindowServer only sees the 1 window.

Also I forget in what version this was fixed, but there was a time that each icon on the desktop was a separate open WindowServer window being managed. If there are lots of desktop icons, this might (again, I do not know when this was fixed, so I do not know if Snow Leopard still does this or if it does not).

Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor might give you some information about WindowServer resource usage.

If you have XCode installed, the "Quartz Debug" might be able to give you more details on what WindowServer is managing (NOTE: I only read Quartz Debug can tell you stuff about WindowServer, I have not actually used it 🙂).

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