Chrome’s memory usage explained

As more users kick the tires of Google’s Chrome, some are noticing

that the new browser seems to use more memory in certain situations than traditional browsers, like IE and Firefox. In fact, Network World Multimedia Editor Jason Meserve’s recent video review of Chrome noticed the quirk right off. If you’re curious why, Google presents a good explanation via its Chromium Blog. The difference is in Chrome’s multiprocessing nature.

Since each tab in the browser is its own sand-boxed process, the tabs can’t share processes easily, so as Google says, “any data structures needed for general rendering of web pages must be replicated to each tab.” While this can be a downside for memory usage, it’s also a plus in that attacks on one tab’s Javascript engine can’t access the Javascript engine on another tab, helping increase security and uptime. The setup can also benefit users as they close each tab. Since each tab is its own separate process, the memory cleanup is quicker and easier. As Google says:

“The primary advantage is the ability to partition memory for particular pages. So, when you close a page (tab), that partition of memory can be completely cleaned up. This is much more difficult to do in a single-process browser.”

So Chrome’s memory usage is both bad and good, depending on what you’re trying to do. What’s your experience been like with Chrome? Let us know.