IE8 Beta 2 Eats Memory Like Candy
Welcome back!
I just read a very illuminating article on Exo.blog that details the results of testing Microsoft's latest offering; the Beta 2 version of IE8 and even if you allow for a Beta version having extra debugging code it still comes out not only a loser but a prime example of Microsoft Bloat in action.
Perhaps some will say that "Bloat" isn't a fair term but all I can say is that if *I* were to gain as much weight as IE8 has gained code then I'd never be able to wear that new pair of Clarks shoes since I doubt that they come in size 27 extra wide.
They went into the details of the comparison between IE7, IE8 and Firefox. Like in loading ten tabs worth of sites Firefox used a steady 29 concurrent threads, IE7 clocked in at 65 and IE8 blew the doors off with 171 threads.
Memory use was similar with Firefox using 159mb, IE7 using 250 and IE8 gobbling up 380 megs of ram to get the job done.
Of course, anytime you start comparing browsers everybody comes out in defence of their personal favorite and attacks whichever one they don't like and this article was no exception. As of the time I read the article there was a string of 21 comments with quite a number of IE defenders sticking up for their browser.
What I'd like to see is a side by side test of all of the major browsers, IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 3.01, Opera 9.x, and even Google's new Chrome browser. To be measured would be memory (and time) needed to load the browser, and performance data for all of them loading the same set of ten sites (cpu use, memory use, threads, and any other relevant information) for all of them.
Technorati Tags: firefox, ie8, web browser, browser wars, memory use, chrome, cpu hog, code bloat
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You do not need much code to have a bloated program. Allocating memory and not deallocating it should be more than enough, and can be done in about five lines of code. It is more the cause of badly designed code than something else.
You’re absolutely right of course. And Microsoft hasn’t exactly ever been known as a source of tight, memory efficient code have they?