Forum Discussion
Top feedback summary for September 24
David Rubino I'm glad to see that memory-hogging has made it on to the Quality Area list (see screenshot). It is a serious issue for lower-end laptops with 4gb RAM.
it's got 4GB DDR3 and a 2nd gen i5 CPU.
Edge Canary performs very well on it, a lot better than Google Chrome. the laptop is generally old and a bit slow in nature because of old hardware but Edge Canary has never caused any memory issues. it's running Windows 10 1903 x64 pro.
HotCakeX "About memory optimization, I have Sony Vaio VPCEB3MFX. it's got 4GB DDR3 and a 2nd gen i5 CPU. Edge Canary performs very well on it, a lot better than Google Chrome. the laptop is generally old and a bit slow in nature because of old hardware but Edge Canary has never caused any memory issues. it's running Windows 10 1903 x64 pro."
I hope that you continue to have no issues, but your experience might not be universal, and probably is not considering the comments that others have made in the numerous discussions about high RAM usage on this forum (including discussions initiated by Microsoft personnel). The most recent is the "Memory Usage Comparison" series by Deleted.
High RAM usage is a known issue with Chromium-based browsers, including Edge Chromium, and is often commented upon in Google Chrome forums.
With Edge Chromium, it is not (apparently) unusual to find that RAM usage bumps up to 1-3gb during a day of normal browsing, as quite a number of folks have reported. I know that has been my experience over the months.
My computer (Dell XPS 8920, i7, 16gb) shows just over 2gb RAM used by Edge Chromium right now, after a day's normal browsing, opening and closing sites, running no extensions or flags, and with six tabs currently open:
That level of RAM usage is not a problem, obviously, on the computer I am now using, but Edge Chromium using 2gb of RAM on a 4gb computer would likely affect performance. Reasonable people might differ about that, but that is what I think. Enough said.
I avoid that on my 4gb laptop (Dell Inspiron 3180, A9-9420e, 4gb) by keeping no more than two tabs open at a time and by closing the browser reasonably frequently, which resets the clock, so to speak.
I am glad, as I said, that RAM usage has joined high CPU usage on the Edge Team's "Quality Area" list. I'm not sure how much Microsoft can do, given the way in which Chromium-based browsers handle processes, but any improvement would be welcome, in my opinion, anyway.
- - Windows 10 is equipped with technologies like memory compression that come in handy on systems with low amount of RAM.
- that comparison is irrelevant here, so is the task manager screenshot up there. because we're talking about systems with 4GB RAM or less, not those with 16GB. of course Edge will use more than 2GB of RAM on systems with 16GB RAM, that won't cause any issue, that's how OS manages RAM to speed up tasks.
- taking such comparisons for granted and Thinking they are correctly done is like putting a Bugatti on a race track, watching it performing it's best at the highest speed possible and then tell your fiends: "see, I told you this car uses too much fuel, it needs to be fixed".HotCakeX "- Windows 10 is equipped with technologies like memory compression that come in handy on systems with low amount of RAM.
- that comparison is irrelevant here, so is the task manager screenshot up there. because we're talking about systems with 4GB RAM or less, not those with 16GB. of course Edge will use more than 2GB of RAM on systems with 16GB RAM, that won't cause any issue, that's how OS manages RAM to speed up tasks.
- taking such comparisons for granted and Thinking they are correctly done is like putting a Bugatti on a race track, watching it performing it's best at the highest speed possible and then tell your fiends: "see, I told you this car uses too much fuel, it needs to be fixed"."You are right on all counts.
The screenshot below reflects Edge Chromium RAM use after a day of desktop-style browsing (that is, repeatedly opening/closing 5-8 tabs at a time as I read news and other sites, as opposed to the two-tab-maximum practice that I usually follow on low-resource computers**) on a Dell Inspiron 3180 (A9-9420e clocking 1.8/2.7, 4gb RAM):
As you can see by comparing it to the earlier screenshot you are discussing, RAM use at the end of the day was significantly less on the laptop (1.5 gb) than it was on the desktop (2.2 gb), no doubt due to memory compression and the other factors you mention. It looks like memory compression is having an effect.
What concerns me about Edge Chromium, though, is that it hit "orange" on both computers, the laptop and the desktop, in moderately heavy use. When the Memory block hits orange, it is a warning about high resource use. It is a signal that a user might be burdening the computer. At least that is how I understand it.
And that leads me to observe that we need to think about this in context. I think the comparisons, both the Edge (Classic) versus Edge Chromium versus Firefox comparisons discussed on this forum in May/June, and the side-by-side comparisons of Chromium-based browsers that @Wouldiwas_Shookspeared did over the last week, give a better sense of the issue than this sidetrack that we've gone down.
Edge Chromium resource use is higher than either Edge (Classic) or Firefox, side-by-side, and Edge Chromium is not yet significantly better at resource use than other Chromium-based browsers.
I am glad that Microsoft recognizes the issue and is working on it, because high resource use on Chromium-based browsers is problematic, in my opinion. I hope that Microsoft can reduce Edge Chromium's resource footprint as much as possible before releasing the browser.
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**Following the two-tab-maximum practice, RAM use seldom goes above 500-700 mb, and that's not a problem, even on a low-resource laptop.