Eric Rahm
erahm.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2016
Eric Rahm, a Mozilla engineer, writes about Firefox memory usage, multi-process (e10s) architecture, and browser memory comparisons.
What HN saysHN commenters cite his measurements as data in Firefox memory debates, including e10s overhead versus Chrome and real-website comparisons.
15HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
14stories submitted
208story points
8 years agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era4 people · 8 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 2Doubling the Number of Content Processes in Firefox3 people · 5 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 3Are they slim yet3 people · first shared 2016
- 4A Rust-Based XML Parser for Firefox2 people · 8 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 5MemShrink’s 6th Birthday2 people · 4 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 6Memory usage of firefox with e10s enabled2 people · first shared 2016
- 7Are They Slim Yet? Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari1 people · 94 points · first shared 2017 · 98 comments on HN
- 8Memory Usage of Firefox with e10s Enabled1 people · 85 points · first shared 2016 · 44 comments on HN
- 9Firefox memory usage with multiple content processes1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 10Firefox Compile Times on Windows Are Horrible1 people · 1 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 11Are we slim yet is dead, all hail are we slim yet1 people · 1 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
xtreak29 · 2019-03-19
http://www.erahm.org/2019/03/13/doubling-the-number-of-content-process…
nnethercote · 2017-09-30
Here's a blog post from this week about memory usage: http://www.erahm.org/2017/09/25/firefox-memory-usage-in-the-quantum-er…
That's a comparison on real websites rather than browser benchmarks.
isaacaggrey · 2016-06-07
Memory usage is closely being watched as part of the 10s transition. Of course, e10s is not a free lunch, but according to early claims [1] it's 20% more than non-e10s Firefox and half the usage of Chrome's multi-process implementation.
[1]: http://www.erahm.org/2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
sonnyp · 2016-06-07
There are interesting data and comparisons without E10S on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Release_Criteria and http://www.erahm.org/2016/02/11/memory-usage-of-firefox-with-e10s-enab…
callahad · 2016-04-22
We're pretty consistently seeing Edge use fewer resources than Chrome, though there might be measurement challenges. Here's one recent benchmark: http://www.erahm.org/2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
ronjouch · 2016-12-22
> "Would you mind linking to some of those blogposts."
A quick parsing of https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis yields "Memory Usage of Firefox with e10s Enabled" [1] and its followup "Are they slim yet?" [2], with [1] closing with these words:
"Simply put: the more content processes we use, the more memory we use. On the plus side it’s not a 1:1 factor, with 8 content processes we see roughly a doubling of memory usage on the TabsOpenSettled measurement. It’s a bit worse on Windows, a bit better on OSX, but it’s not 8 times worse. Overall we see a 10-20% increase in memory usage for the 1 content process case (which is what we plan on shipping initially). This seems like a fair tradeoff for potential security and performance benefits, but as we try to grow the number of content processes we’ll need to take another look at where that memory is being used."
Some comments at https://billmccloskey.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/multiprocess-firefox/ also hint at pre-existing discussion on the one-process-per-tab subject, but sadly without linking to it. You'd probably followup with a mailing lists search.
[1] http://www.erahm.org/2016/02/11/memory-usage-of-firefox-with-e10s-enab…
[2] http://www.erahm.org/2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
--
As for "What's the best way for a non-contributor to follow Firefox development?", I follow https://planet.mozilla.org/ , and if that's too much of a firehose to your taste, maybe try https://hacks.mozilla.org/