# What is the leanest web browser?



## ml1209

One that still has a lot of features, compared to IE.


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## Punk

Firefox is wayyyyy better than IE


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## maroon1

Firefox


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## PohTayToez

What do you mean by leanest?  You mean the browser that is the least resource heavy?  If so, then definitely not Firefox... I think it uses the most by comparison, but I don't know too much about Opera, Safari, or Netscape.


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## Del

If you used multiple windows or tabs go with a tab browser.


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## ETSA

I just like firefox.


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## apj101

opera is pretty lean, it was originally built for the small end of the market and has a small footprint.


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## ETSA

I have used that and it seems to be slower and have fewer options, but as far as lean I would probably agree.


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## PohTayToez

Slower would probably = leaner in most cases.  Firefox is so darn nice and fast because it eats up your RAM.


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## apj101

ETSA said:


> I have used that and it seems to be slower and have fewer options, but as far as lean I would probably agree.



I agree there are less options, but thats the price of being lean


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## ETSA

Yea that extra 10-15mb of RAM is so vital...

Come on now seriously, how much more can it use, lol....


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## PohTayToez

Are you kidding?  Firefox uses about 4x as much RAM as Explorer will.  Firefox really does make a difference, and I believe that it uses more RAM if you have more RAM for optimization.


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## ETSA

Well you can select how much memory is cached or pre-cached for site, it gives you options to utilize less RAM.

How much RAM are we talking here anyways?


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## PohTayToez

I have 1.5GB of RAM, and it seems like mine likes to hang around the 100MB-120MB range, but some peoples are far worse:
http://www.cbulock.com/2006/04/firefox_ram_hog.html

Sure you can reduce it, but I think it will still use more than explorer, and say if you are using an older laptop with only 128MB or 256MB, then using a different browser will definitely make a difference.


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## cmreinke

PohTayToez said:


> Are you kidding?  Firefox uses about 4x as much RAM as Explorer will.  Firefox really does make a difference, and I believe that it uses more RAM if you have more RAM for optimization.


Really?!  Right now, I'm using Firefox 1.5 with 3 tabs open (including Yahoo! Mail Beta) and itz only using 62MB, as compared to IE 7.0 with only 1 tab open using 78MB.  This is on a 3GHz Pentium 4 (Dell) with 2GB of memory running WinXP Pro SP2.


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## ETSA

It probably depends on the add-on/extensions and themes you use as well.


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## PohTayToez

Who browses with one tab? 

Firefox builds up memory usage as you use it.  If you just open it and have one tab, it will be relitively low, but as it caches sites it builds up, more so if you're using multiple tabs.  And yes, extensions have to do with it too.

But that's odd... for me Explorer only uses around 30MB...


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## Del

YOU GUYS THINK YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH 128MBS!?!?!?!??!!??!?!?!?
My computer (note-currently unused) with 64 freaking mbs ran 10 Firefox tabs fine for many hours on end. IE crashes completely (you can't jut reopen it, you have to fix it) on 256mbs of ram with minimal use at least once a freaking month!!!


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