Top all-time · #5300
Eric Rahm
Personal blog · erahm.orgprogrammingsystems
Eric Rahm's personal blog at erahm.org covers programming and systems. Since 2016, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era”. The last post was in 2019, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters cite Eric Rahm's posts as data on Firefox memory use, especially multi-process (e10s) comparisons with Chrome and Edge. The comments link or quote the posts as sources; none judge the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Notes on performance and memory usage
Most-linked posts?
- Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-09-26
- /2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-04-22
- Doubling the Number of Content Processes in Firefox3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-03-13
- A Rust-Based XML Parser for Firefox2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-25
- MemShrink’s 6th Birthday2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-30
What Hacker News says?
Here's a blog post from this week about memory usage: http://www.erahm.org/2017/09/25/firefox-memory-usage-in-the-... That's a comparison on real websites rather than browser benchmarks.
Comment linking /2017/09/25/firefox-memory-usage-in-the-quantum-era/
on “It’s time to give Firefox another chance”Submitted Are They Slim Yet? Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari as a story · 94 points
HN discussionhttp://www.erahm.org/2019/03/13/doubling-the-number-of-conte...
Comment linking /2019/03/13/doubling-the-number-of-content-processes-in-firefox/
on “Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances”Submitted Memory Usage of Firefox with e10s Enabled as a story · 85 points
HN discussion> "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 u…
Comment linking /2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
on “Update on Multi-Process Firefox”Submitted A Rust-Based XML Parser for Firefox as a story · 5 points
HN discussionMemory 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/
Comment linking /2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
on “Firefox 48 Beta, Release, and E10S”Submitted Doubling the Number of Content Processes in Firefox as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere 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...
Comment linking /2016/02/11/memory-usage-of-firefox-with-e10s-enabled/
on “Firefox 48 Beta, Release, and E10S”Submitted Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWe'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/
Comment linking /2016/02/12/are-they-slim-yet/
on “Firefox Hello – Browse the Web with Friends”Submitted Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Rust-Based XML Parser for Firefox as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Doubling the Number of Content Processes in Firefox as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Firefox Memory Usage in the Quantum Era as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted MemShrink’s 6th Birthday as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted MemShrink’s 6th Birthday as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Firefox memory usage with multiple content processes as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Are we slim yet is dead, all hail are we slim yet as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Firefox Compile Times on Windows Are Horrible as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
