Last Updated on August 20, 2020
Memory
It’ll come as no surprise that Firefox is a huge memory hog. Gigantic in fact. Even using a single tab viewing a basic web page, Firefox gobbles up 386MB of RAM. Don’t even think of using Firefox on the 1GB or 2GB model of the RPI4 if you keep more than a few tabs open.
As you can see from the above chart, Chromium uses significantly less memory than Firefox.
There’s only one other viable alternative to Chromium on the RPI4. It’s the proprietary Vivaldi. I’ve reproduced the same tests with Vivaldi. Here’s the results.
Memory usage of a tab depends on what’s being viewed. When compiling the chart, I was accessing the following web sites:
Tab 1 – Viewing BBC home page – this is not too resource intensive.
Tab 2 – Streaming HD video from YouTube.
Tab 3 – Accessing my Amazon account.
Tab 4 – Viewing an article from Daily Mail. This web site is one of the more intensive web sites from a memory (and CPU) perspective.
Tab 5 – Streaming video from CNN.
Tab 6 – Accessing my GMail Inbox.
Tab 7 – Logged into my Twitch account.
Versions tested:
Chromium 78.0.3904.108
Firefox 68.5.0esr
Vivaldi 2.11.1811.41
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – In Operation
Page 2 – Memory
Page 3 – Summary
Read all my blog posts about the RPI4.
| Raspberry Pi 4 Blog | |
|---|---|
| Week 36 | Manage your personal collections on the RPI4 |
| Week 35 | Survey of terminal emulators |
| Week 34 | Search the desktop with the latest version of Recoll |
| Week 33 | Personal Information Managers on the RPI4 |
| Week 32 | Keep a diary with the RPI4 |
| Week 31 | Process complex mathematical functions, plot 2D and 3D graphs with calculators |
| Week 30 | Internet radio on this tiny computer. A detailed survey of open source software |
| Week 29 | Professionally manage your photo collection with digiKam |
| Week 28 | Typeset beautifully with LyX |
| Week 27 | Software that teaches young people how to learn basic computing skills and beyond |
| Week 26 | Firefox revisited - Raspbian now offers a real alternative to Chromium |
| Week 25 | Turn the Raspberry Pi 4 into a low power writing machine |
| Week 24 | Keep the kids learning and having fun |
| Week 23 | Lots of choices to view images |
| Week 22 | Listening to podcasts on the RPI4 |
| Week 21 | File management on the RPI4 |
| Week 20 | Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Studio) on the RPI4 |
| Week 19 | Keep up-to-date with these news aggregators |
| Week 18 | Web Browsers Again: Firefox |
| Week 17 | Retro gaming on the RPI4 |
| Week 16 | Screen capturing with the RPI4 |
| Week 15 | Emulate the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari ST on the RPI4 |
| Week 14 | Choose the right model of the RPI4 for your desktop needs |
| Week 13 | Using the RPI4 as a screencaster |
| Week 12 | Have fun reading comics on the RPI4 with YACReader, MComix, and more |
| Week 11 | Turn the RPI4 into a complete home theater |
| Week 10 | Watching locally stored video with VLC, OMXPlayer, and others |
| Week 9 | PDF viewing on the RPI4 |
| Week 8 | Access the RPI4 remotely running GUI apps |
| Week 7 | e-book tools are put under the microscope |
| Week 6 | The office suite is the archetypal business software. LibreOffice is tested |
| Week 5 | Managing your email box with the RPI4 |
| Week 4 | Web surfing on the RPI4 looking at Chromium, Vivaldi, Firefox, and Midori |
| Week 3 | Video streaming with Chromium & omxplayerGUI as well as streamlink |
| Week 2 | A survey of open source music players on the RPI4 including Tauon Music Box |
| Week 1 | An introduction to the world of the RPI4 looking at musikcube and PiPackages |
This blog is written on the RPI4.
Thanks for your last blog post, I’m finding the series to be really interesting.
It’s a shame Firefox seems to be a non-starter on the Raspberry Pi 4. It’s still my favorite desktop web browser. I wonder if Raspbian are aware of the issues you experienced. Maybe they could post and let us all know. Any plans on covering other distros that run on the Pi?