Does Firefox 3.0 beta 1 do a better job of handling memory than earlier versions? In a test put Firefox 3.0 beta up against Firefox 2.0.0.9 in a series of tests.
Before I go any further, a few disclaimers and notes. First off, I"ve carried out this test on a single system running Windows Vista Home Premium on which Firefox had not been previously installed. The system has 2GB of RAM. Both Firefox 2.0.0.9 and Firefox 3.0 b 1 were installed fresh using a standard install. For each test I visited the same web pages and did my best to make the browsing the same on both versions.
OK, with that out of the way, on with the tests. I simulated three different browsing scenarios:
- Loading a five pages into the browser
- Loading a single page and leaving the browser for 10 minutes
- Loading 12 pages into the browser and wait 5 minutes