For those still in a hole, Firefox 3 has launched. All the reviews talk about its better memory management. I have 4 Gigs of ram and, frankly, don’t care about memory usage. I do, however, care about processor usage. The more my processor runs, the hotter my computer becomes (and the more electricity I use). The hotter it becomes the more my fans run. The more my fans run, the noisier my computer becomes. I hate noisy computers and I don’t want to replace my fans [if they break from overuse].
Firefox 2 was a relatively heavy processor user (with a bunch of add-ons running). My MBP’s fans routinely ran at around 2000 rpm but would spike higher fairly frequently. With Firefox 3 out and the newest version of Safari, I tested the two side-by-side.
My very unscientific test (note, I really dont have time to do more than a cursory test at the moment) reveals that Firefox 3 (with a few add-ons) tends to use less of my processor. I now run at about 1800 rpm. In safari (with no add-ons), I run at around 1900 rpm.
Post-bar, I will do more testing and figure out which browser reigns supreme in processor usage.
Fiance is done with work. Time for bed.
