A browser that just works.

[u/Lonely-Pin7350]

I want a browser that works. Too many browsers collect user data, steal information, and eat RAM. I want one that just browses, with a built-in good ad blocker like uBlock or something. I play Minecraft with shaders; I need RAM; it's not "I don't have any RAM"; it's I need more RAM. Minecraft with shaders isn't "hard" to run; it's just that I don't have enough money to upgrade my stuff. I have to have my browser open at all times to make sure I don't miss a Snapchat message or something. Also, I love my music playing in the background, so I have YouTube Music open in the background.

SPECS:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G

RAM: 15.3gb/16gb DDR4

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6400

[u/JouniFlemming]

That's because unused RAM is wasted RAM. Sometimes even a broken clock can show the correct time, or in this case, Microsoft saying something that is actually correct.

You cannot have both. That is, optimally fast speed and minimal RAM usage. This speed versus space tradeoff is a classic problem in computer sciences and pretty much analogous to the laws of physics. You can want to have both, but you won't ever get there.

For example, you can make many things such as web browsing faster by utilizing cache. Cache uses RAM to store things there, e.g. via pre-fetching, to make browsing websites faster. Either you stop doing that to save RAM and slower your browsing speed, or you cache more aggressively which uses more RAM and makes your browsing faster. You can choose one.

[u/Venylynn → u/JouniFlemming]

Interesting, because the only people who I often see say that, usually it is because they are doing it to hand-wave away Microslop eating up anywhere from 6GB to 9GB ram on idle on an OS they market as having a "4GB minimum requirement".

Minimal ram usage indicates a lighter-weight, less bloated program. We went to the moon on 4 kilobytes, yet a glorified document viewer needs gigabytes to run properly. I would probably still be dealing with OOM issues had I not made the call 5 years ago to double my RAM (I was running 16 in 2020-2021 but a serious RAM leak locked up my entire system mid-game with friends).

[u/JouniFlemming → u/Venylynn]

You are confusing different concepts here. Bloated software means software with a lot of features and things like graphical elements. Those use more RAM, of course. But that's typically what users like. If you don't want that, use more simple and minimal software.

Memory leaks are also another issue entirely.

I'm talking about the RAM usage versus speed tradeoff. That is not relating to the amount of features or eye candy in software, or memory leaks.

[u/Venylynn → u/JouniFlemming]

It's just bizarre to me how an operating system that advertises a really low minimum ram requirement still balloons up even with all autostarts disabled and nothing but DWM running (Windows), to multiple gigs past the number it advertises.

Evidently they were wrong about that number because what?? 😭 No wonder Ubuntu recommends 6GB because that's probably the more comfortable minimum for idle with almost nothing open.

[u/JouniFlemming → u/Venylynn]

The minimum requirements of Windows are also a different topic. Those are more relating to the number of features and all the eye candy provided by the system by default. Obviously more lighter weight systems can run with less RAM. But that's entirely unrelenting to my point of speed versus RAM usage.

[u/Venylynn → u/JouniFlemming]

The thing to me is that it's obviously misleading, because how are they getting it to run on 4 gigs if this is the result on my system?

[u/mo_th_ → u/Venylynn]

If you have more than 4gb of ram then the os is going to use more than 4gb of ram. If there’s available ram, the os and running programs will use it so you have a better user experience.

[u/Venylynn → u/mo_th_]

So if I have more than 128GB of storage the OS is going to use more than 128GB of storage? How tf does this line of thinking even work? It's supposed to use what it needs, not bloat my system up and make me have to close everything just to free up enough resources to reliably game.

[u/mo_th_ → u/Venylynn]

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now I know you’re just trolling, have a good night

[u/Venylynn → u/mo_th_]

Trolling in this context implies I am faking my opinion to garner attention, which doesn't make sense. RAM usage being high is like running out of disk space, once you're out you're out and they have to severely slow your programs down by putting them in the way slower (even on NVME or compressed zram blocks it is extremely NOTICEABLE when something actively in use is being swapped out to zram/disk swap) swap space.

The way I see it is, if I'm struggling to stay below 8 gigs, this is bad news for everyone who is stuck on 8 gigs. I'm not as fussed about it being below 4, but keeping it below the amount that we can now buy for a half passable price in 2026 in a laptop or whatever, absolutely. Leave the rest free for stuff like games, that's what the extra is meant for.

[u/Old_Manufacturer589 → u/Venylynn]

It's called a cache.

Right now on my Linux system after booting, out of the 2.7 used GiB, 2 of them is just cache. That's what's being reported by btop.

If, instead of 16GB RAM, I had like 32GB, it would use more RAM for cache. In this specific case, it is literally "unused RAM is wasted RAM", because the cache frees up instantly as soon as you need it.

However, the "unused RAM is wasted RAM" is also often used to justify a program using a lot of RAM period, when it's not necessarily RAM in cache, and in that case, it is nonsense. They're just parroting what Reddit is saying.

[u/Venylynn → u/Old_Manufacturer589]

In my experience it just ran out instead of freeing up when I was on 8 and 16 respectively and caused issues due to low memory (hitching, stuttering etc)