Re: OmniWeb memory usage

Adam C. Engst wrote:
> In Activity Monitor (sort by the memory
> columns), OmniWeb is the largest RAM hog, claiming 209 MB of real memory
> and 1.10 GB of virtual memory.
> 
> [...] quitting and relaunching with only a single tab open
> (static page, nothing fancy) immediately consumes 441 MB of VM, though
> the real memory footprint is down to 63 MB.

The number in the "Virtual Memory" column in Activity Monitor is not the
amount of swap space used by the application. Exactly what is being
counted is rather technical to explain, but it includes memory that is
shared with other programs (like libraries), memory-mapped files, and
memory regions that would be valid for the program to access but are not
actually currently backed by anything.

This is why even TextEdit with no windows open has 363 MB listed in the
virtual memory column.

I do agree, however, that OmniWeb's memory usage seems to grow over
time, and that closing tabs & windows doesn't seem to reclaim as much as
it should. The situation does seem to have improved between 5.1 and 5.5
though.

- Josh