Created Firefox version: benchmarking memory footprint (2015-03-07) (markdown)

Firefox-version:-benchmarking-memory-footprint-(2015-03-07).md

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+[![Vim test](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gorhill/uBlock/52ed1871b01cfb5edc0ba704cec8418463d648ad/doc/benchmarks/vim-test-abp-vs-ublock.png)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gorhill/uBlock/52ed1871b01cfb5edc0ba704cec8418463d648ad/doc/benchmarks/vim-test-abp-vs-ublock.png)<br><sup>Infamous VIM test: ABP 1,900 MB vs. uBlock 392 MB. Firefox 35 64-bit. ABP systematically adds around 3.5 MB per page **and per-frame** on a page, when using only _EasyList_.</sup>
+
+#### Setup
+
+1. Ensure the blocker is the only active extension (to avoid results to be polluted by other extensions)
+1. Ensure click-to-play (or whatever equivalent) is enabled before launching the benchmark
+1. Select the following filter lists in the benchmarked blockers:
+    - EasyList
+    - Peter Lowe's Ad server list
+    - EasyPrivacy
+    - Fanboy's Social Blocking List
+    - Malware domain lists
+    - ABP-specifics: _"Acceptable ads"_ disabled
+    - uBlock-specifics: uBlock's filters enabled (+80 filters), extra malware domains (+1,459 filters)
+
+#### Steps
+
+1. Have the benchmarked blocker enabled and properly setup
+1. Have only the "new tab" opened
+1. Quit Firefox
+1. Launch Firefox
+1. Paste <http://news.yahoo.com/> in address bar, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://news.google.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.cnn.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.nytimes.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.foxnews.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.nbcnews.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.washingtonpost.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <http://www.theguardian.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Open new tab, paste <https://news.ycombinator.com/>, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Leave the browser idle for two minutes
+1. Open new tab, paste `about:memory`, wait for page to finish loading
+1. Firefox: Click _"Minimize memory usage"_ button in _"Free memory"_ section
+1. Firefox: Click _Measure_ button in _"Show memory reports"_ section
+1. Firefox: Write down _"Explicit Allocations"_ value (see notes below) / Chromium: Write down _Σ_ value
+
+So I did the **exact** above steps for no blocker, ABP, uBlock.
+
+#### Results
+
+- **Firefox**
+    - No blocker: **613.55 MB** (reference memory usage)
+    - **Adblock Plus** 2.6.6: **625.05 MB** (reference _plus_ 11.5 MB)
+    - **µBlock** 0.8.2.0: **426.85 MB** (reference _minus_ 186.7 MB, ABP _minus_ 198.2 MB)
+- **Chromium**
+    - No blocker: **1,169.35 MB** (reference memory usage)
+    - **Adblock Plus** 1.8.8: **1,509.05 MB** (reference _plus_ 339.7 MB)
+    - **µBlock** 0.8.2.0: **1,042.94 MB** (reference _minus_ 126.41 MB, ABP _minus_ 466.11 MB)
+
+**Important:** You can't compare directly the figures between the browsers -- they are taken using different methodology from one browser to the other. The benchmarks are more to compare the figures for various blockers within the same browser.
+
+#### Notes
+
+Tested on Firefox 34 64-bit and Chromium 39 64-bit on Linux Mint. No other extensions were present.
+
+For Firefox, I chose the _"Explicit Allocations"_  figure because as per Firefox, it is "the single best number to focus on" with regard to memory usage.
+
+Without going into details, hardware is i5 quadcore + 8 GB
+
+If other users feel like repeating the tests, it would be nice just to confirm I got everything right.
+
+#### Raw data
+
+<https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/doc/benchmarks/mem-usage-overall-20141224.ods>