[Opera-users] (OT) Netscape 6 - anyone?

[Kevin A. Smith]

Off topic, so feel free to ignore :-)

I have been playing around with Netscape 6 recently since it is the
only way I can run one of the common instant messenger applications
on a Solaris box (not too many of my friends colleagues use ICQ).

I run it on my WinNt machine too for consistency, and I notice that it
seems to be very liberal with its use of both physical and virtual memory.
Is this a good or bad design? I've been reading recently how many
applications grab memory without actually needing it at the time.....

One thing you can do with NS6 on WinNT, is launch the Netscape Instant
Messenger (AOL IM in disguise) independently and then close the rest of
the NS windows - effectively leaving only the IM application. You would
think that would leave a much smaller footprint......but when I look in the
Task Manager at the memory it is using, I see some startling numbers.

When it is "minimized" with no "dialog" windows open - it is still
allocated/using  6.7M physical and 32M VM!!!!
If I open/restore it that goes to: 8.6M physical, 32M Virtual.
Open a dialog (send message) and it shoots up: 22.5M physical, 32M VM.
OK, now close the dialog window, but keep the app window open - and the
memory usage does not change - it does not free the physical memory it
grabbed for the dialog window.

More weird stuff happens as you open/close it further.....but if you leave
it open and then sign off - then memory is freed up: 5.6M/32M - then if
we minimize it  we get some decent numbers :) -  0.86M/32M.


Kevin Smith                     TNT/APX Engineering
kas at lucent.com          Lucent Technologies
Yahoo Messenger: kevin_smith
ICQ# 113390230