Multi-process support for Opera?

Multi-process support for Opera?

IE and Chrome already are doing it and Firefox it's working on that

what would be the pros and cons of opera adding multi-process support?

PLEASE learn to use the forum search feature. You have no idea how many times this has been requested.

Originally posted by zikzakatak:

what would be the pros and cons of opera adding multi-process support?

<strong>Pros:</strong> if you have an unstable browser, it may or may not prevent one tab from crashing the whole browser.
<strong>Cons:</strong> if you have more than two or three tabs, it will use up your entire system resources, fill your task manager up with millions of processes and generally slow everything to a crawl.

@mods: Please close this duplicate thread.

-1
Reported

my blame....


moderators might close the thread...

duplicate

Originally posted by samMD:

duplicate

Already stated. (I said "reported" because Lucideer said it should be locked so I let him know it was reported)

Originally posted by DanielHendrycks:

Originally posted by samMD:

duplicate

Already stated. (I said "reported" because Lucideer said it should be locked so I let him know it was reported)

-1
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=287984

i dont think this a duplicate topic.


also im refering on how firefox also is moving that direction

Originally posted by zikzakatak:

im refering on how firefox also is moving that direction

Hm, see, we don't like it. :/

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Hm, see, we don't like it. :/

we as in you and??

the other 9 nah's...i see

Opera browser never crashes, why to care about having such "support"?

I don't like it 'cause for example, if sometimes I want to finish IE by finishing iexplore.exe process I have to finish many of them if I have many tabs opened (I aways have many tabs opened).
Multi-process architeture makes the task manager a big mess. :/

But you're not alone, other people wants it, but in overall not, and anothers neither care about this 'cause it runs without users knowledge.

to be sincere im not a full yah on this one...

with iron (tin foil browser) i see a lot of .exe's that eats a lot of memory on my slow system...

but it's so good to be able to find that buggy tab causing delay on the rest of my surfing and also have the choice to close the buggy tab with out leaving my entire session.

seems that carakan uses another logic to work out this problem...

according to the poll it is not that big the differenece on those who would like to see support on Multi-process, now it would be good to read the why on each side.

i mean the more the better.

Originally posted by zikzakatak:

according to the poll it is not that big the differenece on those who would like to see support on Multi-process, now it would be good to read the why on each side.

Of the 20 voters, only 5 have commented, and most (all?) of those 5 are against. If the "for" crowd really want it, why haven't they commented to say why?

+1. It's good for managing memory resources on old systems. It of course reduces the number of tabs you can have open. But, sometimes that tradeoff is acceptable.

Could you explain what you mean by the managing of memory resources? That unused pages can be written off to the disk while you're not using them or something?

Originally posted by Frenzie:

Could you explain what you mean by the managing of memory resources?

When you close a tab, the memory the tab was using is wiped out. It's not cached and it's not swapped to disk or anything. It's gone. This means you can clear memory right away for use by another app without restarting the browser by just closing a tab or two. And, depending, you can then avoid some swapping back n forth to disk, which will produce a better experience when switching back n forth between apps.

In short, it ties some memory management to opening/closing tabs. Since the user is the one that opens/closes tabs, they get control of the memory instead of having the browser do what it thinks is best.

If you have Opera open on an old system, load a bunch of pages and surf for a while, Opera's going to build up some memory and keep that memory even if you close all the tabs you're done with. Then, if you want to also open Firefox for example, Firefox isn't going to have any memory at all to load. Opera will swap to disk and free some memory for Firefox to use. But, if you switch back to Opera's window, it's going to flop around like a dead fish till it pulls back in stuff from disk, which can take minutes before Opera even becomes responsive again. However, if you were able to free a bunch of memory in Opera before opening Firefox, Opera won't have to dump as much to disk if any and then switching back n forth between apps will be instant (depending on what you're loading in Firefox of course).

You can test this with Chrome on an old system by closing some tabs before opening another app. It works great. Where as with Opera, you have to restart Opera to do the same.

Swapping like crazy is bad. And, even though reading from a swap file might be optimized, if some of the stuff that does the reading is swapped to disk too, things get really slow where restarting the browser and fetching things fresh is actually faster.

The downside though is the overhead for each process. That limits the number of tabs you can open. But, since you have control of the tabs you open, you can control what you're doing.

Note though that some say that they can't reproduce this improved behavior on old systems. So, you'll just have to try it for yourself and see if you experience the benefit.

Originally posted by burnout426:

+1. It's good for managing memory resources on old systems. It of course reduces the number of tabs you can have open. But, sometimes that tradeoff is acceptable.

Phhhf, reducing the number of tabs is not acceptable under any circumstances. Unless its going down from 150(unreachable number) to 120(another unreachable number).
Running on Win2k with Opera in a PC with 50-60 of RAM and a slow Pentium III, i got to say the thing that is bothering me is that the flash player is not forced onto a separate thread or killable process.
Besides, a light browser will always be fast with 1 thread.


Quick edit: By tweaking Opera a tad, killing a tab will kill its resource useage. I use this.

Mutli-process good for powerful systems (but not every one has them) Opera has to make the browser which will work on majority of systems, Mutli-Process will be bad for low-end systems and hog up the CPU

so I am for it, but still would want Opera to be as low-cpu and RAM user as possible.

p.s just because Firefox is doing doesnt Opera has to do "everything". Take only the "good" points if you want Opera to have features like Firefox

Originally posted by burnout426:

When you close a tab, the memory the tab was using is wiped out. It's not cached and it's not swapped to disk or anything. It's gone. This means you can clear memory right away for use by another app without restarting the browser by just closing a tab or two. And, depending, you can then avoid some swapping back n forth to disk, which will produce a better experience when switching back n forth between apps.

...

Note though that some say that they can't reproduce this improved behavior on old systems. So, you'll just have to try it for yourself and see if you experience the benefit.

If it meant the difference between opening 10 and 15 tabs comfortably, I'd gladly restart Opera instead. As it is all I know is that Opera 9.2x worked just fine on a p100, making it the only acceptable choice for browsing. IE5 was reasonable (IE6 too slow, although it worked), but obviously rather outdated. I don't recall whether Fx didn't want to run at all (Win 98) or if it was too bloody slow, but at any rate it was unusable. Chrome wasn't around then, but I know for sure that it wouldn't work on Win 98.

On my old P3 1GHz I used to run Win XP, and Opera 9 was definitely the fastest browser on it. With 640MB of RAM it had no issue opening lots of tabs (and didn't back when it ran on 128MB either), and in practice, using Chrome was more annoying and in fact slower than Opera except for some specific things (Gmail most notably).

Anyway, I got rid of both of those computers about a year ago. The p100 went to recycling, the p3 1GHz is potentially still fulfilling a purpose as a server or spare/backup computer parts somewhere.

All in all I never had any of the problems you described back 5 years ago when I still used the p3 system with Opera. I did with Firefox.

Originally posted by burnout426:

When you close a tab, the memory the tab was using is wiped out. It's not cached and it's not swapped to disk or anything. It's gone. This means you can clear memory right away for use by another app without restarting the browser by just closing a tab or two. And, depending, you can then avoid some swapping back n forth to disk, which will produce a better experience when switching back n forth between apps.

Opera is the only web browser to keep the closed tab content in the process' "memory", and that is what makes Ctrl + Shift + T works so fast, I don't want wait the page to load again. -1 for multi-process

Originally posted by burnout426:

You can test this with Chrome on an old system by closing some tabs before opening another app. It works great. Where as with Opera, you have to restart Opera to do the same.

Actually Opera is faster than Chrome in old systems (and in powerful ones too). -10 for multi-process

Originally posted by burnout426:

The downside though is the overhead for each process. That limits the number of tabs you can open. But, since you have control of the tabs you open, you can control what you're doing.

No, end-users that don't even know about what's running in the task manager won't control themselves. Actually I don't want to control myself while I'm surfing the web too. -100 for multi-process

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by burnout426:

When you close a tab, the memory the tab was using is wiped out. It's not cached and it's not swapped to disk or anything. It's gone. This means you can clear memory right away for use by another app without restarting the browser by just closing a tab or two. And, depending, you can then avoid some swapping back n forth to disk, which will produce a better experience when switching back n forth between apps.

Opera is the only web browser to keep the closed tab content in the process' "memory", and that is what makes Ctrl + Shift + T works so fast, I don't want wait the page to load again. -1 for multi-process

That's only any good if you want to reopen an old tab, where I have sometimes closed a tab by mistake, I'm running Vista with one solitary GB of RAM, I'd rather have the memory back.

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by burnout426:

You can test this with Chrome on an old system by closing some tabs before opening another app. It works great. Where as with Opera, you have to restart Opera to do the same.

Actually Opera is faster than Chrome in old systems (and in powerful ones too). -10 for multi-process

Aren't you just comparing your experience to the other user? I find that Chrome starts up quicker than Opera and both browsers run fairly quickly on my PC, Opera's still my default though, primarily due to Chrome's lack of features compared to Opera,

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by burnout426:

The downside though is the overhead for each process. That limits the number of tabs you can open. But, since you have control of the tabs you open, you can control what you're doing.

No, end-users that don't even know about what's running in the task manager won't control themselves. Actually I don't want to control myself while I'm surfing the web too. -100 for multi-process

So, because you don't want that control, you think nobody else should have that control either. I've had experience of Flash ad banners crashing the entire browser due to the plugin, fair enough this happened under IE6 but it was still annoying, also I've seen plugins (Quicktime and Acrobat are the worst offenders) freeze my browser rendering it completely unusable. Under Chrome, I can launch either Windows or Chrome's own Task Manager and kill the offending plugin, keeping the rest of the browser going, with Opera's single process architecture, a buggy or frozen can only be rectified by killing the browser entire (and not being able to restore session the next time you start up Opera)
+10⁷ for multi-process

Originally posted by geoneil:

(and not being able to restore session the next time you start up Opera)

You're lying.

Originally posted by geoneil:

Aren't you just comparing your experience to the other user? I find that Chrome starts up quicker than Opera and both browsers run fairly quickly on my PC

Your PC is a slow one? Have you any experience on testing Opera in different systems like I have?

Originally posted by geoneil:

That's only any good if you want to reopen an old tab, where I have sometimes closed a tab by mistake, I'm running Vista with one solitary GB of RAM, I'd rather have the memory back.

There is actually a config on that one.

So, because you don't want that control, you think nobody else should have that control either. I've had experience of Flash ad banners crashing the entire browser due to the plugin, fair enough this happened under IE6 but it was still annoying, also I've seen plugins (Quicktime and Acrobat are the worst offenders) freeze my browser rendering it completely unusable. Under Chrome, I can launch either Windows or Chrome's own Task Manager and kill the offending plugin, keeping the rest of the browser going, with Opera's single process architecture, a buggy or frozen can only be rectified by killing the browser entire (and not being able to restore session the next time you start up Opera)

Opera itself needs to be single processor. But I WANT the plugins to be FORCED out of Operas thread, and into a separate process. Which means that when flash locks itself, it does not affect the browser. And last time i checked it got nothing to do with separating Opera itselfs threading, or making it multi processor.

Originally posted by burnout426:

When you close a tab, the memory the tab was using is wiped out. It's not cached and it's not swapped to disk or anything. It's gone. This means you can clear memory right away for use by another app without restarting the browser by just closing a tab or two. And, depending, you can then avoid some swapping back n forth to disk, which will produce a better experience when switching back n forth between apps.

This can be done with a single process - the fact that it isn't is a FEATURE!!! One that I for one do not wish to lose.

Originally posted by geoneil:

That's only any good if you want to reopen an old tab, where I have sometimes closed a tab by mistake, I'm running Vista with one solitary GB of RAM, I'd rather have the memory back.

Or if you revisit the same page again in another tab, or if you use the back button on another tab on the same domain, or if you're browsing the same domain in ANY tab....

Originally posted by geoneil:

I find that Chrome starts up quicker than Opera and both browsers run fairly quickly on my PC

Chrome starts up unimaginably quick on my PC, Opera is the slowest to start by a factor of 2 or 3. After that though, Opera is at least 2 or 3 times faster than Chrome for normal usage, doesn't crash (itself or my computer) and never slows the rest of my system to a crawl (all of which Chromes has/does)

All this talk about multiprocess? Why don't we just program opera in the GPU

Originally posted by ritmocafe:

All this talk about multiprocess?

well you don't have to participate if it bothers you, I'm sure there is plenty of other topics in the forums

You have somewhat my yes for plugins running in other process(es) - 'cause that already happens in Linux - but I'd REALLY HATE if Opera creates a new opera.exe process for each tab.

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

You have somewhat my yes for plugins running in other process(es) - 'cause that already happens in Linux - but I'd REALLY HATE if Opera creates a new opera.exe process for each tab.

how about this, Opera "detects" the hardware on which its installing then giving you an option(if its high-end hardware) to still install the "multi-process" version. If low-end hardware Opera will tell you that its strongly recommended not to install the multi-process version

Originally posted by samMD:

how about this, Opera "detects" the hardware on which its installing then giving you an option(if its high-end hardware) to still install the "multi-process" version.

-1

If I've paid for high-end hardware, I'd rather use it, not waste it.

Originally posted by samMD:

how about this, Opera "detects" the hardware on which its installing then giving you an option(if its high-end hardware) to still install the "multi-process" version. If low-end hardware Opera will tell you that its strongly recommended not to install the multi-process version

I'd rather have that as a startup option, not an install option.

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by geoneil:

(and not being able to restore session the next time you start up Opera)

You're lying.

Yeah, of course I'm lying, because if something's never happened to you it's never happened to anybody

Also, there's the small matter that if your session contains a page that crashed your browser before, then restoring that session will crash your browser again.

Originally posted by rafaeluik:

Originally posted by geoneil:

Aren't you just comparing your experience to the other user? I find that Chrome starts up quicker than Opera and both browsers run fairly quickly on my PC

Your PC is a slow one? Have you any experience on testing Opera in different systems like I have?

I don't think you do actually. You see my system is different to yours, you have absolutely no experience whatsoever of running Opera on my system. Therefore you have absolutely to devalue my experience or anyone else's.

I don't want multi-process in low-end PCs, I don't want it in high-end PCs.
I simply don't want it in any way!! :x

Originally posted by burnout426:

Originally posted by samMD:

how about this, Opera "detects" the hardware on which its installing then giving you an option(if its high-end hardware) to still install the "multi-process" version. If low-end hardware Opera will tell you that its strongly recommended not to install the multi-process version

I'd rather have that as a startup option, not an install option.

+1 good-idea

Originally posted by deld1ablo:

Opera itself needs to be single processor. But I WANT the plugins to be FORCED out of Operas thread, and into a separate process. Which means that when flash locks itself, it does not affect the browser. And last time i checked it got nothing to do with separating Opera itselfs threading, or making it multi processor.

It's about processes, not processors, but yes! +1. I'd love not to have that annoying Flash bs crash my browser. Since version 10 (Flash, not Opera) it's much less common, but it still happens.

Originally posted by geoneil:

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by geoneil:

(and not being able to restore session the next time you start up Opera)

You're lying.

Yeah, of course I'm lying, because if something's never happened to you it's never happened to anybody

Also, there's the small matter that if your session contains a page that crashed your browser before, then restoring that session will crash your browser again.

Yup, I've had all of those. Sessions file that somehow got corrupted, page reopening that crashes the browser (although usually that can be helped by swift action).

Originally posted by burnout426:

I'd rather have that as a startup option, not an install option.

Or even a runtime option/site preferences. Things like Facebook which might otherwise slow down the rest of my browser could then always be loaded as a separate process (utilizing my Core 2 Duo more efficiently), whereas one process works fine for the rest of them (and not waste memory etc).

That couldn't be an option after the installation, the whole browser structure would be affected, that would result in having two builds inside one installer to you pick wich one to use.
If that will be implemented one day it would be an option at the download "Opera w/ multi-process arch. or w/o".

how about have the feature but the ability for the Opera Installation to determine whether the pc can handle it (judging by hardware) and turning it on or off after analysis(with a notification on what opera's doing and with a user authenticated "overrided" to still turn it on or off as needed), case closed, problem solved.

Originally posted by samMD:

how about have the feature but the ability for the Opera Installation to determine whether the pc can handle it (judging by hardware) and turning it on or off after analysis(with a notification on what opera's doing and with a user authenticated "overrided" to still turn it on or off as needed), case closed, problem solved.

of course! please!! I want more 10mb in the Opera installer!!! #irony

Originally posted by rafaelluik:

Originally posted by samMD:

how about have the feature but the ability for the Opera Installation to determine whether the pc can handle it (judging by hardware) and turning it on or off after analysis(with a notification on what opera's doing and with a user authenticated "overrided" to still turn it on or off as needed), case closed, problem solved.

of course! please!! I want more 10mb in the Opera installer!!! #irony