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Checked with top, % x total memory.  At about:blank.
The figures probably change a lot when you load real pages.

(Seamonkey 1.1.19 uses 20MB according to top, but 11MB if you subtract 
cached from used.  Firefox 2 both numbers agree.  Odd).


Opera 8.54 - 10MB in BL2
Opera 9.64 - 22MB in BL2

Opera 10.63 - 50MB in puppy
            - 41MB in XP
Opera 11.01 - 82MB in puppy
            - 46MB in XP


Seamonkey 1.1.19 -  20MB in BL2
                    66MB in puppy
Seamonkey 2.0.13 - 200MB in puppy
                 -  55MB in XP

Firefox 2  - 30MB in BL2 (bon echo from DSL linux)
           - 60MB-150MB+ in pulp (firepup or bon echo)

Firefox 3.6 - 150MB+ in puppy 
Firefox 4   - 230-317MB in puppy
            -  38MB in XP  (I checked several times)

Chrome - more memory intensive, less so in XP than linux.
(About 80MB in XP?)

Conclusions:

Low RAM computers should stick with Opera 9 (or even 8 but it won't work 
at a lot of sites), Seamonkey 1, or if all else fails, Firefox 2, and BL
(Opera 9 will work with BL3.5).  They load much faster than newer versions 
too, even on a fast computer with lots of RAM.

BL2 uses about 14MB to boot and run X and icewm, same as Pulp with X 
and jwm, but about 50MB less RAM to run Seamonkey 1 or Firefox 2. Should 
be usable in 40MB RAM but will run slowly on slower cpus.  I ran Opera 
8.54 in BL3.5 at 100MHz with 24MB RAM but it swapped to disk a bit.

Recent browsers use a lot more memory in linux than in XP.
To confirm the numbers from task manager, I checked total memory usage 
with and without the browsers loaded and they agreed within 5MB.

If you need to run a recent Seamonkey or Firefox and have only 128MB or 
less RAM, I suggest the free MicroXP.  It occupies 200MB hard disk (plus 
swap file and whatever else Windows jams on there for a minimal install - 
add a defrag program, SMPlayer, putty, browser...) and boots into 50MB 
RAM.  (Regular XP claims to run in 128MB).  Open only one tab. It worked 
for me okay in 128MB RAM with Firefox 3 and Seamonkey 2.  Download version 
0.83 for free and burn the iso.  Comes with SP3, works with Malwarebytes 
not Antivirs.

Sindi