Your AI-Powered Browser Might Be the Biggest Resource Hog
A lawyer’s Comet browser was eating 12 GB of RAM. Here’s what I learned digging into why — and it applies no matter which browser you use.
A member in my community posted something that sounded like a rant and a cry for help rolled into one. He’s been a fan of Perplexity’s Comet browser for a while. But lately his Mac mini kept running out of memory, and when the force-quit box popped up, Comet was using 10 to 12 GB of RAM — on a machine with 16 GB total.
He asked if anyone else had seen this and solved it. I hadn’t, so I went digging. What I found is worth sharing, because it’s really about every browser, not just Comet.
First, the reassurance: that’s not normal
One browser using 10 to 12 GB on a 16 GB machine isn’t a sign your computer is too small. It points to something specific — too many open tabs, a leaky extension, or heavy background features running hard.
Why browsers eat so much memory
Most modern browsers — Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, and Comet — are built on the same engine, called Chromium. Chromium gives every tab and extension its own separate process. That’s good for stability and security. It’s also memory-hungry, and it climbs fast as tabs pile up.
Comet adds another layer: AI features that run in the background. Useful, but they cost memory that a plain browser doesn’t spend. So Comet tends to sit at the heavy end.
What to try if this is happening to you
Find the culprit first. Open Activity Monitor and watch your browser’s memory while you work. A few heavy sites left open for days — email, docs, anything with video — are common offenders.
Audit your extensions. Turn them all off, then switch them back on one at a time over a few days. A single leaky extension can balloon your memory use.
Turn on Memory Saver. Chromium browsers have a setting that puts inactive tabs to sleep. Look under Settings, then Performance.
Update the browser. Comet is new, and memory fixes ship often. Stay current.
Restart it daily. If memory only balloons after long sessions, a quick quit-and-reopen is a cheap fix until a patch lands.
The bigger lesson: browsers are not equal
Since I was already in there, I looked at how the main browsers compare on a Mac. The rough ranking, most efficient to least:
Safari is the lightest by a clear margin, and easiest on your battery. Apple built it for its own hardware.
Chrome and its cousins (Edge, Brave, Arc) are heavier because of that one-process-per-site design.
Comet carries Chromium’s weight plus the AI layer, so expect it at the heavy end.
One commonly cited figure: Chrome can use 50 to 100% more RAM than Safari for the same set of tabs. I’d treat the exact numbers loosely — they come from tech blogs, not labs — but the direction is solid.
Bottom line
The browser you pick matters less than how you use it. Tab count, extensions, and leaving heavy web apps open all day swamp the differences between browsers. A disciplined Chrome user beats a 60-tab Safari user every time.
The browser is the one tool you live in all day. It’s worth a few minutes to manage it on purpose.
;-)
Ernie
P.S. This is exactly how the Inner Circle works — one member hits a wall, asks the group, and we dig in together so nobody has to figure it out alone.
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