Question on RAM

[mk313]

I'm putting this here, but not sure if it's the correct forum or not. I just acquired an M2 15" MacBook Air with 8GB or Ram. Not here to complain about the amount or defend it.

I've noticed though that it seems to move into yellow Memory pressure every time I open Weather underground's website & goes back to green within 30 seconds of closing it.

I'm not too worried about it, as the machine runs fine, and the only other time it went into the yellow was when I was first setting it up, opening/ installing all of my apps, etc. But any idea why that particular website would have such an impact? I have several apps open and about 10 other tabs, but I could probably open 5 other tabs, without causing any issues, but just not underground.com

 

[chabig]

Weather Underground only uses about 285MB of RAM here. But I have some ad blockers running. Perhaps you're seeing the effect of some ads.

 

[mk313]

That makes sense. I'm not using an ad blocker, nor am I paying extra for their ad free version. Thanks!

 

[Lex404]

Some poorly optimized script on that page.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I'm putting this here, but not sure if it's the correct forum or not. I just acquired an M2 15" MacBook Air with 8GB or Ram. Not here to complain about the amount or defend it.

I've noticed though that it seems to move into yellow Memory pressure every time I open Weather underground's website & goes back to green within 30 seconds of closing it.

I'm not too worried about it, as the machine runs fine, and the only other time it went into the yellow was when I was first setting it up, opening/ installing all of my apps, etc. But any idea why that particular website would have such an impact? I have several apps open and about 10 other tabs, but I could probably open 5 other tabs, without causing any issues, but just not underground.com

I have this issue with both a base model M1 MacBook Air and a base model M1 iMac (both with 7 GPU Cores, 256GB SSDs, and, you guessed it, 8GB of RAM) with a myriad of web pages. Some sites won't do this. Others totally will. This is generally why I staunchly recommend against any Mac, let alone Apple Silicon Mac with only 8GB of RAM in 2024, let alone 2020.

Yellow memory pressure from a Mac that new and that costly on one single website is unacceptable.

 

[Torty]

Tried it on my old mid 8GB 2012 MBP running Mojave. Everything fine.

 

[mk313]

Tried it on my old mid 8GB 2012 MBP running Mojave. Everything fine.


View attachment 2386313

interesting. Must just be something about my setup. it's using 1,013 MB on my computer

 

[roadkill401]

I have this issue with both a base model M1 MacBook Air and a base model M1 iMac (both with 7 GPU Cores, 256GB SSDs, and, you guessed it, 8GB of RAM) with a myriad of web pages. Some sites won't do this. Others totally will. This is generally why I staunchly recommend against any Mac, let alone Apple Silicon Mac with only 8GB of RAM in 2024, let alone 2020.

Yellow memory pressure from a Mac that new and that costly on one single website is unacceptable.

have you tried running a custom dns server like PiHole to circumvent many of the memory sucking web api's?

 

[Yebubbleman]

have you tried running a custom dns server like PiHole to circumvent many of the memory sucking web api's?

No. But I shouldn't have to. The point of buying a computer for browsing the web is that browsing the web ought to be something it can handle, memory sucking web APIs and all.

 

[phrehdd]

No. But I shouldn't have to. The point of buying a computer for browsing the web is that browsing the web ought to be something it can handle, memory sucking web APIs and all.

Fully agree. One item I have not fully checked out is Opera Browser that offers up some ways to limit the use of RAM. I wish Safari and the OS itself would have "tweaking" tools based on either how people use their system or available to manually adjust.

 

[Saturn007]

I'm not using an ad blocker, nor am I paying extra for their ad free version.

There are several well-regarded ad blockers that are free to use — and don’t “phone home”. Can’t even imagine browsing without one or more installed.

That should do the trick!

 

[mk313]

There are several well-regarded ad blockers that are free to use — and don’t “phone home”. Can’t even imagine browsing without one or more installed.

That should do the trick!

Thanks! I've never been an ad blocker user. I kind of feel like ads are the tradeoff for getting free content, but I just gave a free one a try & that website I'm having issues with is now using 1/3 of the memory that it was before. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[bluecoast]

Some websites are just truly terrible with how they are coded + ad weights. I'd really blame them more than the machine.

 

[ignatius345]

the machine runs fine

This is your answer right here. You don't need to open Activity Monitor or look at "memory pressure" unless the machine stops running fine. Yellow, green, none of that matters unless the machine is actually slowing down.

 

[mk313]

This is your answer right here. You don't need to open Activity Monitor or look at "memory pressure" unless the machine stops running fine. Yellow, green, none of that matters unless the machine is actually slowing down.

Maybe you missed the rest of my post, but I was specifically asking why one specific website seemed to cause it to go yellow. No concerns about the machine or anything like that, but just curious as to what about that specific site could be causing it.

 

[ignatius345]

Thanks! I've never been an ad blocker user. I kind of feel like ads are the tradeoff for getting free content, but I just gave a free one a try & that website I'm having issues with is now using 1/3 of the memory that it was before. Thanks for the suggestion!

Off topic, but one strategy I've been trying out is to have an ad blocker installed (I'm using 1Blocker, which seems fine), and then unblocking sites I really want to support. When I want to read an article on an unblocked site, I use the Reader feature in Safari, which cleans things up quite a bit. I figure this way the ads that pay the site's bills get to run, but I can still keep my sanity. I don't know.

I honestly wish websites would figure out a way to do micropayments because I really wouldn't mind paying a little to read a certain story I come across, but I don't want to subscribe to a ton of different sites.

 

[ignatius345]

Maybe you missed the rest of my post, but I was specifically asking why one specific website seemed to cause it to go yellow. No concerns about the machine or anything like that, but just curious as to what about that specific site could be causing it.

Fair point. I tend to just not bother looking at that stat at all myself, unless something is really going wrong. Maybe you're using it to troubleshoot different websites, I guess.

 

[mk313]

Off topic, but one strategy I've been trying out is to have an ad blocker installed (I'm using 1Blocker, which seems fine), and then unblocking sites I really want to support. When I want to read an article on an unblocked site, I use the Reader feature in Safari, which cleans things up quite a bit. I figure this way the ads that pay the site's bills get to run, but I can still keep my sanity. I don't know.

I honestly wish websites would figure out a way to do micropayments because I really wouldn't mind paying a little to read a certain story I come across, but I don't want to subscribe to a ton of different sites.

That's not a bad point. Then you're supporting the ones you read a lot, but not getting bombarded with ads.

 

[mk313]

Fair point. I tend to just not bother looking at that stat at all myself, unless something is really going wrong. Maybe you're using it to troubleshoot different websites, I guess.

Agree Wirth not looking at the stats. I checked it pretty frequently when I first got the new Mac, because it kept going into the yellow (especially if I open up weather underground) but it operates perfectly fine on yellow, and I've only hit red one time in the months that I've had it. At this point, I'm fine with the 8 GB, but was mostly just curious as to what it was about weather underground that makes it go to yellow when no other sites were doing it regularly.

 

[DaveEcc]

Opening it for my city, on the Today page, I see 550-575MB used, but if I switch to hourly, it jumped up to 750MB. Scrolling down the page so it loads items near the bottom, it jumped up to over 1000MB... so I can confirm it's not just your machine.

 

[mk313]

Opening it for my city, on the Today page, I see 550-575MB used, but if I switch to hourly, it jumped up to 750MB. Scrolling down the page so it loads items near the bottom, it jumped up to over 1000MB... so I can confirm it's not just your machine.

Thank you!