An application developer was so tired of dealing with RAM-hungry Chrome that he developed a Mac application to deal with the problem. Called Flotato, the app takes Chrome tabs and turns them into lightweight application windows.
With Flotato, the websites you are using are transformed into web browsers that serve a single application each. You can open a Flotato window for the web version of Twitter, for example, and that’s all the application will do.
Leading Flotato developer Morten has just exposed his use case for the intriguing app in a blog post. He initially realized that something was wrong with the loud and constant noise of his Mac’s fan while browsing Chrome.
After developing the app, he ended up testing several guides on sites like Twitter and Gmail to see how Flotato could reduce the average RAM in use with Chrome and Safari. On average, using Twitter on a single tab required 730 MB of memory, while Safari needed 73 MB. Flotato undercut both with only 63 MB.
In another session, I just opened Twitter and Gmail on Safari, reaching almost 80 MB of RAM and CPU usage. Flotato managed to reduce this total by about 10 MB while running Twitter for mobile. Impressively, in another massive test, Just ran a 54 tab stress test on his Mac. Chrome required 290 MB, while Safari needed 12 MB. These tests tell a very familiar story.
Using Chrome for a variety of tasks will often result in a surge in RAM usage. As Just noted in his test, Chrome still works to manage memory usage to maintain high performance. Safari, on the other hand, doesn’t consume as much RAM, so Mac fans rarely need to spin wildly to keep up.
Chrome will be slow when flooded with tabs due to high memory usage. With high CPU and RAM usage, the performance of your entire computer starts to suffer. And, if you’re like Just, you may not be able to hear your podcast about your fans.
That’s where Flotato comes in. If you’re routinely using Chrome or another browser that produces the same results, it can save you time and frustration.
When you decide you want to create a new browser with it, Flotato will set an appropriate icon to help you keep track. You can even choose a live image from the site if you want to keep an eye on the changes.
Using the Mac’s WebKit, Flotato allows you to have all of your “applications” running with significantly less RAM usage. There are no plug-ins, browser renderers or other additions to Flotato that require memory to function. .
Flotato is free to use with a few different applications. If you need additional guides, it costs $ 14.99 for a professional version with unlimited application support.