why do web browsers use so much ram, while the average size of an entire webpage is 2mb?

Question

From what I understand, one could cache 100 web pages (obviously, 2mb is average, but there are much smaller and much larger than that) in about 200mb. 1GB could cache literally 500 web pages.

How come web browsers use so much ram then?

In: 3000

Answer 1

To give a slightly different answer, I’ll also point out that in addition to the “html is a recipe” fact, modern browsers have a lot of overhead due to the fact that they essentially function as a sandbox or hypervisor for each individual tab you have open. There is a lot of security that goes into trying to prevent malicious websites from being able to see anything more than their tiny sandbox.