I run Firefox and last I tried Chrome it did use more RAM for the same content. However, I wonder: since Chrome runs its tabs as a collection of processes does that mean individual tabs could be swapped out by the OS without affecting the rest?
I just tried opening 30 YouTube videos with 15 additional HTML (non-Flash) tabs. My system used 6 GB of RAM (Linux 64 bit). So unless you're watching 100 YouTube videos at a time, or have more than 200 tabs open at a time, I really don't see how that's a problem.
You're ignoring the fact that many users have applications other than a browser open, and that those applications also consume memory. Start hitting the swapfile and any performance advantage disappears. It is in the best interest of everyone to make applications use less memory, since all the applications (and the OS) have to share what the system has.
> It is in the best interest of everyone to make applications use less memory, since all the applications (and the OS) have to share what the system has.
There is always a trade-off between speed and memory usage. For my use cases, I prefer this particular trade-off for a browser. I realize you might not have the same preference.
Firefox with 200 tabs can be 1GB or so; chrome with the same load is about 4GB.