Okay forgive me for my niavity,
But after downloading and installing "K" I opened my task manager in win2k and began observing System MEM USAGE and noted that "K" utilizes almost 100% more than IE. I'm not nor have I ever really been a netscape fan though I have been partial to Opera 4.0 I just don't know if I want to deal with a browser thats "stripped" down but still resource heavy. *sigh* I imagine it's possible that IE doesn't report it's full usage however I truly doubt that's the case. If anyone has any constructive feedback I'd love to hear it.

There's my 2¢

Two issues to mention:

1) I am 100% convinced that IE doesn't show all of it's mem usage as lot's of it is hidden within "harmless looking" system dll's.

2) Concerning mozillas/Geckos footprint: I could just repeat one of these phrases that are popular in the mozilla newsgroups: That it is still in development and this issue will be addressed and one day you'll wake up and mozilla is lean and mean,...

Although I hate these phrases they are partially true: Footprint is an issue that didn't get a lot of attention until some time ago (I don't know if that's true for the Gecko development as well, though). So memory usage will (hopefully) decrease over time more than increase.
Sebastian

it also should be noted that while it may take longer to load the program, webpages load much faster than on ie 5.5

Yes it is possible and even probable that IE hides its resource usage by utilizing already loaded dll's; however, I have to be cautious of what I alot my resources to on some of my machines. Since IE already loads most dll's for other MS functions (hence the whole monopoly "we can't separate IE from win argument) IE essentially doesn't take up more than what it actually uses. So regardless whether or not I use IE those bloody DLL's are still going to be there. "K" unfortunately has to load up a whole suite of other dll's just to run itself thus it's naturally going to be more bloated. Reducing the footprint would be essential in my loading up "K" on every rig;HOWEVER, it highly unlikely that it will ever be possible to be smaller than IE unleass K begins utilizing the pre-existing DLL's out there. This is quite a dilemma for me that I would love to hear more on from other users. True the pages tend to load a bit faster but what about other features like plug-in support? I can argue both sides of this issue but until I am given veritable proof that "K" is superior to IE I can't justify taxing some of my already antiquated systems with the software.

My two ¢

I just tested it vi Symantecs System Information.
This one counts the overall Modulsize (or something like that). In this IE 5.5 SP1 has a size of 14.1, K-Meleon 12.6.

I would tend to turn the question the other way round: Why not use IE5.5??
Sure Microsoft's strategy of merging everything into Windoes is dangerous for the end-user. But my question is: If I browse my local files with Windows-Explorer, why shouldn't I use the same (or partially the same) Browser for the Internet? Wouldn't it be a great idea to take the same resources?
Of course truth lies somewhere in the middle (as it often does): In Windows 98 Internet Explorer is glued to the system much tighter than it had to be. Windows initially loads much more dll-crap than necessary, resulting in higher memory-load. But therefore IE5 launches amazingly fast, compared to its rivals.
And the "trick" of preloading certain parts is used by other companies as well. Just take Realplayer or ICQ. They reside in the SysTray and wait. While occupying valuable RAM. So this is nothing Microsoft is to blame for. Would be nice if they made it an option. But that's the point: Since IE5 uses many System-dlls and othe preloaded stuff, it is and always will be faster (regarding startup time) than any other browser.
The only way to solve this would consist of three steps:

1. Install Windows98 using 98Lite by Shane Brooks. This way you can install Windows98 "clean", without any IE stuff

2. Develop a Mozilla/K-Meleon/Gecko/whatever-browser, which is able to preload half of its files.

3. Be happy. With a browser starting as fast as IE. And maybe it shows your favourite Internet-site slightly faster. You surely will notice that blink of an eye and it definitly will satisfy you, though everything else will remember you of the days gone by, when you used that other browser, what was the name??!?

;o)

Chris

Oh boy, please don't start this kind of war here in the forum :-), I'm feeling tempted to answer to all these arguments, but I won't do so as I fear it would open a can of worms.

Only thing I want to mention about preloading dll's. The examples Chris uses are not very good ones I think:
I installed RealPlayer and I did configure it not to preload any dll's (and therefore not to sit in the system tray) so it does give you a choice.
Concerning ICQ: Either it is not loaded, in this case it won't preload any dll's automatically. Or you execute ICQ, but in this case you'll have the application running all the time (I don't consider a running application as being preloaded).

Sebastian

Lynx loads much faster than IE and requires no additional DLLs

but it lacks in many features

so its a trade off as always
you either get more features and a faster brwoser or lots of features and a slow browser

there is no competition because they target different niches

kmeleon/mozilla are both works in process anyway

i think that someday you will see them load faster than IE
regardless of preloaded Dlls

You guys are missing the big reason for Mozilla/KMeleon over M$IE: STANDARDS SUPPORT. Gecko supports standards nearly 100%, and is improving every day. It's the most standards complaint rendering engine on the market (yes, that includes Opera).