(no subject)

[torkell]

Why are Firefox and Opera apparently incapable of running multiple processes for the same user?

The only reason I can think of is because the necessary profile locking is "hard". So why has Internet Explorer been able to do this for ages without any problems?

Comments

[torkell]

The main reason is proper session isolation. As things stand, if one tab crashes (e.g. due to a bug in a plugin), I lose all tabs in all Firefox windows. This isn't the case in Internet Explorer, which can have multiple processes for the same profile.

You can also run into problems even without crashing plugins - I have seen Opera slow to a crawl when opening lots of tabs, but unlike IE I don't have the option of starting a new process to use while the previous one is still loading stuff.