This is a relief to find! I just looked at htop and panicked over the high amount of “used” memory.

  • This is also the reason “unused RAM is wasted RAM” makes little sense in an application context. OS designers realized that wisdom a long time ago, so they already made sure to utilize that unused RAM via disk caching.

    Now, if Chrome or Chrome VSCode or Chrome Discord or Chrome MS Teams requests tons of RAM, it most likely gets this used-but-available RAM, which your OS was using for disk caching.

    In the case of Chrome itself, this will make Chrome faster at the expense of your other applications’ performance.
    In the case of non-browser applications based on Chrome, your system’s performance is sacrificed, so that Microsoft can rake in its profit without actually investing money into proper application development. 🙂