yes, I'd like chrome to keep my book marks showing when I select one - in a sidebar, just like Firefox does

the osex memory pie chart app shows decreasing amts. of green if I keep chrome open over time; eventually the green become a sliver and the computer becomes very sluggish (disk thrashing I suppose)

Firefox with adblock here.

Camino for the most part, it's faster than anything else. but it can't do everything, so I use Firefox for FB drag and drop photo uploads.

It's not the memory you should be watching, it's the CPU load.

watch % idle? or what?

I like to sort activity monitor on %CPU, descending, so the processes that are using the most are always pinned at the top.

Easier to find misbehaving processes and watch them.

You'll find Google Chrome Renderer and Pepper Flash Player misbehave the most although I did just find installd was running amok.