6 ms·

How Chrome ate 21GB of storage

189 points by ddcarnage 10y ago

Zekio 10y ago
This just seems like something that should've been fixed years ago
- DannyBee 10y ago
  It was (in fact, it's not clear it was ever broken) That's why if you look at the linked bug report, the only reports are of people who have used third party installers as root that screw up the permissions. The bug report is basically "when i screw this up, chrome doesn't notice and fix it for me".
  - taeric 10y ago
    I'm not at all sure how this excuses things. If there is a known state that can be reached by the browser, then either a) indicate why it cannot be fixed and give tips for the users or b) put in the code to fix it for the users.
    - loeg 10y ago
      Root can modify the filesystem arbitrarily. To what extent should developers proactively scan their own files for arbitrary changes by 3rd parties? How much work should go into this, rather than fixing other bugs or improving performance?
      - taeric 10y ago
        In this case, there is no need to proactively scan anymore. It was reported by users. I stressed the wrong thing before. If it can not be fixed, say so.
        loeg 10y ago
        Fair enough!
        DiabloD3 10y ago
        How do you propose third parties modifying installers without Google's knowledge or permission something Google can fix?
        loeg 10y ago
        I think GP is just suggesting that Google has had the knowledge about this specific 3rd party issue (via this bug) for years. It can't fix all possible 3rd party installer-induced issues, but it could potentially fix this one. (Or at least notify the user.)
AstroJetson 10y ago
I'm going to post a theory that with 500Gb drives pretty much the normal size that most people won't notice 2.5% tied up in Chrome installs.
- milankragujevic 10y ago
  Except if you've bought a Lenovo 100s or similar, with 32GB of eMMC Flash storage. Then you'll cry.
  - dijit 10y ago
    My girlfriend was given a macbook air by her parents, and after OS and her normal programs were installed (office, chrome and not much else) she was left with 5G. 64G SSDs were common not very long ago, disk space for operational components is increasing.
- danieldk 10y ago
  128/256 GB SSDs are pretty common on Macs. For instance, the base models of the air still have 128 GB.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Even with 1TB disk space I'm resentful of the amount of space "leaked" by software. Maybe I'm a naz-, maybe I was born in the MB era.. can't say. The other day I booted a P3 era machine and seeing all we did with "just" 128MB made me feel chills all over.
  - drivingmenuts 10y ago
    I blame the perpetual-beta mentality along with lazy development practices. Used to be, we specced out exactly what was in a release and no more. Now, it's just whatever they can cram in under a deadline without all that "unnecessary" optimization. I'm probably as guilty as anyone else; I like getting a paycheck and so I keep my mouth shut, even though shit like that literally keeps me up some nights.
rocky1138 10y ago
Does this only occur on Macs?
- spikengineer 10y ago
  I think so. Never faced this issue in Windows and Linux
- jmisavage 10y ago
  I had this same issue on XP running in a VM that wasn't set to grow on a Mac.
- roywiggins 10y ago
  I'm almost certain I had a similar problem on Windows, though it was a few months, maybe a year ago.
- kevincox 10y ago
  According to the linked bug it is due to an issue to the DivX installer messing with the users chrome install. I don't know if the DivX installer on other platform experiences this issue but it sounds likely that it is only the Mac installer that has this issue.
- loeg 10y ago
  If you're using packages on Linux, the package manager is responsible for uninstalling the old version. For example, yum/dnf on Fedora/Redhat will only keep one version of a package during 'yum update' (with the exception of the kernel, where the most recent 3 versions as well as the running kernel are kept to avoid breaking boot).
  - rocky1138 10y ago
    Yeah, I'm on Xubuntu and I figured this would be handled by the package manager.
richard_mcp 10y ago
This is embarrassingly bad. I know memory is cheap and mostly plentiful, but to have this as a bug for 5+ years is horrible. It's as though Chrome is going the route of web pages and not paying to the size of itself.
- jeffmcjunkin 10y ago
  This is prior versions of Chrome taking up disk space, not memory. That's a completely separate issue.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Fortunately disk space, unlike memory, is infinite.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      I'd much rather you use 21GB on my SSD than 2.1GB of my ram.
      - loeg 10y ago
        Hm. On some machines I only have 8x the SSD as RAM. I might take the 2.1GB to 21GB trade in that case :-).
        coldtea 10y ago
        Then don't use Chrome on those machines?
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        It's usually easier to reclaim RAM than storage. Which application am I not using right now? vs What data will I never need again?
        NicoJuicy 10y ago
ameliaquining 10y ago
I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome itself. (Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on Chrome.)
- aikah 10y ago
  > I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome itself. What do you mean ? if I download Chrome from the official website I get a third party installer ? because I have the exact same problem with that very official installer.
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    He means that bug report is about a third party installer screwing up the permissions and nothing changing it? Can you point me to an official installer with the same problem? I'm not aware of those installers installing anything as root.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Oddly the author leaves out any mention of possibilities along these lines.
  - dunham 10y ago
    It looks like the linked article has been updated at the end to clarify. It sounds like some third party extension's installer (e.g. DivX) is reaching into Chrome.app and mucking with permissions (setting owner to root). Not sure why they don't install into "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins" (maybe it doesn't work with chrome anymore?) (Edit: but a comment in the linked bug report suggests that this may also occur if Chrome is installed as one user and used by another.)
    - ameliaquining 10y ago
license2e 10y ago
I installed mine through Homebrew (http://brew.sh/ http://brew.sh/) Cask (https://caskroom.github.io/ https://caskroom.github.io/) and it is fine (only last two versions).
mariusmg 10y ago
Both Chrome and Opera pull this shit. It's unbelievable they aren't fixing this.
- babayega2 10y ago
  Indeed. They keep freezing my Ubuntu 14.04. I need to delete ~.config/xxx folder.
lucb1e 10y ago
> I’m happily walking away from this with an extra 21GB in my pocket! And now I ask you: is your Chrome bigger than mine? Given I don't have to rely on third party updaters, I doubt it. Let's see... $ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done; 172060669 bytes, 164 megabytes $ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium 8.4M .cache/chromium 25M .config/chromium So the cache is 8M, config files 25M and program files 164M (listed by dpkg -L, then some command line magic to add up file sizes). A grand total of just under 200MB.
- esaym 10y ago
  heh, nice user@t61:~$ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done; 162190110 bytes, 154 megabytes user@t61:~$ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium 386M .cache/chromium 84M .config/chromium
  - zodiakzz 10y ago
    I win? :P zod@DESKTOP MINGW64 ~/AppData/Local/Google $ du -sh ~/AppData/Local/Google 2.9G /c/Users/Zod/AppData/Local/Google Edit: I do have 885 tabs open. (yikes! D:)
    - weaksauce 10y ago
      I made a simple firefox/chrome extension for people like you and me that horde tabs. You might find it useful to find tabs and quickly navigate to them by clicking on the link in the list. It's free and open source. The github page has a gif showing usage. Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiogfkaldbfphfdkpggjemaha https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiog... Firefox Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabist/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabist/ source code: https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

189 points by ddcarnage 10y ago

Zekio 10y ago

This just seems like something that should've been fixed years ago

DannyBee 10y ago
It was (in fact, it's not clear it was ever broken) That's why if you look at the linked bug report, the only reports are of people who have used third party installers as root that screw up the permissions. The bug report is basically "when i screw this up, chrome doesn't notice and fix it for me".
- taeric 10y ago
  I'm not at all sure how this excuses things. If there is a known state that can be reached by the browser, then either a) indicate why it cannot be fixed and give tips for the users or b) put in the code to fix it for the users.
  - loeg 10y ago
    Root can modify the filesystem arbitrarily. To what extent should developers proactively scan their own files for arbitrary changes by 3rd parties? How much work should go into this, rather than fixing other bugs or improving performance?
    - taeric 10y ago
      In this case, there is no need to proactively scan anymore. It was reported by users. I stressed the wrong thing before. If it can not be fixed, say so.
      - loeg 10y ago
        Fair enough!
      - DiabloD3 10y ago
        How do you propose third parties modifying installers without Google's knowledge or permission something Google can fix?
        loeg 10y ago
        I think GP is just suggesting that Google has had the knowledge about this specific 3rd party issue (via this bug) for years. It can't fix all possible 3rd party installer-induced issues, but it could potentially fix this one. (Or at least notify the user.)

AstroJetson 10y ago

I'm going to post a theory that with 500Gb drives pretty much the normal size that most people won't notice 2.5% tied up in Chrome installs.

milankragujevic 10y ago
Except if you've bought a Lenovo 100s or similar, with 32GB of eMMC Flash storage. Then you'll cry.
- dijit 10y ago
  My girlfriend was given a macbook air by her parents, and after OS and her normal programs were installed (office, chrome and not much else) she was left with 5G. 64G SSDs were common not very long ago, disk space for operational components is increasing.
danieldk 10y ago
128/256 GB SSDs are pretty common on Macs. For instance, the base models of the air still have 128 GB.
agumonkey 10y ago
Even with 1TB disk space I'm resentful of the amount of space "leaked" by software. Maybe I'm a naz-, maybe I was born in the MB era.. can't say. The other day I booted a P3 era machine and seeing all we did with "just" 128MB made me feel chills all over.
- drivingmenuts 10y ago
  I blame the perpetual-beta mentality along with lazy development practices. Used to be, we specced out exactly what was in a release and no more. Now, it's just whatever they can cram in under a deadline without all that "unnecessary" optimization. I'm probably as guilty as anyone else; I like getting a paycheck and so I keep my mouth shut, even though shit like that literally keeps me up some nights.

rocky1138 10y ago

Does this only occur on Macs?

spikengineer 10y ago
I think so. Never faced this issue in Windows and Linux
jmisavage 10y ago
I had this same issue on XP running in a VM that wasn't set to grow on a Mac.
roywiggins 10y ago
I'm almost certain I had a similar problem on Windows, though it was a few months, maybe a year ago.
kevincox 10y ago
According to the linked bug it is due to an issue to the DivX installer messing with the users chrome install. I don't know if the DivX installer on other platform experiences this issue but it sounds likely that it is only the Mac installer that has this issue.
loeg 10y ago
If you're using packages on Linux, the package manager is responsible for uninstalling the old version. For example, yum/dnf on Fedora/Redhat will only keep one version of a package during 'yum update' (with the exception of the kernel, where the most recent 3 versions as well as the running kernel are kept to avoid breaking boot).
- rocky1138 10y ago
  Yeah, I'm on Xubuntu and I figured this would be handled by the package manager.

richard_mcp 10y ago

This is embarrassingly bad. I know memory is cheap and mostly plentiful, but to have this as a bug for 5+ years is horrible. It's as though Chrome is going the route of web pages and not paying to the size of itself.

jeffmcjunkin 10y ago
This is prior versions of Chrome taking up disk space, not memory. That's a completely separate issue.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Fortunately disk space, unlike memory, is infinite.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    I'd much rather you use 21GB on my SSD than 2.1GB of my ram.
    - loeg 10y ago
      Hm. On some machines I only have 8x the SSD as RAM. I might take the 2.1GB to 21GB trade in that case :-).
      - coldtea 10y ago
        Then don't use Chrome on those machines?
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      It's usually easier to reclaim RAM than storage. Which application am I not using right now? vs What data will I never need again?
      - NicoJuicy 10y ago

ameliaquining 10y ago

I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome itself. (Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on Chrome.)

aikah 10y ago
> I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome itself. What do you mean ? if I download Chrome from the official website I get a third party installer ? because I have the exact same problem with that very official installer.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  He means that bug report is about a third party installer screwing up the permissions and nothing changing it? Can you point me to an official installer with the same problem? I'm not aware of those installers installing anything as root.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Oddly the author leaves out any mention of possibilities along these lines.
- dunham 10y ago
  It looks like the linked article has been updated at the end to clarify. It sounds like some third party extension's installer (e.g. DivX) is reaching into Chrome.app and mucking with permissions (setting owner to root). Not sure why they don't install into "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins" (maybe it doesn't work with chrome anymore?) (Edit: but a comment in the linked bug report suggests that this may also occur if Chrome is installed as one user and used by another.)
  - ameliaquining 10y ago

license2e 10y ago

I installed mine through Homebrew (http://brew.sh/ http://brew.sh/) Cask (https://caskroom.github.io/ https://caskroom.github.io/) and it is fine (only last two versions).

mariusmg 10y ago

Both Chrome and Opera pull this shit. It's unbelievable they aren't fixing this.

babayega2 10y ago
Indeed. They keep freezing my Ubuntu 14.04. I need to delete ~.config/xxx folder.

lucb1e 10y ago

> I’m happily walking away from this with an extra 21GB in my pocket! And now I ask you: is your Chrome bigger than mine? Given I don't have to rely on third party updaters, I doubt it. Let's see... $ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done; 172060669 bytes, 164 megabytes $ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium 8.4M .cache/chromium 25M .config/chromium So the cache is 8M, config files 25M and program files 164M (listed by dpkg -L, then some command line magic to add up file sizes). A grand total of just under 200MB.

esaym 10y ago
heh, nice user@t61:~$ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done; 162190110 bytes, 154 megabytes user@t61:~$ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium 386M .cache/chromium 84M .config/chromium
- zodiakzz 10y ago
  I win? :P zod@DESKTOP MINGW64 ~/AppData/Local/Google $ du -sh ~/AppData/Local/Google 2.9G /c/Users/Zod/AppData/Local/Google Edit: I do have 885 tabs open. (yikes! D:)
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    I made a simple firefox/chrome extension for people like you and me that horde tabs. You might find it useful to find tabs and quickly navigate to them by clicking on the link in the list. It's free and open source. The github page has a gif showing usage. Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiogfkaldbfphfdkpggjemaha https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiog... Firefox Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabist/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabist/ source code: https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]