5 ms·

Chrome bloat brainstorm

97 points by crizCraig 16y ago

JonnieCache 16y ago
This is a beautiful thing in a world of 600mb printer driver install packages.
- harisenbon 16y ago
  I was recommended a new mapping program for my iphone yesterday, and when I went to download it, it said that I needed 4.2GB of space to install. Also as a "haha, crappy bandwith!" aside: I found it strange to think of most people only having -700kbps in the states. I have a 100mbps line for 50USD/month and regularly get around 60mbps. I have to install chrome on various computers for work, and I've never even noticed more than a few second delay between downloading the binaries and installation.
  - tjarratt 16y ago
    Not all Americans can afford $50 USD / month for a luxury service. There are also wide swaths of the US that don't have any better options since telecoms refuse to build more infrastructure.
    - bmj 16y ago
      Agreed. My company's offering opened my eyes to two things: 1. Many people, even in the States, have sloooow connections at home. 2. Many people have very poor cell/GSM/GPRS coverage. We still have to provide a POTS modem for our handheld data collection devices[1]. [1] We just released a new device (smartphone) that supports a POTS modem. Think of that! A cellphone that transfers data via a dial up modem.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    $50/month!? Luxury service!? We pay $50/month for 768KBps (6Mbps), and that's the second cheapest service in town. I'm going to go cry now. P.S. Mapping software is by nature huge. It typically contains, you know, maps. Of the whole country.
    - bmelton 16y ago
      For an iPhone app though? Meant to be installed over the air? That's incredibly poorly thought out. Better would be to allow you to download which maps you need as you need them, to shrink the initial installer down. Better than that would be having the maps be online accessible, and are immediately cached to the device after first use. Best is probably somewhere between those two, or something along those lines, but I can't imagine who packaged up a 4.2Gb iphone app and didn't ask any questions about that.
      - callumjones 16y ago
        It's probably more robust to let iTunes download the whole binary, instead of have the user attempt to download specific maps over WiFi (the device may go to sleep, run out of battery, etc).
        andybak 16y ago
        Come on now. Surely resuming a partial download is a solved problem in this day and age?
        iaskwhy 16y ago
        Funny how I tried to download iOS 4.3 from iTunes for my new iPhone 4 yesterday and the computer went to sleep while downloading it, which is around 700Mb. When I noticed I woke it up and clicked on resume, bang, went from 400Mb to "zero Kb" right away. And, uh, it happened twice... Finally, at my third attempt I was able to download the whole thing after deactivating automatically sleep mode. As soon as it finished, an error was shown and so the file was lost again.
        callumjones 16y ago
        I still find iOS app updates on the device a bit hit and miss.
  - chc 16y ago
    You are quite privileged. I pay $60 per month for one tenth of that in San Diego (not exactly hillbilly country).
    - Aaronontheweb 16y ago
      I was able to get great connection speeds in San Diego with Time Warner for a little less than $60 a month - if you upgrade to their turbo package just make sure that they give you a compatible router; I spent five months paying for the better service without being able to access it because they didn't upgrade the hardware.
relix 16y ago
The answer to "why" given in that thread is very interesting: "Many reasons, but two off the top of my head: 1. We do distribution deals with Chrome, where we bundle Chrome with other products. These get difficult when our binary grows. 2. We see increased download failures / install dropoffs as the binary grows, especially in countries with poor bandwidth like India. India also happens to be a very good market for Chrome (we have good market share there and growing), so that's also very problematic."
crizCraig 16y ago
related: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20045776-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20045776-264.html
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  There's not really much more information in there beyond what's in the google groups thread. Pretty good summary though.
xtacy 16y ago
I wonder if it's possible to have a basic browser that is very small and has most of the functionality with minimum 3rd party libraries like Flash/PDF plugin. Once the browser starts, the full software installation continues, just like Chrome's silent software update. Slowly, the users have the entire browser installed!
- crizCraig 16y ago
  Yeah, I tried to post a similar suggestion on the group. Stuff like developer tools, native client, gpu, themes, and extensions might be able to get lazy loaded.
  - xtacy 16y ago
    @Software devs: How are modules implemented in softwares that you create? Are dlopen()s sufficient or are there issues?
christoph 16y ago
I hear there's a team at Adobe that everyone loves to hate that consistently adds features and keeps binary sizes down year after year... True story.
- nodata 16y ago
  and I heard there's a team that doesn't add that icon you deleted back to your desktop every time an update is released.
- cpeterso 16y ago
  Here are the historical file sizes of Adobe's Flash Player installer (compressed .exe for Windows ActiveX Control): * Flash Player 2 (1997) = 0.2 MB * Flash Player 3 (1998) = 0.2 MB * Flash Player 4 (1999) = 0.3 MB * Flash Player 5 (2000) = 0.3 MB * Flash Player 6 (2002) = 0.5 MB * Flash Player 7 (2003) = 0.6 MB * Flash Player 8 (2005) = 0.8 MB * Flash Player 9 (2006) = 1.5 MB * Flash Player 10 (2008) = 1.9 MB * Flash Player 10.1 (2010) = 2.7 MB * Flash Player 10.2 (2011) = 2.7 MB
erikpukinskis 16y ago
Netscape 2.02 was 3.13 megs, for comparison.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Huh, I hadn't realized Netscape was that big way back in 1996! From that point of reference, Chrome's 26.2 megs doesn't actually seem huge. If we take 384 kbps DSL to be today's equivalent to a 14.4 kbps modem (low end of the "normal" internet connection), it's a 3x quicker download as well.

97 points by crizCraig 16y ago

JonnieCache 16y ago

This is a beautiful thing in a world of 600mb printer driver install packages.

harisenbon 16y ago
I was recommended a new mapping program for my iphone yesterday, and when I went to download it, it said that I needed 4.2GB of space to install. Also as a "haha, crappy bandwith!" aside: I found it strange to think of most people only having -700kbps in the states. I have a 100mbps line for 50USD/month and regularly get around 60mbps. I have to install chrome on various computers for work, and I've never even noticed more than a few second delay between downloading the binaries and installation.
- tjarratt 16y ago
  Not all Americans can afford $50 USD / month for a luxury service. There are also wide swaths of the US that don't have any better options since telecoms refuse to build more infrastructure.
  - bmj 16y ago
    Agreed. My company's offering opened my eyes to two things: 1. Many people, even in the States, have sloooow connections at home. 2. Many people have very poor cell/GSM/GPRS coverage. We still have to provide a POTS modem for our handheld data collection devices[1]. [1] We just released a new device (smartphone) that supports a POTS modem. Think of that! A cellphone that transfers data via a dial up modem.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  $50/month!? Luxury service!? We pay $50/month for 768KBps (6Mbps), and that's the second cheapest service in town. I'm going to go cry now. P.S. Mapping software is by nature huge. It typically contains, you know, maps. Of the whole country.
  - bmelton 16y ago
    For an iPhone app though? Meant to be installed over the air? That's incredibly poorly thought out. Better would be to allow you to download which maps you need as you need them, to shrink the initial installer down. Better than that would be having the maps be online accessible, and are immediately cached to the device after first use. Best is probably somewhere between those two, or something along those lines, but I can't imagine who packaged up a 4.2Gb iphone app and didn't ask any questions about that.
    - callumjones 16y ago
      It's probably more robust to let iTunes download the whole binary, instead of have the user attempt to download specific maps over WiFi (the device may go to sleep, run out of battery, etc).
      - andybak 16y ago
        Come on now. Surely resuming a partial download is a solved problem in this day and age?
        iaskwhy 16y ago
        Funny how I tried to download iOS 4.3 from iTunes for my new iPhone 4 yesterday and the computer went to sleep while downloading it, which is around 700Mb. When I noticed I woke it up and clicked on resume, bang, went from 400Mb to "zero Kb" right away. And, uh, it happened twice... Finally, at my third attempt I was able to download the whole thing after deactivating automatically sleep mode. As soon as it finished, an error was shown and so the file was lost again.
        callumjones 16y ago
        I still find iOS app updates on the device a bit hit and miss.
- chc 16y ago
  You are quite privileged. I pay $60 per month for one tenth of that in San Diego (not exactly hillbilly country).
  - Aaronontheweb 16y ago
    I was able to get great connection speeds in San Diego with Time Warner for a little less than $60 a month - if you upgrade to their turbo package just make sure that they give you a compatible router; I spent five months paying for the better service without being able to access it because they didn't upgrade the hardware.

relix 16y ago

The answer to "why" given in that thread is very interesting: "Many reasons, but two off the top of my head: 1. We do distribution deals with Chrome, where we bundle Chrome with other products. These get difficult when our binary grows. 2. We see increased download failures / install dropoffs as the binary grows, especially in countries with poor bandwidth like India. India also happens to be a very good market for Chrome (we have good market share there and growing), so that's also very problematic."

crizCraig 16y ago

related: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20045776-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20045776-264.html

stanleydrew 16y ago
There's not really much more information in there beyond what's in the google groups thread. Pretty good summary though.

xtacy 16y ago

I wonder if it's possible to have a basic browser that is very small and has most of the functionality with minimum 3rd party libraries like Flash/PDF plugin. Once the browser starts, the full software installation continues, just like Chrome's silent software update. Slowly, the users have the entire browser installed!

crizCraig 16y ago
Yeah, I tried to post a similar suggestion on the group. Stuff like developer tools, native client, gpu, themes, and extensions might be able to get lazy loaded.
- xtacy 16y ago
  @Software devs: How are modules implemented in softwares that you create? Are dlopen()s sufficient or are there issues?

christoph 16y ago

I hear there's a team at Adobe that everyone loves to hate that consistently adds features and keeps binary sizes down year after year... True story.

nodata 16y ago
and I heard there's a team that doesn't add that icon you deleted back to your desktop every time an update is released.
cpeterso 16y ago
Here are the historical file sizes of Adobe's Flash Player installer (compressed .exe for Windows ActiveX Control): * Flash Player 2 (1997) = 0.2 MB * Flash Player 3 (1998) = 0.2 MB * Flash Player 4 (1999) = 0.3 MB * Flash Player 5 (2000) = 0.3 MB * Flash Player 6 (2002) = 0.5 MB * Flash Player 7 (2003) = 0.6 MB * Flash Player 8 (2005) = 0.8 MB * Flash Player 9 (2006) = 1.5 MB * Flash Player 10 (2008) = 1.9 MB * Flash Player 10.1 (2010) = 2.7 MB * Flash Player 10.2 (2011) = 2.7 MB

erikpukinskis 16y ago

Netscape 2.02 was 3.13 megs, for comparison.

_delirium 16y ago
Huh, I hadn't realized Netscape was that big way back in 1996! From that point of reference, Chrome's 26.2 megs doesn't actually seem huge. If we take 384 kbps DSL to be today's equivalent to a 14.4 kbps modem (low end of the "normal" internet connection), it's a 3x quicker download as well.