8 ms·

The author went so far as to create a domain for this rant, and yet didn't even do any performance metrics or basic forensic analysis at all. I'm not saying the

by vesche 6y ago

The author went so far as to create a domain for this rant, and yet didn't even do any performance metrics or basic forensic analysis at all. I'm not saying the author is wrong, but there's a lot of questions here. How does Keystone hide itself from the Activity Monitor? Is there a Keystone process if you run `ps aux`? Did you run dtruss/strace? What is it doing when Chrome isn't running that causes it to degrade performance?

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
I'm quite impressed by that “chromeisbad” as a domain was not already taken.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  Yeah. After reading your comment I tried out a couple of similar domains on the form x is bad and x is good and they were both parked waiting for someone to pay whatever ridiculous price the owner is wanting to demand to sell it. I wish it was illegal to do that.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    If it weren't legal, then someone would simply use it for a trivial website and then sell it. Perhaps that is the only reason this simple, trivial article exists.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Somewhat related: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Comput... * https://www.thedrive.com/news/35179/the-man-who-fought-nissan-over-a-website-and-won-has-died-of-covid-19 https://www.thedrive.com/news/35179/the-man-who-fought-nissa...
- libria 6y ago
  With the amount of rebuttals in this thread, I'm impressed `chromeisgood.com` isn't taken.
  - artiszt 6y ago
    right besides, most probably would learn themselves the hard way when put in the same position the OP detailed problems with Goo are widely known in circles of the Mac-communities ever since Goo-acc's first became avail in the beginning only by invitation, back then also worth to look into the history of why, when and by whom LS aka LittleSnitch was developed in the first place -- tho this was more related to issues with that then must-go-to site 'versiontracker' [for all sorts of Mac shareware] and a vintaged firewall [3rd party] product widely used that time that didn't work as advertised a Mac OS w/out LS these days ? back then very few only were concerned with 'calling-/phoning-home' issues on a scale nobody could imagine, least speak or post about in public, in those pre-iPhone ages
  - alfon 6y ago
    Here you have another one: ilovechrome.com :)
sroussey 6y ago
Possible correlation and hand waving equals causation. I, too, was hoping for something, well, technical. Considering #1 on hacker news...
- edgefield0 6y ago
  Does anyone else see the irony that hand waving is being disputed with hand waving?
  - izacus 6y ago
    No, there's a concept of "burden of proof" which applies here.
  - platelets2020 6y ago
    You don't get to stack "hand waving" indefinitely. The person who made the original claim is responsible for providing refutable evidence.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    I was reading through the comments and hoping someone would know what keystone actually was and if there was any possibility of the claim in the article :) . I mean there's a lot of stuff in chrome other than this keystone thing, maybe it was one of those other things.
- politelemon 6y ago
  That this is so high right now is quite reflective of HN. It's nearly an exact match of the meme like utterance often seen on reddit: "chrome bad".
  - platelets2020 6y ago
    There's been a massive influx of reddit-quality comments for quite a while. I guess it was only a matter of time before it was reflected in the submissions.
  - 6y ago
david_dan 6y ago
Next on Hacker News -- Why your mom is a whore from this totally objective website yourmomisawhore.com
comex 6y ago
Another thing you can do: profile the process to find out what exactly it’s spending all that CPU time on. There are a few different ways to do this on macOS, including the GUI Instruments.app which comes with Xcode, and dtrace. But if you’re the sort who always has a terminal open, the quickest way is to just run sudo spindump Also useful when a process is hung, even if it’s not taking up CPU time. Sometimes the output isn’t useful due to a binary having been stripped of symbol names, but all macOS system libraries have symbols, so you can usually figure out something.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  Speaking of the GUI Instruments.app. Is there a way to start a process from there, instead of attaching to an already running process? I used it the other day and could only figure out how to attach to an already running process with it.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Create a new profiling environment based on the template you're interested in, making sure "Choose a profiling template for:" is set to "Your Computer > All Processes." Next, in the top-left of the window, where it says "Your Computer > All Processes", click on All Processes. Select Choose Target... and navigate to your binary and hit Choose. Then hit the red circle to begin recording. This will launch a new instance of the specified binary and profile it. This may not work for binaries that set PT_DENY_ATTACH, though.
    - codetrotter 6y ago
      Thanks :)
  - comex 6y ago
    Yes, it’s possible. In the menu with all the processes, pick the option “Choose Target”. It’s kind of an annoying UI, but it works. Another option is to use `xcrun xctrace` to get a recording from the command line, which can then be opened in Instruments.
blindm 6y ago
> The author went so far as to create a domain for this rant It's not a 'far' thing to purchase a domain anymore. Domains are cheap as chips, and have gotten cheaper now since the advent of novel generic TLDs where usually the first year is sold cheap but to roll it over into the next few years the price is hiked (which is why so many people now purchase a domain for a year only). It is common now and expected to see single-serving-sites[0] that are just thinly veiled blogposts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-serving_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-serving_site
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  A lot of blogging services integrate domains as well. If you already have payment integrate, adding a domain to a blog is a few clicks - if even.
Etheryte 6y ago
Because this sounded outlandish, I decided to have a look on my own system. Since the author didn't give any technical details, I grepped `~/Library` and `/Library` for files containing `keystone` in either name or contents. This yielded the following interesting candidates, along with similar entries for daemons etc: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/com.google.keystone.agent.plist They all reference the same binary, `~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent`, and frankly are wholly uninteresting configuration files to integrate with launchd and other stuff. Looking through a full system trace in Instruments didn't yield anything interesting either (outside of discovering that I forgot to shut down one of my virtual machines). All in all, this sounds like hot air, and I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was.
- nostromo 6y ago
  > I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was. Why would you immediately jump to assuming bad faith? No grand conspiracy required... the author believes that Chrome is slowing down his Mac and decided to share it. The end.
  - Etheryte 6y ago
    I'm not really one for conspiracies, more so I fail to see where the evidence is that Chrome was somehow related to begin with. I do agree my wording could be better there, though.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Asking the question "wonder" is not really assuming bad faith is it? I don't see any intentional deception there.
    - jodrellblank 6y ago
      The page says "I deleted Chrome, and all the files Keystone had littered on the computer, restarted, and it was so snappy it felt like a brand new computer. Yeah, I realize this sounds like a freakin' infomercial, but it worked so well I spent $5 on a domain name and set up this website even if it makes me sound like a raving nut." To then "wonder what the motivation is" is to suggest that you don't believe this simple positive explanation, and imply there's something less simple, and more scheming.

by vesche 6y ago

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

I'm quite impressed by that “chromeisbad” as a domain was not already taken.

codetrotter 6y ago
Yeah. After reading your comment I tried out a couple of similar domains on the form x is bad and x is good and they were both parked waiting for someone to pay whatever ridiculous price the owner is wanting to demand to sell it. I wish it was illegal to do that.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  If it weren't legal, then someone would simply use it for a trivial website and then sell it. Perhaps that is the only reason this simple, trivial article exists.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Somewhat related: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Comput... * https://www.thedrive.com/news/35179/the-man-who-fought-nissan-over-a-website-and-won-has-died-of-covid-19 https://www.thedrive.com/news/35179/the-man-who-fought-nissa...
libria 6y ago
With the amount of rebuttals in this thread, I'm impressed `chromeisgood.com` isn't taken.
- artiszt 6y ago
  right besides, most probably would learn themselves the hard way when put in the same position the OP detailed problems with Goo are widely known in circles of the Mac-communities ever since Goo-acc's first became avail in the beginning only by invitation, back then also worth to look into the history of why, when and by whom LS aka LittleSnitch was developed in the first place -- tho this was more related to issues with that then must-go-to site 'versiontracker' [for all sorts of Mac shareware] and a vintaged firewall [3rd party] product widely used that time that didn't work as advertised a Mac OS w/out LS these days ? back then very few only were concerned with 'calling-/phoning-home' issues on a scale nobody could imagine, least speak or post about in public, in those pre-iPhone ages
- alfon 6y ago
  Here you have another one: ilovechrome.com :)

sroussey 6y ago

Possible correlation and hand waving equals causation. I, too, was hoping for something, well, technical. Considering #1 on hacker news...

edgefield0 6y ago
Does anyone else see the irony that hand waving is being disputed with hand waving?
- izacus 6y ago
  No, there's a concept of "burden of proof" which applies here.
- platelets2020 6y ago
  You don't get to stack "hand waving" indefinitely. The person who made the original claim is responsible for providing refutable evidence.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I was reading through the comments and hoping someone would know what keystone actually was and if there was any possibility of the claim in the article :) . I mean there's a lot of stuff in chrome other than this keystone thing, maybe it was one of those other things.
politelemon 6y ago
That this is so high right now is quite reflective of HN. It's nearly an exact match of the meme like utterance often seen on reddit: "chrome bad".
- platelets2020 6y ago
  There's been a massive influx of reddit-quality comments for quite a while. I guess it was only a matter of time before it was reflected in the submissions.
- 6y ago

david_dan 6y ago

Next on Hacker News -- Why your mom is a whore from this totally objective website yourmomisawhore.com

comex 6y ago

Another thing you can do: profile the process to find out what exactly it’s spending all that CPU time on. There are a few different ways to do this on macOS, including the GUI Instruments.app which comes with Xcode, and dtrace. But if you’re the sort who always has a terminal open, the quickest way is to just run sudo spindump Also useful when a process is hung, even if it’s not taking up CPU time. Sometimes the output isn’t useful due to a binary having been stripped of symbol names, but all macOS system libraries have symbols, so you can usually figure out something.

codetrotter 6y ago
Speaking of the GUI Instruments.app. Is there a way to start a process from there, instead of attaching to an already running process? I used it the other day and could only figure out how to attach to an already running process with it.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Create a new profiling environment based on the template you're interested in, making sure "Choose a profiling template for:" is set to "Your Computer > All Processes." Next, in the top-left of the window, where it says "Your Computer > All Processes", click on All Processes. Select Choose Target... and navigate to your binary and hit Choose. Then hit the red circle to begin recording. This will launch a new instance of the specified binary and profile it. This may not work for binaries that set PT_DENY_ATTACH, though.
  - codetrotter 6y ago
    Thanks :)
- comex 6y ago
  Yes, it’s possible. In the menu with all the processes, pick the option “Choose Target”. It’s kind of an annoying UI, but it works. Another option is to use `xcrun xctrace` to get a recording from the command line, which can then be opened in Instruments.

blindm 6y ago

> The author went so far as to create a domain for this rant It's not a 'far' thing to purchase a domain anymore. Domains are cheap as chips, and have gotten cheaper now since the advent of novel generic TLDs where usually the first year is sold cheap but to roll it over into the next few years the price is hiked (which is why so many people now purchase a domain for a year only). It is common now and expected to see single-serving-sites[0] that are just thinly veiled blogposts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-serving_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-serving_site

SkyPuncher 6y ago
A lot of blogging services integrate domains as well. If you already have payment integrate, adding a domain to a blog is a few clicks - if even.

Etheryte 6y ago

Because this sounded outlandish, I decided to have a look on my own system. Since the author didn't give any technical details, I grepped `~/Library` and `/Library` for files containing `keystone` in either name or contents. This yielded the following interesting candidates, along with similar entries for daemons etc: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/com.google.keystone.agent.plist They all reference the same binary, `~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent`, and frankly are wholly uninteresting configuration files to integrate with launchd and other stuff. Looking through a full system trace in Instruments didn't yield anything interesting either (outside of discovering that I forgot to shut down one of my virtual machines). All in all, this sounds like hot air, and I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was.

nostromo 6y ago
> I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was. Why would you immediately jump to assuming bad faith? No grand conspiracy required... the author believes that Chrome is slowing down his Mac and decided to share it. The end.
- Etheryte 6y ago
  I'm not really one for conspiracies, more so I fail to see where the evidence is that Chrome was somehow related to begin with. I do agree my wording could be better there, though.
- edoceo 6y ago
  Asking the question "wonder" is not really assuming bad faith is it? I don't see any intentional deception there.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    The page says "I deleted Chrome, and all the files Keystone had littered on the computer, restarted, and it was so snappy it felt like a brand new computer. Yeah, I realize this sounds like a freakin' infomercial, but it worked so well I spent $5 on a domain name and set up this website even if it makes me sound like a raving nut." To then "wonder what the motivation is" is to suggest that you don't believe this simple positive explanation, and imply there's something less simple, and more scheming.