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I like the way qutebrowser works and the way it avoids wasting space, and I wish I could use it. But over several versions of Ubuntu and qutebrowser, I’ve encou

I like the way qutebrowser works and the way it avoids wasting space, and I wish I could use it. But over several versions of Ubuntu and qutebrowser, I’ve encountered too many problems; I think most are due to the qtwebengine and the fact that qutebrowser is made with Python. The latter often leads to the familiar dependency hell when trying to install or upgrade the program. I have frequent crashes, it’s slow at rendering pages, it uses more memory than (for example) chromium and seems to leak memory; any kind of CSS animation causes the CPU to have a major workout. After one upgrade most video stopped working. I never cared about the ad blocker, as I use a hosts file for that. Why doesn’t everyone? It seems to be a better solution.

dijit 6y ago
The hosts file solution doesn’t help with elements on a page (like cookie banners) which can load from allowed domains, or elements on a page such as YouTube ad-rolls. But I agree about the memory usage, qute uses insane amounts of memory and it gets worse over time, I think this is caused primarily by memory fragmentation in python- but it’s more evident with large memory hungry programs like a browser. https://dzone.com/articles/python-memory-issues-tips-and-tricks https://dzone.com/articles/python-memory-issues-tips-and-tri...
- leephillips 6y ago
  “The hosts file solution doesn’t help with elements on a page (like cookie banners) which can load from allowed domains, or elements on a page such as YouTube ad-rolls.” You’re right about that. I’m using Chromium v.87 now and it’s the first graphical browser I’ve encountered in a while that does not leak memory. It’s fast, stable, smooth, does not peg the CPU, and I don’t need to restart it periodically to reclaim RAM.
  - tomsmeding 6y ago
    How many browsers have you tried? Firefox regularly runs for a long time on my machine, and I have no issues with its memory usage.
    - leephillips 6y ago
      Firefox was my main browser for a long time. But after an upgrade it starting misbehaving in some way that I don’t remember now. It seems to be difficult to generalize about these things. Someone will say that a particular version of a browser leaks memory, or pegs the CPU, and someone else will say that the same version has no problems.
      - The-Compiler 6y ago
        > It seems to be difficult to generalize about these things. Someone will say that a particular version of a browser leaks memory, or pegs the CPU, and someone else will say that the same version has no problems. FWIW that's indeed my experience with qutebrowser as well. Everyone seems to have rather different experiences (or expectations?) when it comes to performance and RAM usage. Doesn't exactly make it easier to track issues down, unfortunately.
        leephillips 6y ago
        Yeah, I realize just saying “it leaks memory” is useless to you in tracking down why. It could be due to any of a dozen different things that QB interacts with. And the next level of investigation is something that I don’t really have the skills, nor, probably, the time, to undertake.
        The-Compiler 6y ago
        I'm not blaming you for that - those things are insanely hard to track down in a complex application spanning multiple programming languages and approaches to memory management... Unfortunately I have no idea where to start either :-/
- The-Compiler 6y ago
  > But I agree about the memory usage, qute uses insane amounts of memory and it gets worse over time, I think this is caused primarily by memory fragmentation in python- but it’s more evident with large memory hungry programs like a browser. Yeah, something is leaking memory. Unfortunately, nobody has figured out what exactly yet - and everything I've seen so far is not pointing to Python (or qutebrowser) as a culprit: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1476#issuecomment-733019169 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1476#issue...
The-Compiler 6y ago
> The latter often leads to the familiar dependency hell when trying to install or upgrade the program. Can you elaborate? > I have frequent crashes, it’s slow at rendering pages, it uses more memory than (for example) chromium and seems to leak memory; any kind of CSS animation causes the CPU to have a major workout. Those are indeed most likely caused by the underlying QtWebEngine in some way - though there also have been some performance improvements in qutebrowser itself, with some more planned: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22component%3A+performance%22 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues?q=is%3Aope... > After one upgrade most video stopped working. If you installed qutebrowser outside of Ubuntu's packages, that might be caused by the prebuilt Qt lacking proprietary codec support. Despite that, it's what I'd recommend if you're on a Ubuntu LTS with often grossly outdated Qt versions: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/install.asciidoc#installing-qutebrowser-with-virtualenv https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/i... > I never cared about the ad blocker, as I use a hosts file for that. Why doesn’t everyone? It seems to be a better solution. That's essentially what qutebrowser did before this release as well - but many ads and trackers are served from the visited page directly rather than a third-party host.
- leephillips 6y ago
  “Can you elaborate?” First, thanks for your work on Qutebrowser. I’m sure it’s exhausting in many ways, and I know it’s basically a hobby. So despite my complaints I’m impressed and I love the concept. And I’ve noticed you are consistently responsive to users, despite this not being a job. Pip installing QB usually leads to errors about missing or wrong Python QT libraries, and attempts to install those lead to other errors. I don’t expect you to deal with these problems; it’s what I’ve come to expect with large Python programs. Using a virtual env. did not solve the issues for me. EDIT: or it will install, but then when I run it, I get an error about something missing or being the wrong version. The nonworking video, I’m sure, is due to missing codecs. “many ads and trackers are served from the visited page directly” True, but the hosts file seems to catch most everything.
  - The-Compiler 6y ago

dijit 6y ago

The hosts file solution doesn’t help with elements on a page (like cookie banners) which can load from allowed domains, or elements on a page such as YouTube ad-rolls. But I agree about the memory usage, qute uses insane amounts of memory and it gets worse over time, I think this is caused primarily by memory fragmentation in python- but it’s more evident with large memory hungry programs like a browser. https://dzone.com/articles/python-memory-issues-tips-and-tricks https://dzone.com/articles/python-memory-issues-tips-and-tri...

leephillips 6y ago
“The hosts file solution doesn’t help with elements on a page (like cookie banners) which can load from allowed domains, or elements on a page such as YouTube ad-rolls.” You’re right about that. I’m using Chromium v.87 now and it’s the first graphical browser I’ve encountered in a while that does not leak memory. It’s fast, stable, smooth, does not peg the CPU, and I don’t need to restart it periodically to reclaim RAM.
- tomsmeding 6y ago
  How many browsers have you tried? Firefox regularly runs for a long time on my machine, and I have no issues with its memory usage.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    Firefox was my main browser for a long time. But after an upgrade it starting misbehaving in some way that I don’t remember now. It seems to be difficult to generalize about these things. Someone will say that a particular version of a browser leaks memory, or pegs the CPU, and someone else will say that the same version has no problems.
    - The-Compiler 6y ago
      > It seems to be difficult to generalize about these things. Someone will say that a particular version of a browser leaks memory, or pegs the CPU, and someone else will say that the same version has no problems. FWIW that's indeed my experience with qutebrowser as well. Everyone seems to have rather different experiences (or expectations?) when it comes to performance and RAM usage. Doesn't exactly make it easier to track issues down, unfortunately.
      - leephillips 6y ago
        Yeah, I realize just saying “it leaks memory” is useless to you in tracking down why. It could be due to any of a dozen different things that QB interacts with. And the next level of investigation is something that I don’t really have the skills, nor, probably, the time, to undertake.
        The-Compiler 6y ago
        I'm not blaming you for that - those things are insanely hard to track down in a complex application spanning multiple programming languages and approaches to memory management... Unfortunately I have no idea where to start either :-/
The-Compiler 6y ago
> But I agree about the memory usage, qute uses insane amounts of memory and it gets worse over time, I think this is caused primarily by memory fragmentation in python- but it’s more evident with large memory hungry programs like a browser. Yeah, something is leaking memory. Unfortunately, nobody has figured out what exactly yet - and everything I've seen so far is not pointing to Python (or qutebrowser) as a culprit: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1476#issuecomment-733019169 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1476#issue...

The-Compiler 6y ago

> The latter often leads to the familiar dependency hell when trying to install or upgrade the program. Can you elaborate? > I have frequent crashes, it’s slow at rendering pages, it uses more memory than (for example) chromium and seems to leak memory; any kind of CSS animation causes the CPU to have a major workout. Those are indeed most likely caused by the underlying QtWebEngine in some way - though there also have been some performance improvements in qutebrowser itself, with some more planned: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22component%3A+performance%22 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues?q=is%3Aope... > After one upgrade most video stopped working. If you installed qutebrowser outside of Ubuntu's packages, that might be caused by the prebuilt Qt lacking proprietary codec support. Despite that, it's what I'd recommend if you're on a Ubuntu LTS with often grossly outdated Qt versions: https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/install.asciidoc#installing-qutebrowser-with-virtualenv https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/i... > I never cared about the ad blocker, as I use a hosts file for that. Why doesn’t everyone? It seems to be a better solution. That's essentially what qutebrowser did before this release as well - but many ads and trackers are served from the visited page directly rather than a third-party host.

leephillips 6y ago
“Can you elaborate?” First, thanks for your work on Qutebrowser. I’m sure it’s exhausting in many ways, and I know it’s basically a hobby. So despite my complaints I’m impressed and I love the concept. And I’ve noticed you are consistently responsive to users, despite this not being a job. Pip installing QB usually leads to errors about missing or wrong Python QT libraries, and attempts to install those lead to other errors. I don’t expect you to deal with these problems; it’s what I’ve come to expect with large Python programs. Using a virtual env. did not solve the issues for me. EDIT: or it will install, but then when I run it, I get an error about something missing or being the wrong version. The nonworking video, I’m sure, is due to missing codecs. “many ads and trackers are served from the visited page directly” True, but the hosts file seems to catch most everything.
- The-Compiler 6y ago