6 ms·

> I can't imagine it being enough to load many electron apps in a few years time. I honestly hopoe Electron has to improve it's performance or companies start

> I can't imagine it being enough to load many electron apps in a few years time. I honestly hopoe Electron has to improve it's performance or companies start moving off of it. It's honestly a bit of a joke at this point.

chrisweekly 4y ago
Desktop PWA is becoming a pretty reasonable alternative.
- cguess 4y ago
  I don't want to run a web browser to run a desktop app. I don't care how useful it is to run JS and HTML from a dev standpoint it's an absolutely absurdity that my desktop app has a CORS vulnerability.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    Then you probably won't get Linux desktop support at all. Linux camp should be cheering electron.
    - that_guy_iain 4y ago
      Honestly, if the other OSes had decent native apps for some of these things I would probably switch. There is just something wrong with Spotify using 1gb when it was just opened and never used.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Ah yes, let's just take those table scraps and be thankful for them...
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    I could be wrong but I feel like literally running some kind of little mini virtualized instance and just running a desktop app meant for OSX or Windows could end up being more efficient than running a whole browser.....
    - _piif 4y ago
      Or running a more optimized app meant for Windows using WINE.
    - BackBlast 4y ago
      Not necessarily. If you're running the browser anyway, and the app is a PWA and can share that same instance. The "browser" overhead is not really there. A native app, lets say that wants to play video and is using a cross platform GUI. You've got to load and run that code, and have all the relevant code in the native app's address space. That would be a bunch of code that needs to load over the PWA which is leveraging something you have loaded in RAM anyway. In this case the native is actually worse than the PWA for resource utilization. Launch CPU cycles can be similar, running a huge swath of GUI code for the native app vs a pre-loaded browser which only needs to run the JS and render the page. Having your app's runtime already loaded on the system is a huge advantage. Electron does not benefit from these advantages though. These are PWA exclusive advantages.
  - pseudosavant 4y ago
    > my desktop app has a CORS vulnerability. Yes, because CORS, a way that HTTP requests are restricted, doesn’t even exist in native. Of course a native app can reach out to any URL it wants. That is the default, and also how CORS functions when disabled or bypassed.
  - BackBlast 4y ago
    Somehow a security feature in browsers called CORS, that isn't present at all in native apps, is both a vulnerability and a downside? I don't understand this line of thinking.
- unicornhose 4y ago
  PWAs _can_ get better and more platform-friendly though. It's two bad choices right now.
enlyth 4y ago
Are you all using some rare electron apps that are unknown to me because I keep hearing this meme repeated but when I look at my RAM usage[0], it never corroborates this. I just don't see how 220MB for Discord is unreasonable in any way, when Firefox with 8 tabs takes 1.2GB. Telegram written in Qt meanwhile takes 200MB, literally no difference to Discord, an electron app. [0] https://i.imgur.com/cfCRWDS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/cfCRWDS.jpg
- xxpor 4y ago
  Because weechat uses <18 megs?
  - enlyth 4y ago
    Does weechat support rich embedded media like images and videos, can you live stream games to your friends on it, talk with people, have profile avatars, use emotes, build bots that stream music to you? Even something completely simple such as snip a portion of your screen and paste it in the chatbox so others can see it immediately, without having to mess around with dodgy image upload sites. This is basic functionality for 2022. It's like comparing notepad.exe to Microsoft Word
    - xxpor 4y ago
      I've sent plenty of pictures over DCC in my day. OBS lets me stream whatever to wherever at unlimited quality without paying. The point is most of what Discord provides is low value for the resources it demands.
    - e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
      EDIT: ignore me, I thought this was about WeChat, the Chinese messaging app, not weechat, the IRC client :( > rich embedded media like images and videos Yes > live stream games to your friends on it no (there's WeChat livestream (idk what it's called in English), but it's not discord style stream-your-desktop) > talk with people yes > have profile avatars yes > use emotes yes > build bots that stream music to you yes > Even something completely simple such as snip a portion of your screen and paste it in the chatbox so others can see it immediately, without having to mess around with dodgy image upload sites yes? you can paste stuff into wechat just fine. Think WhatsApp, not IRC Idk where GP came up with 18MB tho, it's eating up 100 on my laptop right now.

chrisweekly 4y ago

Desktop PWA is becoming a pretty reasonable alternative.

cguess 4y ago
I don't want to run a web browser to run a desktop app. I don't care how useful it is to run JS and HTML from a dev standpoint it's an absolutely absurdity that my desktop app has a CORS vulnerability.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  Then you probably won't get Linux desktop support at all. Linux camp should be cheering electron.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    Honestly, if the other OSes had decent native apps for some of these things I would probably switch. There is just something wrong with Spotify using 1gb when it was just opened and never used.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Ah yes, let's just take those table scraps and be thankful for them...
- Melatonic 4y ago
  I could be wrong but I feel like literally running some kind of little mini virtualized instance and just running a desktop app meant for OSX or Windows could end up being more efficient than running a whole browser.....
  - _piif 4y ago
    Or running a more optimized app meant for Windows using WINE.
  - BackBlast 4y ago
    Not necessarily. If you're running the browser anyway, and the app is a PWA and can share that same instance. The "browser" overhead is not really there. A native app, lets say that wants to play video and is using a cross platform GUI. You've got to load and run that code, and have all the relevant code in the native app's address space. That would be a bunch of code that needs to load over the PWA which is leveraging something you have loaded in RAM anyway. In this case the native is actually worse than the PWA for resource utilization. Launch CPU cycles can be similar, running a huge swath of GUI code for the native app vs a pre-loaded browser which only needs to run the JS and render the page. Having your app's runtime already loaded on the system is a huge advantage. Electron does not benefit from these advantages though. These are PWA exclusive advantages.
- pseudosavant 4y ago
  > my desktop app has a CORS vulnerability. Yes, because CORS, a way that HTTP requests are restricted, doesn’t even exist in native. Of course a native app can reach out to any URL it wants. That is the default, and also how CORS functions when disabled or bypassed.
- BackBlast 4y ago
  Somehow a security feature in browsers called CORS, that isn't present at all in native apps, is both a vulnerability and a downside? I don't understand this line of thinking.
unicornhose 4y ago
PWAs _can_ get better and more platform-friendly though. It's two bad choices right now.

enlyth 4y ago

Are you all using some rare electron apps that are unknown to me because I keep hearing this meme repeated but when I look at my RAM usage[0], it never corroborates this. I just don't see how 220MB for Discord is unreasonable in any way, when Firefox with 8 tabs takes 1.2GB. Telegram written in Qt meanwhile takes 200MB, literally no difference to Discord, an electron app. [0] https://i.imgur.com/cfCRWDS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/cfCRWDS.jpg

xxpor 4y ago
Because weechat uses <18 megs?
- enlyth 4y ago
  Does weechat support rich embedded media like images and videos, can you live stream games to your friends on it, talk with people, have profile avatars, use emotes, build bots that stream music to you? Even something completely simple such as snip a portion of your screen and paste it in the chatbox so others can see it immediately, without having to mess around with dodgy image upload sites. This is basic functionality for 2022. It's like comparing notepad.exe to Microsoft Word
  - xxpor 4y ago
    I've sent plenty of pictures over DCC in my day. OBS lets me stream whatever to wherever at unlimited quality without paying. The point is most of what Discord provides is low value for the resources it demands.
  - e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
    EDIT: ignore me, I thought this was about WeChat, the Chinese messaging app, not weechat, the IRC client :( > rich embedded media like images and videos Yes > live stream games to your friends on it no (there's WeChat livestream (idk what it's called in English), but it's not discord style stream-your-desktop) > talk with people yes > have profile avatars yes > use emotes yes > build bots that stream music to you yes > Even something completely simple such as snip a portion of your screen and paste it in the chatbox so others can see it immediately, without having to mess around with dodgy image upload sites yes? you can paste stuff into wechat just fine. Think WhatsApp, not IRC Idk where GP came up with 18MB tho, it's eating up 100 on my laptop right now.