5 ms·

Ironically (because related to Google), I feel that the constant churn of web development is what makes these older devices unusable. I have several devices fr

Ironically (because related to Google), I feel that the constant churn of web development is what makes these older devices unusable. I have several devices from early to mid 2010's, and the real reason these devices are annoying to unbearable to impossible to use (assuming Linux or Windows for security updates) is that they become very slow while just browsing the web or simply playing a video with a newer codec that has no hardware support on these older machines. In my mind, this 10 years of updates is fantastic, but also not very practical towards the end of the support cycle. Better to have the option, though.

noirscape 3y ago
Generally speaking I'd suggest installing Firefox on older devices. It's usually at least slightly more usable as long as you don't have too many tabs open. I'd also recommend Firefox in general but that's neither here or there.
- skinkestek 3y ago
  On a slightly newer machine (3 years old, 32GB memory) Firefox (or rather LibreWolf) again runs nicely with a few hundred tabs. It would probably run fine with that amount of tabs also if it had 16 or maybe 8 GB, but not together with 2 or 3 IDE instancee, Teams, Slack and ome or more applications running in debug.
  - pbmonster 3y ago
    I have absolutely zero issues on 10 year old hardware with 16GByte of memory. Hundreds of tabs (Firefox is really good about moving them out of memory when they don't get used for a while - which, lets be honest, are almost all of those tabs) and the normal everyday onslaught of office software, a fat IDE, and a CAD editor. This stuff is not rocket science. It's not even performance gaming. We worked efficiently in 2013, and it still works today. All it takes is some memory and a halfway decent SSD.
  - mymac 3y ago
    It bloody well should though, 32G is massive.
    - michaelt 3y ago
      Sort of - but completely normal for a developer's desktop circa 2013, even without paying the Xeon tax. Of course, a high school at that time might have purchased poverty-spec chromebooks with 4GB of RAM for understandable reasons of price. So when samtheprogram talks about "devices from early to mid 2010's" that could mean a great many things.
jwells89 3y ago
Even going as far back as Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad, while running Linux or even mildly debloated Win10, as long as it’s been outfitted with an SSD it’s not immediately obvious I’m using a 15+ year old machine until I have to open a web browser. These machines are perfectly usable outside of the boundlessly hungry entity that is the web.
- nicbou 3y ago
  I had a Macbook 12" for a while and it was fantastic. However YouTube brought it to a crawl, as did Google Maps. Everything else rant quite fine.
- mymac 3y ago
  If you aggressively (and I mean really aggressively) block any and all ads you'll find that you can use that 15+ year old machine just fine on the web. The bloat is mostly in the marketing and advertising part of the web, not in the content part.
  - dacryn 3y ago
    Chrome is also very resource hungry. Its great, it lives on the principle that if a machine has 16gb of RAM, it'd be stupid not to use it. Some other browsers limit themselves to the minimum but lose performance. This is best for most people, but not for those with older devices. In that case I usually find Firefox and a mandatory adblock a lot more enjoyable than chrome+ublock. Bonus points if you have a pihole somewhere on your network.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    As of a couple of years ago, I was using a mid-naughts iMac with Linux installed for a number of projects. It was fine for basic scripting, data analysis, and shell-based Web access. A heavily adblocked Firefox struggled to handle one or two tabs, and became utterly unresponsive beyond a half dozen or so. (My typical sessions run ... well into the 100s of tabs. Yes, I'm aware I have a problem, but browser state management otherwise entirely sucks.) That machine's replacement is now also beginning to struggle under what I've considered typical and generally reasonable Web loads. Until browsers start heavily penalising heavy sites, this will continue to be a problem. And on a tablet, I find that my web browser uses battery 10x faster than my bookreading software. This for documents that tend to run 10s to 100s of time longer than a typical webpage's actual text, though not their overall memory footprint.
robocat 3y ago
Slowdown can also be due to the soldered NAND flash slowly wearing out - not necessarily because the device is underpowered. Certainly the Nexus 7 (2012) had that problem (became completely unusably slow after a few years) and I am sure I have seen the same issue with other devices (Android phones and one iPad I had).
bcrosby95 3y ago
My daily driver is a system76 from 2015 and it works perfectly fine. However, I plan to replace it with a 16" framework so I can ditch my desktop and use the laptop for gaming.
- samtheprogram 3y ago
  8 year old _desktop_ computers (that have anywhere from 3 to 6x more watts hitting the CPU) are one thing. Also consider whether your machine has a dedicated GPU. A Chromebook or other budget-to-mid-range laptop from 2015 would have a different experience, although I'm sure they're still usable. I was daily driving a 2009 MacBook Pro for a while in 2018. It was... fine, especially as a Vim user, but if someone else used my computer, they would most certainly comment or complain with normal web browsing.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
(Self plug) We senselessly use RIAs for everything https://www.radicalsimpli.city/ https://www.radicalsimpli.city/
twic 3y ago
I'm writing this comment on a 2011 MacBook Pro (admittedly a fast machine at the time) with a busted graphics chip, running current Linux and Firefox, and my experience of the web is basically fine, including video. Some JS-heavy app-like sites are slow, but those are slow on my monster truck of an office workstation too.

noirscape 3y ago

Generally speaking I'd suggest installing Firefox on older devices. It's usually at least slightly more usable as long as you don't have too many tabs open. I'd also recommend Firefox in general but that's neither here or there.

skinkestek 3y ago
On a slightly newer machine (3 years old, 32GB memory) Firefox (or rather LibreWolf) again runs nicely with a few hundred tabs. It would probably run fine with that amount of tabs also if it had 16 or maybe 8 GB, but not together with 2 or 3 IDE instancee, Teams, Slack and ome or more applications running in debug.
- pbmonster 3y ago
  I have absolutely zero issues on 10 year old hardware with 16GByte of memory. Hundreds of tabs (Firefox is really good about moving them out of memory when they don't get used for a while - which, lets be honest, are almost all of those tabs) and the normal everyday onslaught of office software, a fat IDE, and a CAD editor. This stuff is not rocket science. It's not even performance gaming. We worked efficiently in 2013, and it still works today. All it takes is some memory and a halfway decent SSD.
- mymac 3y ago
  It bloody well should though, 32G is massive.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    Sort of - but completely normal for a developer's desktop circa 2013, even without paying the Xeon tax. Of course, a high school at that time might have purchased poverty-spec chromebooks with 4GB of RAM for understandable reasons of price. So when samtheprogram talks about "devices from early to mid 2010's" that could mean a great many things.

jwells89 3y ago

Even going as far back as Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad, while running Linux or even mildly debloated Win10, as long as it’s been outfitted with an SSD it’s not immediately obvious I’m using a 15+ year old machine until I have to open a web browser. These machines are perfectly usable outside of the boundlessly hungry entity that is the web.

nicbou 3y ago
I had a Macbook 12" for a while and it was fantastic. However YouTube brought it to a crawl, as did Google Maps. Everything else rant quite fine.
mymac 3y ago
If you aggressively (and I mean really aggressively) block any and all ads you'll find that you can use that 15+ year old machine just fine on the web. The bloat is mostly in the marketing and advertising part of the web, not in the content part.
- dacryn 3y ago
  Chrome is also very resource hungry. Its great, it lives on the principle that if a machine has 16gb of RAM, it'd be stupid not to use it. Some other browsers limit themselves to the minimum but lose performance. This is best for most people, but not for those with older devices. In that case I usually find Firefox and a mandatory adblock a lot more enjoyable than chrome+ublock. Bonus points if you have a pihole somewhere on your network.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  As of a couple of years ago, I was using a mid-naughts iMac with Linux installed for a number of projects. It was fine for basic scripting, data analysis, and shell-based Web access. A heavily adblocked Firefox struggled to handle one or two tabs, and became utterly unresponsive beyond a half dozen or so. (My typical sessions run ... well into the 100s of tabs. Yes, I'm aware I have a problem, but browser state management otherwise entirely sucks.) That machine's replacement is now also beginning to struggle under what I've considered typical and generally reasonable Web loads. Until browsers start heavily penalising heavy sites, this will continue to be a problem. And on a tablet, I find that my web browser uses battery 10x faster than my bookreading software. This for documents that tend to run 10s to 100s of time longer than a typical webpage's actual text, though not their overall memory footprint.

robocat 3y ago

Slowdown can also be due to the soldered NAND flash slowly wearing out - not necessarily because the device is underpowered. Certainly the Nexus 7 (2012) had that problem (became completely unusably slow after a few years) and I am sure I have seen the same issue with other devices (Android phones and one iPad I had).

bcrosby95 3y ago

My daily driver is a system76 from 2015 and it works perfectly fine. However, I plan to replace it with a 16" framework so I can ditch my desktop and use the laptop for gaming.

samtheprogram 3y ago
8 year old _desktop_ computers (that have anywhere from 3 to 6x more watts hitting the CPU) are one thing. Also consider whether your machine has a dedicated GPU. A Chromebook or other budget-to-mid-range laptop from 2015 would have a different experience, although I'm sure they're still usable. I was daily driving a 2009 MacBook Pro for a while in 2018. It was... fine, especially as a Vim user, but if someone else used my computer, they would most certainly comment or complain with normal web browsing.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

(Self plug) We senselessly use RIAs for everything https://www.radicalsimpli.city/ https://www.radicalsimpli.city/

twic 3y ago

I'm writing this comment on a 2011 MacBook Pro (admittedly a fast machine at the time) with a busted graphics chip, running current Linux and Firefox, and my experience of the web is basically fine, including video. Some JS-heavy app-like sites are slow, but those are slow on my monster truck of an office workstation too.