4 ms·

Consumers are not offshoring their chrome tabs to the cloud

vuln 3y ago
If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? Why does there need to be 3rd party ad on to do the same. Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? The binaries just keep getting bigger and bigger. While consumer hardware typically stays about the same with less incremental upgrades.
- Voultapher 3y ago
  Ehh... Chrome does exactly that without plugins.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  They do have a way to suspend inactive tabs though. The feature is literally called Memory Saver [0]. [0] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...
- nottorp 3y ago
  > Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? They're busy rewriting internet protocols so they benefit Google more. > If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? It's built into Chrome now but it's useless. Because it's cheaper to glue together a few memory leaks ^H^H^H javascript frameworks than write something that has constant ram usage for the same working set. What does tab suspending help with when a google sheet with not much on it starts at 3-400 Mb ram usage and ends up at 1.5 - 2 Gb in a few weeks if you don't close the tab?
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  The main issue is that memory reporting tools don't handle paging well. You cannot tell if the ram is actually being used. You can only tell that some app has X amount in the allocation table which is often more likely backed by files on storage than actively used RAM. When you have lots of chrome tabs open the ram isn't being actively used. You may be using a tool that shows total memory allocated. I'd actually recommend looking for a tool that shows page table misses (points where the OS has to load from disk into RAM). Huge numbers of page table misses and actual noticable performance drops are more indicative of any actual problem than a simple allocation which can easily mislead just by having large files mapped.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    They don't handle paging well, they don't handle memory-mapped files well, they don't handle shared libraries well... Memory reporting tools are generally crap for non-experts, and pretty poor even for experts.
aurareturn 3y ago
I had 50+ tabs opened on my M1 8/256GB as a dev while running an IDE and a few local servers. It was fine. I hardly think that the general mass has problems with Chrome on a 8/256 Apple Silicon Mac.
- calciphus 3y ago
  If we are doing anecdotes, a single tab Google doc with Grammarly running can easily surpass 4Gb of ram, especially if the doc is over about 30 pages. Use cases like that are not particularly uncommon.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    But did it affect the overall user experience? I was a heavy Google Docs user myself on my 8/256 M1 Air.
  - AnotherGoodName 3y ago
    It's not actually using 4gb of ram. Pretty much every memory reporting tool cannot handle paging and will report total allocated. You can create a one line c program today that just calls mmap(file) on a large 4gb media file and your os will claim 4gb used. Actually measuring real physical ram usage is hard. I'd be looking for page table misses (and the likely noticable resulting performance issues) as a better indication of any potential issues.
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  Yep one thing in this discussion is that people have no idea how to read memory usage. A 4GB set of videos that are memory mapped will use a few megabytes of ram as the current portion of video is paged in. It will show 4GB of memory used in pretty much every tool. Chrome suffers from this as browsers work with lots of media that may or may not need access as the page is scrolled around. Using the mechanism all OSs have to deal with this (memory mapping) will report GB of ram used. But it will still be responsive! It's not actually using that much RAM! I see so many comments along the lines of 'chrome reports xGB of ram usage when I open tabs. You can't get by with 8GB of ram!!!!' yet the computer will be running smoothly. Just as my old iPad with 256MB of ram runs smoothly with those same tabs open in chrome. You might need more than 8GB but please don't try to claim people can't do the basics with only 8GB. I have an 8gb MacBook Air as a lounge PC. A PC used for the basics when I couldn't be bothered firing up the big gaming rig. Unsurprisingly the 8gb laptop is better than my still perfectly capable 256mb ram iPad running the same apps although the iPad was still decent at the role in any case. The claims that 8GB is completely useless and can't even do web browsing because Chrome shows 8gb ram usage is so obviously stupid and false. Many are probably reading such claims on a portable device running the same browser with less RAM. Yet media and even tech sites are posting this crap repeatedly.
Almondsetat 3y ago
What do you know about consumers and their computer usage?

vuln 3y ago

If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? Why does there need to be 3rd party ad on to do the same. Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? The binaries just keep getting bigger and bigger. While consumer hardware typically stays about the same with less incremental upgrades.

Voultapher 3y ago
Ehh... Chrome does exactly that without plugins.
AlotOfReading 3y ago
They do have a way to suspend inactive tabs though. The feature is literally called Memory Saver [0]. [0] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...
nottorp 3y ago
> Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? They're busy rewriting internet protocols so they benefit Google more. > If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? It's built into Chrome now but it's useless. Because it's cheaper to glue together a few memory leaks ^H^H^H javascript frameworks than write something that has constant ram usage for the same working set. What does tab suspending help with when a google sheet with not much on it starts at 3-400 Mb ram usage and ends up at 1.5 - 2 Gb in a few weeks if you don't close the tab?
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
The main issue is that memory reporting tools don't handle paging well. You cannot tell if the ram is actually being used. You can only tell that some app has X amount in the allocation table which is often more likely backed by files on storage than actively used RAM. When you have lots of chrome tabs open the ram isn't being actively used. You may be using a tool that shows total memory allocated. I'd actually recommend looking for a tool that shows page table misses (points where the OS has to load from disk into RAM). Huge numbers of page table misses and actual noticable performance drops are more indicative of any actual problem than a simple allocation which can easily mislead just by having large files mapped.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  They don't handle paging well, they don't handle memory-mapped files well, they don't handle shared libraries well... Memory reporting tools are generally crap for non-experts, and pretty poor even for experts.

aurareturn 3y ago

I had 50+ tabs opened on my M1 8/256GB as a dev while running an IDE and a few local servers. It was fine. I hardly think that the general mass has problems with Chrome on a 8/256 Apple Silicon Mac.

calciphus 3y ago
If we are doing anecdotes, a single tab Google doc with Grammarly running can easily surpass 4Gb of ram, especially if the doc is over about 30 pages. Use cases like that are not particularly uncommon.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  But did it affect the overall user experience? I was a heavy Google Docs user myself on my 8/256 M1 Air.
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  It's not actually using 4gb of ram. Pretty much every memory reporting tool cannot handle paging and will report total allocated. You can create a one line c program today that just calls mmap(file) on a large 4gb media file and your os will claim 4gb used. Actually measuring real physical ram usage is hard. I'd be looking for page table misses (and the likely noticable resulting performance issues) as a better indication of any potential issues.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Yep one thing in this discussion is that people have no idea how to read memory usage. A 4GB set of videos that are memory mapped will use a few megabytes of ram as the current portion of video is paged in. It will show 4GB of memory used in pretty much every tool. Chrome suffers from this as browsers work with lots of media that may or may not need access as the page is scrolled around. Using the mechanism all OSs have to deal with this (memory mapping) will report GB of ram used. But it will still be responsive! It's not actually using that much RAM! I see so many comments along the lines of 'chrome reports xGB of ram usage when I open tabs. You can't get by with 8GB of ram!!!!' yet the computer will be running smoothly. Just as my old iPad with 256MB of ram runs smoothly with those same tabs open in chrome. You might need more than 8GB but please don't try to claim people can't do the basics with only 8GB. I have an 8gb MacBook Air as a lounge PC. A PC used for the basics when I couldn't be bothered firing up the big gaming rig. Unsurprisingly the 8gb laptop is better than my still perfectly capable 256mb ram iPad running the same apps although the iPad was still decent at the role in any case. The claims that 8GB is completely useless and can't even do web browsing because Chrome shows 8gb ram usage is so obviously stupid and false. Many are probably reading such claims on a portable device running the same browser with less RAM. Yet media and even tech sites are posting this crap repeatedly.

Almondsetat 3y ago

What do you know about consumers and their computer usage?