5 ms·

> That is a far cry from 4 GiB Equating a 4GB file installed without explicit consent to the installation of a language dictionary is comical. That's like sayi

> That is a far cry from 4 GiB Equating a 4GB file installed without explicit consent to the installation of a language dictionary is comical. That's like saying an unwanted political mailer left in your mailbox is the equivalent of a pallette of hammers left in your driveway.

xp84 6mo ago
It sounds like you have a specific number of GB in mind that an app can take up, below which it's totally their business, and above which they need to plead their case, disclose the purpose, and allow me to choose. What's that number? How did you arrive at it and why? My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows. Is this below or your line, or are they actually in trouble as soon as they're extracted? My point is just that it seems there may be an arbitrary limit here that may not be the same for everyone (and 90% of users are nontechnical and thus couldn't give an answer whether 4GB is "worth it" for whatever the features are). Rather than add another whole ecosystem of "Cancel or Allow?" dialogs I'd rather operating systems did a better job of letting users put piggish applications on a strict space budget. Most of the apps on my phone are storing half a gig of "stuff" (called "Documents & Data" but not itemized, and even apps that have none of my 'data' such as browsers), which I can't force them to dump even in an extreme emergency. I can only delete the whole app. I'm talking about Apple platforms as examples because I use those a lot and with their epic stinginess of SSD, anyone who doesn't pay $400 more than the base model will exhaust their storage within hours to months.
- Arelius 6mo ago
  > My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows That's kind-of the point though right? An application that has been say <700 MB for decades, suddenly deciding it'll take a multiple of it's size without asking seems pretty unreasonable, I think it's pretty fair to say the expectations for Chrome were set already. It'd be similarly unreasonable for a video game that once took 50 GB, to suddenly decide to take 400 GB.
  - boredhedgehog 6mo ago
    That depends on how you count, though. Local storage and cache only have limits relative to available disk space in Chrome, IIRC, and can easily bloat to 100 GB without intervention. Personally I think that's a design flaw and they need customizable hard limits as well, but web browsers wasting space without asking is not a new or sudden development.
- Morromist 6mo ago
  People don't typically have specific numbers already set aside whenever they discuss what is too much. The example given was people can handle a political flyer in the mailbox but not a pallet of hammers delivered in their driveway. Do you have specific amounts (probably will need to be a weight limit and a volume limit) already figured out when you think of how much junk someone can mail to you reasonably? Or how much HD space a browser is allowed to install before it gets to be not-their-buisness?
- snypher 6mo ago
  My arbitrary limit is "not 5x from when I installed it". Like if my gallon milk jug was suddenly 36 inches tall.
  - NuclearPM 6mo ago
    Skinny milk jug.
  - sfmike 6mo ago
    aren't most installers like 10 mb then downloads when run? that's way more then 5x
- gremlinunderway 6mo ago
  What a completely asinine post. I'm sick of seemingly smart people in the technical world think they are being so clever by trying to literally rehash the continuum fallacy. You hear this literally everytime anyone even so much as suggests a standard, norm or god forbid a regulation. It seems especially common among libertarian types who think governance of any kind of simply impossible because of it. Just because there is a gradual spectrum between two states doesn't mean we can't draw distinctions. For example, just because we cannot define the exact, precise color when blue turns into green, it does not mean that blue and green are the same color for any normal person discussing an issue publicly in good faith. When someone says "X and Y are on a spectrum, X is good and Y is bad", the point is to highlight the differences. Pointing out that the spectrum or continuum might not have a precise boundary has literally zero weight towards the validity of the ultimate conclusion a person is making here and really is just a complete derail done by people who have no substantive points to make.
  - tqi 6mo ago
    Is your objection just to the bloat, or also to what the bloat is for?
    - greycol 6mo ago
      Personally I'm pissed at both. A large jump in requirements without warning is bad, if I want to avoid it I now need to take immediate less considered actions or get stuck with the consequences. Plenty of decent software actually lets you decide what plugins to install for added functionality, chrome actually has a extensions store that they could have put this crap in. Yes it's also that it's AI and mostly that chrome is foisting off all the cost of that AI model to me and other users. Without warning and explaining what this model is, is my workplaces power cost going to be up 10% because of whatever they want to run it for? Who knows. There'd be a lot less complaining if they'd actually warned and less still if they asked.
      - jorisw 6mo ago
        I'm picturing a splash screen announcing the feature(s) it enables, with a Download button
- sterlind 6mo ago
  agreed that not everyone has the same limit, but 4GB is big enough to be annoying to many. that still costs real money (in bandwidth) and storage (on low-end hardware) for a lot of folks.
- account42 6mo ago
  So as long as I'm allowed to bump into you I can also smash your face in, right? After all there isn't any clear point where I'm applying too much force.
tjwebbnorfolk 6mo ago
Except this mythical pallet of hammers takes up 0.1% of my hard drive instead of 0.0001%. And it isn't blocking me from moving my car. And... yea your analogy doesn't even remotely make sense
KoolKat23 6mo ago
Honestly this is 2026. Chrome on my phone is nearly 2gb. Google on my phone is 1gb. 4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storage. Right now my phone has 445gb unused memory and usage isn't likely to go up much. My PlayStation eats 500gb for breakfast. Heck I use a 2011 Thinkpad for casual use and it should still be fine with it. This is also GOOGLE chrome, it serves their ends, in the past that was to render internet unimpeded (they saw a need then), needs change. I'd rather models serve most requests locally anyway, so long as it's not destroying my battery life. Remember the whole chrome-RAM-gate saga? This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. PC's shipping 8gb ram, Google removing ad blocker extensions, these should be the real rally points.
- alterom 6mo ago
  >4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storag So, 4GB is outrageous because it takes the very little space left after the existing bloat. It also still makes Chrome install at least 5X larger.
  - KoolKat23 6mo ago
    Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different.
    - alterom 6mo ago
      >Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different. "Not long ago" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The install file for Chrome 42 circa April, 2015 was 46MB [1]. That's eleven years ago. The first ever Chrome release installer was around 20MB. To say politely, you're not telling the truth. >this isn't anything different. Chrome installer from 2015 was 46MB. Chrome installer from 2026 is ~140MB. That's a 3X increase over a decade, by a grand total of 100MB. Then they're adding 4GB to that overnight. It is, I'd wager, something different. [1] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/147861 https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/14786... [2] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/1160811601 https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/11608...

xp84 6mo ago

It sounds like you have a specific number of GB in mind that an app can take up, below which it's totally their business, and above which they need to plead their case, disclose the purpose, and allow me to choose. What's that number? How did you arrive at it and why? My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows. Is this below or your line, or are they actually in trouble as soon as they're extracted? My point is just that it seems there may be an arbitrary limit here that may not be the same for everyone (and 90% of users are nontechnical and thus couldn't give an answer whether 4GB is "worth it" for whatever the features are). Rather than add another whole ecosystem of "Cancel or Allow?" dialogs I'd rather operating systems did a better job of letting users put piggish applications on a strict space budget. Most of the apps on my phone are storing half a gig of "stuff" (called "Documents & Data" but not itemized, and even apps that have none of my 'data' such as browsers), which I can't force them to dump even in an extreme emergency. I can only delete the whole app. I'm talking about Apple platforms as examples because I use those a lot and with their epic stinginess of SSD, anyone who doesn't pay $400 more than the base model will exhaust their storage within hours to months.

Arelius 6mo ago
> My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows That's kind-of the point though right? An application that has been say <700 MB for decades, suddenly deciding it'll take a multiple of it's size without asking seems pretty unreasonable, I think it's pretty fair to say the expectations for Chrome were set already. It'd be similarly unreasonable for a video game that once took 50 GB, to suddenly decide to take 400 GB.
- boredhedgehog 6mo ago
  That depends on how you count, though. Local storage and cache only have limits relative to available disk space in Chrome, IIRC, and can easily bloat to 100 GB without intervention. Personally I think that's a design flaw and they need customizable hard limits as well, but web browsers wasting space without asking is not a new or sudden development.
Morromist 6mo ago
People don't typically have specific numbers already set aside whenever they discuss what is too much. The example given was people can handle a political flyer in the mailbox but not a pallet of hammers delivered in their driveway. Do you have specific amounts (probably will need to be a weight limit and a volume limit) already figured out when you think of how much junk someone can mail to you reasonably? Or how much HD space a browser is allowed to install before it gets to be not-their-buisness?
snypher 6mo ago
My arbitrary limit is "not 5x from when I installed it". Like if my gallon milk jug was suddenly 36 inches tall.
- NuclearPM 6mo ago
  Skinny milk jug.
- sfmike 6mo ago
  aren't most installers like 10 mb then downloads when run? that's way more then 5x
gremlinunderway 6mo ago
What a completely asinine post. I'm sick of seemingly smart people in the technical world think they are being so clever by trying to literally rehash the continuum fallacy. You hear this literally everytime anyone even so much as suggests a standard, norm or god forbid a regulation. It seems especially common among libertarian types who think governance of any kind of simply impossible because of it. Just because there is a gradual spectrum between two states doesn't mean we can't draw distinctions. For example, just because we cannot define the exact, precise color when blue turns into green, it does not mean that blue and green are the same color for any normal person discussing an issue publicly in good faith. When someone says "X and Y are on a spectrum, X is good and Y is bad", the point is to highlight the differences. Pointing out that the spectrum or continuum might not have a precise boundary has literally zero weight towards the validity of the ultimate conclusion a person is making here and really is just a complete derail done by people who have no substantive points to make.
- tqi 6mo ago
  Is your objection just to the bloat, or also to what the bloat is for?
  - greycol 6mo ago
    Personally I'm pissed at both. A large jump in requirements without warning is bad, if I want to avoid it I now need to take immediate less considered actions or get stuck with the consequences. Plenty of decent software actually lets you decide what plugins to install for added functionality, chrome actually has a extensions store that they could have put this crap in. Yes it's also that it's AI and mostly that chrome is foisting off all the cost of that AI model to me and other users. Without warning and explaining what this model is, is my workplaces power cost going to be up 10% because of whatever they want to run it for? Who knows. There'd be a lot less complaining if they'd actually warned and less still if they asked.
    - jorisw 6mo ago
      I'm picturing a splash screen announcing the feature(s) it enables, with a Download button
sterlind 6mo ago
agreed that not everyone has the same limit, but 4GB is big enough to be annoying to many. that still costs real money (in bandwidth) and storage (on low-end hardware) for a lot of folks.
account42 6mo ago
So as long as I'm allowed to bump into you I can also smash your face in, right? After all there isn't any clear point where I'm applying too much force.

tjwebbnorfolk 6mo ago

Except this mythical pallet of hammers takes up 0.1% of my hard drive instead of 0.0001%. And it isn't blocking me from moving my car. And... yea your analogy doesn't even remotely make sense

KoolKat23 6mo ago

Honestly this is 2026. Chrome on my phone is nearly 2gb. Google on my phone is 1gb. 4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storage. Right now my phone has 445gb unused memory and usage isn't likely to go up much. My PlayStation eats 500gb for breakfast. Heck I use a 2011 Thinkpad for casual use and it should still be fine with it. This is also GOOGLE chrome, it serves their ends, in the past that was to render internet unimpeded (they saw a need then), needs change. I'd rather models serve most requests locally anyway, so long as it's not destroying my battery life. Remember the whole chrome-RAM-gate saga? This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. PC's shipping 8gb ram, Google removing ad blocker extensions, these should be the real rally points.

alterom 6mo ago
>4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storag So, 4GB is outrageous because it takes the very little space left after the existing bloat. It also still makes Chrome install at least 5X larger.
- KoolKat23 6mo ago
  Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different.
  - alterom 6mo ago
    >Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different. "Not long ago" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The install file for Chrome 42 circa April, 2015 was 46MB [1]. That's eleven years ago. The first ever Chrome release installer was around 20MB. To say politely, you're not telling the truth. >this isn't anything different. Chrome installer from 2015 was 46MB. Chrome installer from 2026 is ~140MB. That's a 3X increase over a decade, by a grand total of 100MB. Then they're adding 4GB to that overnight. It is, I'd wager, something different. [1] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/147861 https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/14786... [2] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/1160811601 https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/11608...