Google Chrome is in danger of becoming Windows – everyone uses it, but no one loves it

[steven36]

Opinion: my moans about Chrome RAM show I'm not alone

 

 

You may remember a few weeks ago I let out a howl of rage about how sick I was of Google Chrome using up so much RAM in my PC. While it was certainly cathartic to write out all my frustrations, the response to the article was illuminating. What struck me was how many readers contacted me who agreed, while sharing their own frustrations with Chrome.

 

Despite being used by (almost) everyone, no one really seems that fond of Chrome. A widely used piece of software that fails to be ‘popular’ despite its popularity – that sounds kind of familiar…

I suddenly realized that Chrome could be in danger of turning into Windows. And, that’s something that Google should be worried about.

People pleaser

There was a time when Windows was the most-used operating system in the world. However, despite it being installed on so many PCs around the world, there wasn’t the passion – the fandom – that you’d expect with such an ubiquitous bit of software.

 

OK, there may be a few Windows fans out there. I honestly once saw someone wear a Windows Vista t-shirt, and I don’t think they were a Microsoft employee. They might have run out of other clean clothes, though.

 

But there’s not the same fondness for Windows that other less successful operating systems have. Apple’s got no end of acolytes that will extoll the virtues of macOS. And, the community around Linux is one of the open source operating system’s best features.

 

Yet, somehow, users of Windows never seem to like it that much. And, while not every Windows release has been a success – I still get flashbacks to staring at Windows ME’s boot screen for what seemed like years at a time – some of them have been quite good.

 

And it’s not like Microsoft hasn’t tried to make us love Windows. Remember when Microsoft tried to drum up excitement for Windows 7 (a perfectly good entry) by encouraging all of us to host launch parties. I do. If you managed to forget (how I envy you) behold the classic slice of cringe below:

 

In a lot of ways, you’re just throwing a party with Windows 7 as an honored guest.

 

Anyway, my point was that although Windows was used by millions, many people used it only because they had to. They didn’t use it because they wanted to. And that is a problem for Microsoft, as it means as soon as a decent alternative emerges, people will move on without a second thought.

 

Luckily for Microsoft, macOS and Linux haven’t stolen too many Windows users just yet. But the danger remains. And, something similar is happening to Chrome.

Unloved

Chrome is by far the most popular web browser on the planet right now. And, unlike Windows, it’s not forced on anyone (unless you use Chrome OS or Android). For a lot of people, they choose to install Chrome.

 

But I’ve increasingly heard about people complaining about Chrome. Meanwhile, less successful browsers, like Firefox, seem to have a lot more passionate fans.

 

There seem to be several reasons for this. The first is sheer scale. Because so many people use Chrome, of course there’s going to be more people complaining about it than with less popular browsers.

 

And, the people who do have issues with it are likely the loudest (like me). People who just get on with it, and don’t have any issues, aren’t going to keep going on about it.

 

And, you could argue that so many of us complaining about Chrome, but still using it, is good for Google – and an indictment of its competitors. If Chrome really is that annoying, why aren’t we moving to other alternatives?

 

For some people, we stick with Chrome because it stores all our passwords, features our favorite extensions, ties in to all our Google accounts like Gmail, and is available on all our devices.

 

For other people, it’s laziness. We moan, but can’t be bothered to switch. For me, personally, it’s a mixture of both.

 

But, are we staying because we love Chrome? Because we like how it performs, or the ethos of the company behind it? I’m not so sure.

 

And, when a competitor does come along that does everything Chrome does but better – and without the annoyances – then Google might find its once dominant position under threat – as Microsoft did.

 

Windows is no longer the most used operating system in the world. Android is.

 

Perhaps Microsoft could actually get its own back, if its Chromium-based Edge web browser becomes a success – and wins over Chrome users. Though, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

So, is there anything Google can do to get people to love Chrome? For a start, it could stop removing useful features. And, maybe take some time to understand why people use its browser, and why some people aren’t happy.

 

And failing that, maybe Google could take a leaf out of Microsoft’s book and try and get people to love its software through enforced – and totally not cheesy – fun!

 

If it leads to masterpieces like the videos on this page, I’d certainly be a little bit closer to loving Chrome.

 

 

Source

[Ryrynz]

Even when I had 8 Gigs of RAM I never had an issue and I have dozens of addons and typically have a few tabs open. Right now Chrome is eating 2.8GB and that's fine AFAIC.

[steven36]

3 hours ago, Ryrynz said:

Right now Chrome is eating 2.8GB

You do realize Windows 95/98/Me did not support more than 512 megabytes of physical RAM and old xp boxes  only came with   256MB  , to have 8 gb of ram back then you have to be rich and XP x86 only supported 4 gb ?  People use to browse the with internet with  10 x less ram than they do today sooner or latter Moore’s Law is going to catch up with bloatware like chrome.

 

Linus Torvalds said the second major issue hardware issue looms a little further over the horizon, Torvalds said. Moore’s Law has guaranteed a doubling of hardware performance every 18 months for decades. But as processor vendors approach the limits of Moore’s Law, many developers will need to reoptimize their code to continue achieving increased performance. In many cases, that requirement will be a shock to many development teams that have counted on those performance improvements to make up for inefficient coding processes, he said.

 

Every since  Windows Vista you could run full HD  1080p videos in Windows  using little to no ram at all because of native hardware acceleration in  media players and here it is 2019 and your browser is using more ram than many old PCs have. Google have been depending on people to upgrade there hardware all these years and soon there luck is going to run out.

[dhjohns]

4 hours ago, steven36 said:

Windows is no longer the most used operating system in the world. Android is.

This is because of cell phones.  I have a cell phone with Android on it, and it sucks big time.  How I wish Windows phone had caught on.  I love Windows, and I have heard from friends who had Windows phone how great it was compared to the others.  I really do not understand why writers insist that people hate Windows, and hate Chrome.  What universe do they live in?  Also, with the availability of inexpensive RAM, it is well worthwhile to run applications in RAM.  RAM is much faster than disk usage.  This is why I have 32 GB of RAM on my machine.  Programs can load up the memory as much as they want.

[steven36]

21 minutes ago, dhjohns said:

This is because of cell phones.  I have a cell phone with Android on it, and it sucks big time.  How I wish Windows phone had caught on.  I love Windows, and I have heard from friends who had Windows phone how great it was compared to the others.  I really do not understand why writers insist that people hate Windows, and hate Chrome.  What universe do they live in?  Also, with the availability of inexpensive RAM, it is well worthwhile to run applications in RAM.  RAM is much faster than disk usage.  This is why I have 32 GB of RAM on my machine.  Programs can load up the memory as much as they want.

A lot of people said they liked Windows Phones but Microsoft due to being a  monopoly and under Antitrust watch it slowed them down  they was a day late and  costed them billions of dollars in lost . you can't change the past , most people I know don't like Windows most of  them just have a  monopolistic reason that they stuck on it .  Pirates never did  like  Microsoft tell a few years ago because they always was killing there activation. It's you new bread of  pirates from generation like that are windows 10 fan boys  who sold out there data to google in order to get free services  that never pay for anything  2012 onward  that approves of the new Microsoft.

[frankl1n]

5 hours ago, steven36 said:

how sick I was of Google Chrome using up so much RAM in my PC

I personally do not care how much RAM any program uses because I have plenty, that being said I understand how some may be concerned. I used to be concerned about such issues in the past but now not a big deal

57 minutes ago, steven36 said:

to have 8 gb of ram back then you have to be rich

lmao, yes brother you are correct, I laid out a ton of money back in 1990 to purchase 4mb of RAM, again that was mb...not gb! lol also purchased a math co-processor for my 386 SX...brother those were the days! Soon after I bought a 486DX machine. Buy bought I mean I attended many computer fests, purchased the individual components and assembled them at home, I had a best m8 back then who could soldier proficiently which made even more unconventional upgrades possible...hehehe or at least fun! We toasted many many components in our quest for "fun" .

[steven36]

1 hour ago, frankl1n said:

I personally do not care how much RAM any program uses because I have plenty, that being said I understand how some may be concerned. I used to be concerned about such issues in the past but now not a big deal

Well at lest you understand why  some people care , the way you put is much better than the other 2 did , But that don't  mean you want care in the  future once Moore’s Law catches up with Google devs. It not just Chrome it's there Android apps are poorly made too. when you post that what Linus said Google Devs and electron devs leave the building . Electron apps and PWA are the most hated apps because they use as much ram as Chrome does .

 

PS:  when you see people who pirate  windows being a Windows 10 fanboy  is because there small fish  they just never activated enough copies on there ip yet for M$ to take them to court .

 

 

Quote

DragonsRule  Feb 22, 2018 at 20:05 UTC Microsoft Licensing expert

MS generally leaves license compliance in your hands.  They do care - they have sued plenty of people to prove that.  But, whether they think small time abusers of their licensing is worth their time, well... probably not.

 

 

If you was  a big time pirate when they sued you would  be crying the blues.. they only go after big fish since they made Windows 10  last update they pushed  out  to kill windows activation was  windows 7  2010

 

Microsoft Releasing Windows 7 Anti-Piracy Update

https://www.eweek.com/security/microsoft-windows-7-anti-piracy-feature-to-get-update

 

[steven36]

2 hours ago, dhjohns said:

This is why I have 32 GB of RAM on my machine.  Programs can load up the memory as much as they want.

The guy in the the op has 32 GB too and still he don't like it .

 

 

 

 

That’s it. I’ve had enough of Chrome. I, like the vast majority of internet users, have been using Google’s web browser for years now. Back when it launched almost exactly 11 years ago, Chrome promised a different, better way of browsing the web.

 

It convinced me to jump ship from Firefox, which I had found to be increasingly bloated and slow. Oh, what a difference a little over a decade makes! What was once a New Hope for browsing the web has now become the very thing it set out to defeat. It’s a turn to the dark side and a fall from grace that would make George Lucas proud (or at the very least hire a copyright lawyer).

 

These days, Chrome is just as bloated and resource-hungry as its competitors were. There’s a reason why Chrome’s lust for RAM has become such a popular meme on the internet.

 

I’m lucky enough to have a PC that boasts 32GB of the stuff. Now, that amount of RAM is – to be honest – overkill for most things I use my PC for. However, after a few hours using Chrome, gigabytes will have been swallowed up by Google’s web browser.

 

Yes, I admit that my shoddy tab organisation is partly to blame here. Because of the nature of my job (and the ultra-wide aspect ratio of my monitor), my browser can end up the distressingly high number of open tabs.

 

Even so, Chrome’s resource intensive nature is unacceptable. And, while a growing number of available extensions has helped make Chrome a more useful – and versatile – piece of software, it has led to Chrome becoming far too bloated.

 

Source: https://www.techradar.com/news/im-sick-of-chrome-eating-all-my-ram-its-time-for-me-to-ditch-it-for-firefox-or-even-edge

[zigzag]

I mostly use Firefox not chrome.

Chrome not as customizable as Firefox.

Android phones take over the phone market and suddenly joined as internet devices.

Google Chrome most usage come from phones and smart devices.

[BigBear]

Its not so much the RAM that concerns me but CPU,like most people i have plenty of RAM which is now cheap and easy to install,even on laptops.But CPU stays the same for ever,on my seven year old laptop a lot of these "modern" browsers start to consume CPU even when im just reading articles,not a lot i can do about CPU except buy a new laptop,and that is extreme just to run a browser 🤣

[Screen]

Go Edge Chrome & Firefox rather. It works. And the Tab suspender extension as well.

[dhjohns]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:49 AM, frankl1n said:

I laid out a ton of money back in 1990 to purchase 4mb of RAM

Yep RAM back in the day was $1/MB if not more.  I remember putting 1 GB on an XP machine would set you back $1000.  Before then computers would be advertised with 2 MB to keep the price down, then the sales guy would tell you that 2 MB more was really needed, and you would end up shelling out beau coup bucks more.

[x3r0]

On 9/22/2019 at 10:04 PM, steven36 said:

... and XP x86 only supported 4 gb ?

Correction: 3 GiB, unless you're using patch/mod.

 

On 9/26/2019 at 9:10 AM, Screen said:

Go Edge Chrome & Firefox rather. It works. And the Tab suspender extension as well.

Edge Chrome -- it's still a chrome

 

I don't know about Firefox, I recalled it's the only web browser that still runs on its engine. There used to be Opera's Presto, but now it's long gone...

The only web browser that allows user to set the memory limits: it was Opera, with Presto.

 

The real problem lies on the how modern web is now operating: Javascript/ECMAscript. Single Page Application. Scripts build on top of the other scripts. Scripts are running as desktop program (Electron, etc.).

That is the real reason why all web browser, includes Firefox, will eventually succumbs to Eat. RAM. A. Lots.

 

I do put quite a lot of hope on Web Assembly, right now it's the only viable solution to decrease ram eating problems.

[steven36]

53 minutes ago, x3r0 said:

Correction: 3 GiB, unless you're using patch/mod.

Yes your right 3,25  Ive not used XP since 2010  so i forgot but  i knew it couldn't use over 4 gb without patching the kernel

https://superuser.com/questions/292207/is-there-any-way-to-use-memory-above-3-25gb-using-windows-xp

 

53 minutes ago, x3r0 said:

I don't know about Firefox, I recalled it's the only web browser that still runs on its engine. There used to be Opera's Presto, but now it's long gone...

The only web browser that allows user to set the memory limits: it was Opera, with Presto.

The reason browsers use so much ram  is because of x64 browsers , you can use a x86 browser on Windows and use less ram. But on Linux x64  you can't do that so all you can do is use less addons and things  and they some tweaks you can use on Firefox. What happen to chrome on Windows was 2014-08-26  v37 came out with the x64 version  witch can utilize more than 4 gb  of ram  then latter on  in Firefox  but  x64  browsers for Linux were around  a long time before they got them on Windows ,