Now launch one (1) web browser and watch an elephant drop on your sofa.
The OS is no longer relevant to memory usage, really, not in the way it used to be. The amount of memory required for a usable desktop is peanuts compared to the amount required to run a few web-apps.
My guess is that 90% of the growth in browser bloat is to support bloated websites.
These days websites can be games, drawing applications, video players, etc. As a result, browsers have basically become operating systems. In addition, the browsers try to support even the most horribly written websites, but that means more bloat in the browser. Meanwhile faster computers mean that people developing websites are just doing more and more javascript, more and more animation, more and more mouse tracking, etc.
If you have an old device with an old browser, a lot of modern websites are completely unusable. I have an old iPad that’s too old to update, and it’s not actually possible to use browse Github anymore. It just ends up with javascript elements on the page that never finish loading. And Github isn’t some site thrown together by someone vibe-coding their first website or something.
Now launch one (1) web browser and watch an elephant drop on your sofa.
The OS is no longer relevant to memory usage, really, not in the way it used to be. The amount of memory required for a usable desktop is peanuts compared to the amount required to run a few web-apps.
One of the many reasons why we need a new and better browser without all the bloat.
I am skeptical that the browser is the problem.
Well, no, but the amount of browser-based apps due to their convinience in development is stupid.
Yes
That’s half the problem, the sites are the other.
And the third half is bad math
The fourth half is caching
The fifth is your mom.
My guess is that 90% of the growth in browser bloat is to support bloated websites.
These days websites can be games, drawing applications, video players, etc. As a result, browsers have basically become operating systems. In addition, the browsers try to support even the most horribly written websites, but that means more bloat in the browser. Meanwhile faster computers mean that people developing websites are just doing more and more javascript, more and more animation, more and more mouse tracking, etc.
If you have an old device with an old browser, a lot of modern websites are completely unusable. I have an old iPad that’s too old to update, and it’s not actually possible to use browse Github anymore. It just ends up with javascript elements on the page that never finish loading. And Github isn’t some site thrown together by someone vibe-coding their first website or something.