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Chrome Is Bad

chromeisbad.com

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Re: Chrome Is Bad

#161

Post by rhencke »

fctorial wrote: post #129
rhencke wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... except the Chrome package adds updating itself to your cron scripts without telling you. :/

And it can update itself without sudo?

Yes, since the cron script automatically runs as root on a repeating schedule.

If you want to see what it does:

    mkdir junk
    cd junk
    wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
    ar x google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
    tar xf data.tar.xz
    cat opt/google/chrome/cron/google-chrome
It's not nefarious - it's well-documented and explained.

It's just making a decision for me that, as an administrator, I need to be the one deciding instead.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#162

Post by saagarjha »

z3t4 wrote: post #123
comex wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing you can do: profile the process to find out what exactly it’s spending all that CPU time on. There are a few different ways to do this on macOS, including the GUI Instruments.app which comes with Xcode, and dtrace. But if you’re the sort who always has a terminal open, the quickest way is to just run sudo spindump Also useful when a process is hung, even if it’s not taking up CPU time. Sometimes the out…

So users are expected to run debugger tools in order to figure out what some hidden program is doing? Many years back I couldn't sleep and noticed my HDD's was working hard. I checked and it was google updater that was scanning everything... I will never know why, they might be stealing IP (i was working on OCR at the time) or they just wanted to create a profile to serve better ads...

How else do you expect to figure out what a program is doing? Should it make a pop up with a stack trace from time to time?

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#163

Post by coldtea »

wnevets wrote: post #93
sroussey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible correlation and hand waving equals causation. I, too, was hoping for something, well, technical. Considering #1 on hacker news...

Hating Google is very fashionable on HN these days, I'm not surprised to see this so highly voted. I also wouldn't be surprised if most of the upvotes are based on the title/domain rather than the actual "content".

>Hating Google is very fashionable on HN these days

Well, why shouldn't it be?

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#164

Post by masswerk »

comex wrote: post #132
masswerk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember quite well the Google update process being notorious for evading Little Snitch firewall rules. It popped up every intervall as if it were a new (unseen) process. There's definitely something going on with the app signature. (Haven't used Chrome for some time by now.)

I am curious why that happens. From some Googling it seems like the updater copies itself to a random directory each time it runs [1], and I guess Little Snitch classifies programs by their full path, so it sees it as a new program each time. Copying itself is odd and probably suboptimal behavior, but it is explainable without assuming malice: my guess is that it’s related to some kind of “before we update let’s upda…

> my guess is that it’s related to some kind of “before we update let’s update the updater” bootstrapping logic.

However, it happens (happened) specifically, if network access has been denied and there couldn't have been an upadate possibly received.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#166

Post by devmunchies »

rangoon626 wrote: post #25
awinter-py wrote: post #11

the linked 2009 wired article quotes adobe saying 'yeah we don't see the need to have an always-on updater process' fast forward to 2020 when (1) adobe has this and (2) they still email me every so often to remind me to install their software which (3) I have installed and been using I think life would be better if there were a 3rd-party update service that wasn't trying to also own marketing + distribution (i.e. tak…

Apple should allow Firefox and Chrome into the Mac App Store as they are, and have the updating done from there. That’s the solution.

and Apple take 30% of transactions you make in Chrome and FF? Desktop is less of a walled garden than ios. i hope it stays that way.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#167

Post by saagarjha »

varenc wrote: post #153

On mac OS, Activity Monitor itself causes WindowServer CPU usage to spike. This is the "observer effect". To test, just open a terminal and compare a few samples of `ps aux | grep WindowServer` with Activity Monitor open and with it closed. Mine averages 7-11% with Activity Monitor closed and 20-40% with Activity Monitor open. It's even more noticeable if your refresh rate is set to "Very Often". Closing Activity Mon…

This is because since macOS Catalina Activity Monitor did something to itself to make itself spend half a core just updating its table view and literally nobody who works on it (which I suspect is <1 person) understands that a monitoring tool that uses more CPU than the thing it is meant to monitor is absurd. I have seriously considered rewriting it multiple times and if the app stays like it is one day I probably will.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#168

Post by saagarjha »

arcticbull wrote: post #92
rangoon626 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should allow Firefox and Chrome into the Mac App Store as they are, and have the updating done from there. That’s the solution.

The Mac App Store is for well behaving apps haha. For some definition of well behaving, anyways. This compromise is actually great -- the MAS is available to those who want to live in a cozy little walled garden of perfection. Those who are willing to compromise on security in exchange for apps that have free run of the system are welcome to do that also.

The Mac App Store is really for scamware, it seems like…

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#169

Post by prox »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #83

The amount of effort I need to invest to get my development team to even look at our apps in a browser other than Chrome is exhausting and I have to put up with snark and eye rolling every step of the way. I feel like I'm back in the IE7 era.

This point is truly worthy of an article or domain name. People here ask why there is so much “hate” for Chrome, but forget something important, that it doesn’t fall out of the sky.

More and more I find that sites / apps work badly on my FF or Safari. It’s truly shameful and that IS my why absolutely am disappointed with Chrome and devs who can’t be arsed to do the work for other browsers.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#170

Post by JoelMcCracken »

I never use Chrome really and decided to try it. I figured it wouldnt actually make a difference, so I didn't try to take any tests etc to see before and after.

But, subjectively, my computer post-restart is MUCH more responsive and e.g. firefox is MUCH faster. WHereas it would take like 30-45 seconds for fx to load all of my pinned tabs, just now it loaded in like 5.

I don't know what is going on, but I definitely notice a difference. I honestly expected this not to work, and was really surprised when it did.

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