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Chrome Is Bad

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Re: Chrome Is Bad

#171

Post by ehsankia »

nostromo wrote: post #106
Etheryte wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this sounded outlandish, I decided to have a look on my own system. Since the author didn't give any technical details, I grepped `~/Library` and `/Library` for files containing `keystone` in either name or contents. This yielded the following interesting candidates, along with similar entries for daemons etc: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleS…

> I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was. Why would you immediately jump to assuming bad faith? No grand conspiracy required... the author believes that Chrome is slowing down his Mac and decided to share it. The end.

Well, for one, going as far as buying a domain for a single rant is a little bit suspicious. If at least it was a website dedicated to gathering issues with chrome, but a single issue with zero evidence or research. That's not generally how people "decide to share it".

Sure looks suspicious and not the content I expect to see on HN.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#172

Post by danieldbird »

Only show the upvote / down vote button after clicking the link. This small bit of resistance would go a long way to solving the issue of upvoting titles, rather than the content.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#173

Post by _qulr »

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…

I think the observation is just out of date now. "Haven't used Chrome for some time by now." At present, Little Snitch does just fine at blocking GoogleSoftwareUpdate.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#174

Post by arendtio »

imperialdrive wrote: post #4

The PC equivalent is the 'reporter' process? App locker really comes in handy for such a thing. I used Chrome for so long but it was Firefox containers that finally forced me to switch and never look back.

You probably mean 'Windows equivalent'. Many people don't care, but it really is a bad habit to use 'Windows' and 'PC' ambivalently. Yes, Windows is the dominant OS for the PC, but there are others as well.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#175

Post by ehsankia »

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...

> So users are expected to run debugger tools in order to figure out what some hidden program is doing?

That's like saying "So we're expected to investigate and have a full trial before sending someone to jail?". If you just want to delete it, go ahead. If you want to go as far as creating a whole domain to blame Chrome, yes, you do need more than just "I deleted it and coincidentally my computer got fast".

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#176

Post by saagarjha »

Google’s Keystone acts basically like malware; it sits in the background and has the ability to basically have its way with your computer. That being said it is hidden but I have never seen it try to hide itself; as a non-Chrome user who has it installed on my machine I see it run from time to time. Other than that it just waits in the background largely silently. Clearly, Google engineers should never have shipped the violation of consent that is Keystone, but the claims here are almost certainly bogus.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#177

Post by awinter-py »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

This should not be the #1 story on HN right now. :( It's a single anecdote that deleting Chrome on two computers sped them up. It provides zero evidence (even anecdotal) that it has anything to do with "Keystone" specifically. It provides zero evidence for the idea that "Keystone" is able to "nefariously hide itself from Activity Monitor". And it also completely contradicts the normal user experience of Chrome, which…

'how should communities amplify or suppress anecdotes' is a good question

'facebook advertises based on IRL conversation' is another example of something that feels true to people but nobody has made stick as far as I know

upvotes don't always mean 'yes, guilty, firing squad'. I think they can mean 'yes tell me more, let's bookmark and start investigating'.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#178

Post by pwthornton »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

This should not be the #1 story on HN right now. :( It's a single anecdote that deleting Chrome on two computers sped them up. It provides zero evidence (even anecdotal) that it has anything to do with "Keystone" specifically. It provides zero evidence for the idea that "Keystone" is able to "nefariously hide itself from Activity Monitor". And it also completely contradicts the normal user experience of Chrome, which…

I will say that it seemed like this was a pretty big story to be not be covered in the tech press. I do wonder if there really is much evidence.

On the other hand, I generally feel that Chrome is garbage that slows computers down, so I wouldn't be surprised. But I don't see enough evidence here.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#179

Post by pwthornton »

edoceo wrote: post #141
crazygringo wrote: post #102

This should not be the #1 story on HN right now. :( It's a single anecdote that deleting Chrome on two computers sped them up. It provides zero evidence (even anecdotal) that it has anything to do with "Keystone" specifically. It provides zero evidence for the idea that "Keystone" is able to "nefariously hide itself from Activity Monitor". And it also completely contradicts the normal user experience of Chrome, which…

It's literally Chome Bad = upvote

I mean Chrome is bad on Macs in terms of resource usage and speed.

But this post alleges it is really bad when not running, which seems like huge news if true.

I don't see enough evidence here, but I'd be open to the idea that this is true if someone looked into it deeper.

Re: Chrome Is Bad

#180

Post by _qulr »

ehsankia wrote: post #171
nostromo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind making this page was. Why would you immediately jump to assuming bad faith? No grand conspiracy required... the author believes that Chrome is slowing down his Mac and decided to share it. The end.

Well, for one, going as far as buying a domain for a single rant is a little bit suspicious. If at least it was a website dedicated to gathering issues with chrome, but a single issue with zero evidence or research. That's not generally how people "decide to share it". Sure looks suspicious and not the content I expect to see on HN.

The author is the well-known Loren Brichter: https://twitter.com/lorenb/status/1337832978253230081

So there's unlikely to be a conspiracy, just a dude with too much money and self-importance.

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