I find it ludicrous that the developers of an app as insignificant as a screen recorder would think it's necessary to check for updates every 5 minutes. Once a day would surely be sufficient.
a thousand times this.
one time should be sufficient
A single line of code cost $8000
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Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#112> Screen Studio is a screen recorder for macOS. It is desktop app. It means we need some auto-updater to allow users to install the latest app version easily. No, it doesn't mean that. Auto updater introduced series of bad outcomes. - Downloading update without consent, causing traffic for client. - Not only that, the download keeps repeating itself every 5 minutes? You did at least detect whether user is on metered…
While we're listing complaints... 250MB for a screen recorder update?
And even when nothing changed?!? Fucking lazy developers aka "I have an idle ≥1Gb/s pipe to the download server". What happened to rsync/zsync/zstd (with dictionary)? There are so many good tools freely available to reduce wasted bandwidth when you insist on reinventing the wheel. sigh
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#113> As a designer, I value the experience product I create provides to the users. And this was not even a bad experience; it was actually harmful. $229 per year on a closed source product and this is the level of quality you can expect. You can have all the respect for users in the world, but if you write downright hazardous code then you're only doing them a disservice. What happened to all the metered internet plans…
Did you see? It's "Designed for macOS"
I would put premium edition for 3999$ at least.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#114For people finding this thread via web search in the future:
screen.studio is macOS screen recording software that checks for updates every five minutes. Somehow, that alone is NOT the bug described in this post. The /other/ bug described in this blog is: their software also downloaded a 250MB update file every five minutes.
The software developers there consider all of this normal except the actual download, which cost them $8000 in bandwidth fees.
To re-cap: Screen recording software. Checks for updates every five (5) minutes. That's 12 times an hour.
I choose software based on how much I trust the judgement of the developers. Please consider if this feels like reasonable judgement to you.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#115Why is nobody talking about what a shady business practice it is that cloud providers don't alert you to this kind of overage by default? Sure, you can set up alerts, but when you go 10x over your baseline in a short period of time, that should trigger an alert regardless of your configured alerts.
Or treat it like the stock market and shut it down.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#116I find it ludicrous that the developers of an app as insignificant as a screen recorder would think it's necessary to check for updates every 5 minutes. Once a day would surely be sufficient.
You can use that as a hidden way of tracking how many active users you have at any time.
Good way of showing adoption and growth.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#117I would also put into question if you _really_ need to check for updates every 5 minutes. Once per startup is already enough, and if you're concerned about users who leave it on for days, it could easily be daily or even less often.
I'd also question if the updater needs to download the update before the user saying they want it. Why not check against a simple endpoint if a newer version is available and if so, prompt the user that an update could be downloaded and then download it. This would also allow the user to delay the update if they are on metered connections.
notepad++ works this way
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#118> Screen Studio is a screen recorder for macOS. It is desktop app. It means we need some auto-updater to allow users to install the latest app version easily. No, it doesn't mean that. Auto updater introduced series of bad outcomes. - Downloading update without consent, causing traffic for client. - Not only that, the download keeps repeating itself every 5 minutes? You did at least detect whether user is on metered…
> Wouldn't app store be perfect way to handle updates
But then the HN crowd would complain "why use an app store? that's gate keeping, apple could remove your app any day, just give me a download link, and so on..."
You literally can't win.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#119> Screen Studio is a screen recorder for macOS. It is desktop app. It means we need some auto-updater to allow users to install the latest app version easily. No, it doesn't mean that. Auto updater introduced series of bad outcomes. - Downloading update without consent, causing traffic for client. - Not only that, the download keeps repeating itself every 5 minutes? You did at least detect whether user is on metered…
While we're listing complaints... 250MB for a screen recorder update?
That’s pretty much the floor for an Electron app.
If you’re a small shop or solo dev, it is real hard to justify going native on three platforms when electron gives it for (near) free. And outside of HN, no one seems to blink at a 250MB bundle.
There are alternatives like Tauri that use the system browser and allow substantially smaller bundles, but they’re not nearly as mature as Electron, and you will get cross platform UI bugs (some of which vary by user’s OS version!) from the lack of standardization.
Re: A single line of code cost $8000
#120I'm pretty conservative about adopting third-party libraries (due to the long-term issues each one has the potential to cause), but an app updater is probably worth it. It's just tricky, basically one fat edge case, and a critical part of your recovery plan in case of serious bugs in your app. (This bug isn't the only problem with their home-grown updater. Checking every 5 min is just insane. Kinda tells me they aren…
Or better yet, let the system package manager do it's job.
You’d be forced to use Apple’s App-Store, though? I don’t think there is an other package manager