Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

windowslatest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 402 posts

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#281

Post by eviks »

dangus wrote: post #280
eviks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before reminding everyone of a theory, did you check where that theory applies in this discussion of an app in practice? Also, even in theory the issue isn't only with "wouldn't function", but "would function slower due to eg disk swaps / cause other apps to function slower".

Well, the author of the article sure didn’t check. They just opened the task manager and got mad.

He did, via the task manager. You're the one saying high RAM utilization doesn't matter because 'wrong reasons in theory and in practice', so it's on you to check and confirm it so that you could be correct at least in practice in this specific case

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#282

Post by dangus »

1over137 wrote: post #7
dangus wrote: post #2

People use WhatsApp on the computer? From the Windows Store of all places? Must be a tiny percentage, which is why this version is now a basic web wrapper now. Anyway, I’d remind everyone that “using” RAM doesn’t mean “would not function with less RAM.” Many applications just use a lot if it’s available. RAM is not really something you explicitly ration.

> RAM is not really something you explicitly ration. I guess this modern attitude is how we are where we are. RAM is absolutely a scarce precious resource that we optimize for. At least we used to, and some of us still do.

Define “scarce.” A pair of 16GB modules (32GB total) is around $100.

You can buy an entire complete mini PC including 16GB of modular RAM for $240 on AliExpress.

I’m not saying “don’t optimize.” I’m saying that watching your task manager, seeing a big number and freaking out isn’t really the definition of unacceptable performance.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#283

Post by Arainach »

ptx wrote: post #274
Arainach wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have to switch apps to the browser, find which browser window has the session you want, switch to the tab, etc., instead of just switching to WhatsApp app via keyboard or taskbar directly. The ergonomics are significantly worse. I want most of my browser windows full screen. I don't want my instant messenger full screen. Using it in a browser means I have to have one size, and resizing one changes the other.…

Just open it in a separate browser window then? Different windows can have different sizes and get separate buttons in the taskbar. I guess if you're using Microsoft's ill-advised window grouping feature it would work less well (require more clicks), but breaking websites out into entirely separate programs just so we can have separate windows because Microsoft screwed up the window management functionality seems lik…

That still requires picking a specific window. If I have 6 browser windows I need to find the correct one of six.

With a native app it's just alt+tab - or, if the app is pinned to the taskbar, Win+(1/2/3/4...)

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#284

Post by ndiddy »

wongogue wrote: post #212
shevy-java wrote: post #128

Software engineering really took a dive in the last 10 years. For instance, KDE has a daemon that asks for donations, added by Nate "I am the king of KDE". Granted, the daemon is mostly pointless in general and not causing much issues (people are typically only bothered by it once then you can silence it), but just the time people invest here to harass others or add unnecessary software on other computers shows how t…

Meta and KDE are not comparable. Not even in the same galaxy. This comment is just an excuse to do a hitjob on KDE donations. KDE is FOSS and doesn’t use your data to make money.

Yeah it's an especially bizarre remark because the pop-up isn't a nag, it literally only shows up once per year. It's also demonstrably worked to increase donations to KDE: https://pointieststick.com/2024/12/02/i-think-the-donation-n...

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#285

Post by dangus »

vrighter wrote: post #22
dangus wrote: post #2

People use WhatsApp on the computer? From the Windows Store of all places? Must be a tiny percentage, which is why this version is now a basic web wrapper now. Anyway, I’d remind everyone that “using” RAM doesn’t mean “would not function with less RAM.” Many applications just use a lot if it’s available. RAM is not really something you explicitly ration.

"RAM is not really something you explicitly ration." It most certainly is. My old pc ran on 8MB of ram. Modern ones need 16GB for a comfortable experience. They do not do much more than I needed back then. I think it's reasonable to expect a simple chat app to not take up 128 times as much memory as my entire PC had when I was young.

I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation at all. That’s like saying “oh well we landed on the moon with a turd burger of a computer so that means I shouldn’t need more than 8kb of memory!”

Okay but I’m not trying to land on the moon, I’m trying to have an HD group video call and maybe play Cyberpunk in 4K later.

Let me ask you, how much did that 8MB of RAM cost you back in the day? I bet it was more than the $100 it costs to get 32GB of RAM or the $200 it costs to get 64GB. Before you apply inflation!

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#286

Post by dangus »

eviks wrote: post #281
dangus wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the author of the article sure didn’t check. They just opened the task manager and got mad.

He did, via the task manager. You're the one saying high RAM utilization doesn't matter because 'wrong reasons in theory and in practice', so it's on you to check and confirm it so that you could be correct at least in practice in this specific case

Okay, it’s on me. Send me to jail.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#287

Post by stilley2 »

redbell wrote: post #228

I feel this trend is going to stick for the upcoming years! It's not just Meta, every big player there is adopting this mentality. Take Microsoft for instance, they have been pushing heavily what they called the New Outlook , which is basically a web-based client mirroring Outlook on the web (OWA) , packed into an EXE file (not sure if it is Electronized or not)! Then, they renamed the real native Outlook app as Clas…

Speaking of new outlook, has anyone else had search just...not work? I'll search for emails sent from myself, to myself (of which I know there are hundreds) and get 7 results. Same in the web app, but outlook classic works fine. Mind boggling

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#288

Post by dangus »

mrweasel wrote: post #76
dangus wrote: post #2

People use WhatsApp on the computer? From the Windows Store of all places? Must be a tiny percentage, which is why this version is now a basic web wrapper now. Anyway, I’d remind everyone that “using” RAM doesn’t mean “would not function with less RAM.” Many applications just use a lot if it’s available. RAM is not really something you explicitly ration.

Honestly I think you're mostly correct. The amount of people using WhatsApp on the desktop is probably rather limited, certainly in the scope of WhatsApp usage in general. Memory, while I feel that a gigabyte is way to much for what is essentially a chat app, it is virtual memory, so it's not as problematic as I'd like it to be. The issue, I think, is who the desktop users are. They sales people, they are people who…

I agree about this potential of most WhatsApp users residing in markets with less powerful median hardware.

Still, I think the experience reported is very similar to running Chrome, and I think any laptop with 8GB of RAM can handle the application plus Excel and a web browser (or just run WhatsApp in the browser) just fine.

A complete mini PC with 16GB RAM, 512GB storage, and a relatively modern processor goes for like $240 on AliExpress. And that’s before you consider used hardware.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#289

Post by zahllos »

hliyan wrote: post #132
zahllos wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could call it Flash. Or Java Applets.

You have completely misunderstood the proposal. None of those drive OS native UI widgets through markup and scripts downloaded from the web.

Ah no I was just being snarky and not at you. We're all missing (hyper)text markup language as the UI markup layer, plus js. We previously had some kind of alternative "load app from internet" but the runtimes were external (and provided lots of fun security holes).

I completely agree it would be better to rethink what we want and have markup/code/etc optimised to the task of rendering applications. I don't think it'll happen unfortunately.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#290

Post by ptx »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #265
jack_tripper wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding new APIs does not hinder your ability to use the old APIs you're familiar with. I think apps like Notepad++ and Sumatra PDF are still written in Win32.

Of course it does, those APIs don't work well together. It's a pain in the ass to use the features only available in the new APIs on old applications. Microsoft has put some effort into making it work but it's still hugely hit and miss. You can mix WPF and WinUI2, but not WinUI3.

Amazing. I thought they fixed that years ago with "XAML islands", but apparently [1] they un-fixed it again with WinUI 3 and still haven't re-fixed it?

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/desktop/moder...

Post reply on HN