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Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

avarayr.github.io

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Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#61

Post by kimixa »

willtemperley wrote: post #58
dheera wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is Apple being so stingy with RAM. I have 192GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) desktop and 96GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) laptop. I have never had memory issues with Electron apps, 200 Chrome tabs open, or pretty much anything, really.

It's not a memory problem at all. It's the misuse of a private API that's at fault: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/02/macos_26_electron_slo...

But if the "private API" was the only way of fixing an issue with rendering corner smoothing, was it "misuse"?

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#62

Post by Etheryte »

self_awareness wrote: post #54

The fact that an application can slow down the system doesn't sound like a problem with the application, but rather it's a problem with the OS. Tracking applications that "are not fixed" is not the solution. Fixing the OS is the solution.

Otherwise I would be inclined to agree with you, but in this specific case I'm torn. These apps (ab)used a private API and the OS update meant they suddenly used it incorrectly. That's not something that's really the OS fault as far as I'm concerned. But I do agree that better separation is always good.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#63

Post by swiftcoder »

self_awareness wrote: post #54

The fact that an application can slow down the system doesn't sound like a problem with the application, but rather it's a problem with the OS. Tracking applications that "are not fixed" is not the solution. Fixing the OS is the solution.

In this case Electron intentionally used reflection to override functionality that isn't part of the API surface, so maybe not as cut and dried as all that

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#64

Post by Razengan »

Spunkie wrote: post #15

In general the Tahoe update has been awful for all my end users that decided to update. It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw, just yesterday we ran into an issue with Zoom. It was breaking prompts/popups and by extension the system settings, the Mac app store, iTouch, and a ton of other random stuff was broken in silent and inconsistent ways. Also all my 8gb users are noticing significantly higher memor…

> It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw

Electron ""apps"" were are and will always be the issue.

Don't bundle a whole freakin web browser and ravish my battery and RAM just to show me a damn text box.

A text box that won't even have all the built-in OS features or accessibility.

Downvote this to hell but Electron is a crutch for lazy Frankensteins looking for lightning to revive a monster that should have stayed dead.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#65

Post by willtemperley »

kimixa wrote: post #61
willtemperley wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a memory problem at all. It's the misuse of a private API that's at fault: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/02/macos_26_electron_slo...

But if the "private API" was the only way of fixing an issue with rendering corner smoothing, was it "misuse"?

The developer who submitted the fix thinks so:

"I need to be clear about this, Electron's "_cornerMask" override was a dirty hack that was made in an effort to fix an ancient issue with corner smoothing."

https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/48311#issuecomme...

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#66

Post by Razengan »

lawgimenez wrote: post #50
the_lucifer wrote: post #49

Seeing 1Password there hurts me. They used to be paragons of well designed native apps that they dumped with 8.

Truly sad, if I remember they were still migrating to SwiftUI for their iOS app. I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also.

> I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev.

How do you crusade through Apple's appalling [lack of] documentation and dumb error messages and all the weird ＊magic＊ involved in wrangling an imperative language into a declarative framework?

5 years after SwiftUI's release I still struggle to build a simple photo viewer or expense tracker.

> Sadly, for many of these Electron apps, it would probably be better to install the iOS app, but most vendors disable that option.

If companies enabled the flag to let users install their iOS apps on Mac, it would be a better world, but some asinine companies refuse to, and Apple has to respect the dev's decision, however dumb it may be. I love how Apple worked around that by making iPhone Mirroring, which is a win for users. I actually use that over the desktop website/Electron crap for some apps. But how long before companies force Apple to remove that feature, like they did with removing an easy way to "Disable Javascript" from Safari?

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#67

Post by [deleted] »

concinds wrote: post #59
lawgimenez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly sad, if I remember they were still migrating to SwiftUI for their iOS app. I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also.

SwiftUI is still broken for any non-simple apps, almost a decade after its introduction. Completely unacceptable for big apps. Look at OmniFocus, who inexplicably became early-adopters of it, and it's had a bunch of UI glitches and inconsistent behavior requiring app restart (like you select one list item, but the inspector shows you details for another list item) ever since. Apple only has itself to blame for Electr…

[deleted]

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#68

Post by Razengan »

concinds wrote: post #59
lawgimenez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly sad, if I remember they were still migrating to SwiftUI for their iOS app. I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also.

SwiftUI is still broken for any non-simple apps, almost a decade after its introduction. Completely unacceptable for big apps. Look at OmniFocus, who inexplicably became early-adopters of it, and it's had a bunch of UI glitches and inconsistent behavior requiring app restart (like you select one list item, but the inspector shows you details for another list item) ever since. Apple only has itself to blame for Electr…

> almost a decade after its introduction.

It was released in 2019, so 6 years ago at most.

> Apple only has itself to blame for Electron's popularity.

+ Microsoft with their inability to decide on a single UI framework/API for more than 1.5 years.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#69

Post by microtonal »

JimDabell wrote: post #56
the_lucifer wrote: post #49

Seeing 1Password there hurts me. They used to be paragons of well designed native apps that they dumped with 8.

I’m not sure I’ve seen an app plummet in quality as much as 1Password. I used to recommend it to everybody and switched multiple employers to it. Now I actively recommend against it. It wasn’t just abandoning native, somehow they make it worse with every release.

It is sad how far 1Password has fallen. AgileBits used to be a Mac shop and 1Password was a great Mac application. One and a half decades later, they are slow to roll out a fix for what was their initial platform (paying Mac users made them big). Also, it has become insanely buggy. Like autofill breaks for weeks for me every now and then, usually the extension is not able to connect to the 1Password app anymore (rebooting, clearing caches, adding/removing the browser extension, etc. does not help).

I still have a subscription because the whole family uses it and I don't know yet where else to go. There are some native apps, but they are fairly incomplete. Apple passwords would be an option, but I would like to be able to access my passwords on a Linux laptop as well, and Apple passwords does not really have a good backup story.

AgileBits' reaction to criticism is just to wave everything away with a bunch of emoji.

tl;dr: it went from an app that I loved and recommended to everyone to one to one that I would really like to get rid of and never recommend anymore.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#70

Post by microtonal »

lawgimenez wrote: post #50
the_lucifer wrote: post #49

Seeing 1Password there hurts me. They used to be paragons of well designed native apps that they dumped with 8.

Truly sad, if I remember they were still migrating to SwiftUI for their iOS app. I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also.

I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also

They could if they wanted to. Heck, they have so many developers and money, they could even maintain a separate Cocoa app. But in all these cases, they'd rather externalize cost to the user.

Sadly, for many of these Electron apps, it would probably be better to install the iOS app, but most vendors disable that option.

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