Live data from Hacker News

Claude for Desktop

claude.ai

71–80 of 223 posts

Re: Claude for Desktop

#71

Lots of people are correctly suggesting this could function just as equally well as a PWA, but I will point out that (all things being equal) there are some valid use-cases when strictly choosing between Electron vs PWA that a LOT OF PEOPLE seem to be oblivious of: - Electron apps don’t rely on a web server to function, so as long as you archive the app’s installer, you can install it on future computers even if the…

I mean, re: point 1, we're talking about an app that calls an API for every interaction already, so that doesn't seem super relevant. If Claude is down, you can't use it whether it's through a PWA or an Electron app.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like 400MB due to how they're packaged. And when you could have it run with 10x to 20x less RAM, it just scream "we don't care about you". Not everyone have 64GB RAM and 22 cores of CPU in their laptop. It's like using a semi-truck (with the trailer attached) to go buy groceries 100 meters away.

The fact people prefer webapps over native locally run software because of '400MB' honestly pisses me off it's so stupidly trivial.

A website packaged with the Web browser isn't a native app.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#73

Lots of people are correctly suggesting this could function just as equally well as a PWA, but I will point out that (all things being equal) there are some valid use-cases when strictly choosing between Electron vs PWA that a LOT OF PEOPLE seem to be oblivious of: - Electron apps don’t rely on a web server to function, so as long as you archive the app’s installer, you can install it on future computers even if the…

I mean, re: point 1, we're talking about an app that calls an API for every interaction already, so that doesn't seem super relevant. If Claude is down, you can't use it whether it's through a PWA or an Electron app.

> "Lots of people are correctly suggesting this could function just as equally well as a PWA, but I will point out that (all things being equal) there are SOME VALID USE-CASES"

YES - I am speaking GENERALLY. That's why I literally called that out in my comment that this particular use-case (Claude Desktop) could easily be done with a PWA.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#74
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole electron app uses less RAM than the page opened as a PWA? That’s surprising to me, how come? I somehow thought Safari was more memory efficient than Chromium

I was surprised, too, so I just checked. Sure enough, https://claude.ai takes 663MB. I wonder if there’s an architectural difference that allows the Electron app to be more lean? (Note I didn’t download the new app, just installed the PWA, so I didn’t verify those numbers.)

The browser takes 663MB, or specifically the tab?

Re: Claude for Desktop

#75
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids these days insist that they need the "app" of something, even when it's literally the exact same thing as the webpage. Between this phenomenon and the refusal of many to close tabs in their browsers, I can't help but wonder if a huge percentage of the populace have never heard of or used Bookmarks on their web browsers before.

> the refusal of many to close tabs in their browsers I have too many bookmarks, I'd never find anything in there. Keeping it open is the only way.

I was thinking more about people who use Tree Style Tabs and have nested Tab folders and such when I wrote that part. It's simple enough to save an entire session as a bookmark folder, to open an entire folder of bookmarks as new tabs (rather than needing to hibernate tabs to save ram while still keeping them "open"), and to search through bookmarks ad-hoc. Bookmark folders can be infinitely nested, categorized, ordered by when you were looking (though searching through your browser history also works for that), combined, copied, pasted, moved, put into or removed from the bookmark toolbar.

It's an incredibly flexible system that allows for a massive variety of workflows and it feels like people just keep finding ways to recreate it, but worse: less platform-independent, eating more system resources, dependent on third-party plugins, or (in the case of using an app for everything) eating up orders of magnitude more storage space at rest.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#76
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Linux Desktop isn't perfect, but it's in no way a dumpster fire. I'm much happier using Linux than any other viable alternative. Your experience clearly differs, but I personally have very few complaints at this point. Calling it a dumpster fire is extreme hyperbole. I'm hoping they're incentivized to support Linux just based on the developer market share of Linux. The StackOverflow developer survey looks like it unf…

> The StackOverflow developer survey looks like it unfortunately allows people to choose multiple options which devalues the results and obscures the actual numbers

But how would you capture the situation when people are using both linux and Mac ? I for example have a good mini PC which run Linux and a MBP. I use both depending on where I'm (I mostly work from home). I even have a windows machine dedicated to gaming (not that it matters here).

Re: Claude for Desktop

#77

Lots of people are correctly suggesting this could function just as equally well as a PWA, but I will point out that (all things being equal) there are some valid use-cases when strictly choosing between Electron vs PWA that a LOT OF PEOPLE seem to be oblivious of: - Electron apps don’t rely on a web server to function, so as long as you archive the app’s installer, you can install it on future computers even if the…

Apparently running a daemon with the system browser has gone out of fashion, or a skill lost in modern times.

Not to mention the whole calling into a server anyway.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#78
post #11

Perhaps a gateway to run computer use locally? https://www.anthropic.com/news/3-5-models-and-computer-use

yeah, that's what it seems like. As of today, there's no additional features I notice compared to having a Safari-based desktop version of this (which I uninstalled to install this one).

Re: Claude for Desktop

#79

Lots of people are correctly suggesting this could function just as equally well as a PWA, but I will point out that (all things being equal) there are some valid use-cases when strictly choosing between Electron vs PWA that a LOT OF PEOPLE seem to be oblivious of: - Electron apps don’t rely on a web server to function, so as long as you archive the app’s installer, you can install it on future computers even if the…

I mean, re: point 1, we're talking about an app that calls an API for every interaction already, so that doesn't seem super relevant. If Claude is down, you can't use it whether it's through a PWA or an Electron app.

If you could access chats offline, that'd be useful.

But you should be able to do that with PWA.

Re: Claude for Desktop

#80
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Hardly a dumpster fire, moving to Linux from Windows is by far the best thing I’ve done for my work and sanity using a computer. For macOS users might be less of a reason, but aside from video editing workflow, has been a smooth process, and highly recommended for devs to give it another go.

Tried OpenSUSE recently. They describe 3 different ways on how to install Nvidia drivers in their docs. Not a single worked, had to install manually (which kinds of beats the entire purpose of using a rolling distro).

Could try something else but seem but slightly like a waste of time. Also the DE situation seems pretty bad... KDE would seem alright but its buggy and unpolished. Gnome is an abomination designed for tablets (which aren't even a thing on Linux).

Post reply on HN