
How Chrome ate 21GB of storage - ddcarnage
http://blog.francoismaillet.com/is-your-chrome-bigger-than-mine/
======
ameliaquining
I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the
Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the
Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome itself.

(Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on Chrome.)

~~~
aikah
> I feel like it's slightly dishonest not to mention that (according to the
> Chrome devs) this problem is caused by poorly-behaved modifications to the
> Chrome installer made by third-party redistributors, and not by Chrome
> itself.

What do you mean ? if I download Chrome from the official website I get a
third party installer ? because I have the exact same problem with that very
official installer.

~~~
dunham
It looks like the linked article has been updated at the end to clarify.

It sounds like some third party extension's installer (e.g. DivX) is reaching
into Chrome.app and mucking with permissions (setting owner to root). Not sure
why they don't install into "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins" (maybe it doesn't
work with chrome anymore?)

(Edit: but a comment in the linked bug report suggests that this may also
occur if Chrome is installed as one user and used by another.)

~~~
ameliaquining
The bug report claims that in the different-user case you do get a privilege
escalation prompt.

------
lucb1e
> I’m happily walking away from this with an extra 21GB in my pocket! And now
> I ask you: is your Chrome bigger than mine?

Given I don't have to rely on third party updaters, I doubt it. Let's see...

    
    
        $ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done;
        172060669 bytes, 164 megabytes
        $ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium
        8.4M  .cache/chromium
        25M	  .config/chromium
    

So the cache is 8M, config files 25M and program files 164M (listed by dpkg
-L, then some command line magic to add up file sizes). A grand total of just
under 200MB.

~~~
esaym
heh, nice

    
    
        user@t61:~$ let size=0; dpkg -L chromium | while read path; do if [ -f "$path" ]; then let size=$size+$(du -sb "$path" | awk '{print $1}'); echo $size bytes, $(($size/1024/1024)) megabytes; fi; done;
        162190110 bytes, 154 megabytes
        user@t61:~$ du -sh .{cache,config}/chromium
        386M    .cache/chromium
        84M     .config/chromium

~~~
zodiakzz
I win? :P

    
    
        zod@DESKTOP MINGW64 ~/AppData/Local/Google
        $ du -sh ~/AppData/Local/Google
        2.9G    /c/Users/Zod/AppData/Local/Google
    

Edit: I do have 885 tabs open. (yikes! D:)

~~~
wtfishackernews
>885 tabs

is that intentional, or do you just never close tabs? How do you navigate tabs
without losing your mind?

~~~
zodiakzz
Well it's part laziness (and priortising) and part working on an abstraction
layer for the DOM API which can be quite hairy (it is known :P). So I have 10
windows open in total.

I have lots and lots of pages open of DOM documentation from many sources and
many GitHub code searches to see how others' code deals with the mess. ~30%
tabs are probably StackOverflow. The rest is (potentially useful) Google
searches, programming blog posts and the usual pinned tabs (Gmail etc.).

I use a AutoHotKey script to make the scroll wheel switch between tabs (this
is the default behavior on Ubuntu but I'm on Window), this way I can quickly
scroll/look for the desired tab through an entire 100-150 tab window in 10-15
seconds. Thinking of this.. I would have probably indeed gone insane without
the AHK script.. (or just kept fewer tabs opened instinctively? :P).

~~~
Flenser
Please share your autohotkey script!

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Zekio
This just seems like something that should've been fixed years ago

~~~
DannyBee
It was (in fact, it's not clear it was ever broken) That's why if you look at
the linked bug report, the only reports are of people who have used third
party installers as root that screw up the permissions.

The bug report is basically "when i screw this up, chrome doesn't notice and
fix it for me".

~~~
taeric
I'm not at all sure how this excuses things. If there is a known state that
can be reached by the browser, then either a) indicate _why_ it cannot be
fixed and give tips for the users or b) put in the code to fix it for the
users.

~~~
loeg
Root can modify the filesystem arbitrarily. To what extent should developers
proactively scan their own files for arbitrary changes by 3rd parties? How
much work should go into this, rather than fixing other bugs or improving
performance?

~~~
taeric
In this case, there is no need to proactively scan anymore. It was reported by
users.

I stressed the wrong thing before. If it _can not_ be fixed, say so.

~~~
DiabloD3
How do you propose third parties modifying installers without Google's
knowledge or permission something Google can fix?

~~~
loeg
I think GP is just suggesting that Google has had the knowledge about this
specific 3rd party issue (via this bug) for years. It can't fix all possible
3rd party installer-induced issues, but it could potentially fix this one. (Or
at least notify the user.)

------
rocky1138
Does this only occur on Macs?

~~~
loeg
If you're using packages on Linux, the package manager is responsible for
uninstalling the old version. For example, yum/dnf on Fedora/Redhat will only
keep one version of a package during 'yum update' (with the exception of the
kernel, where the most recent 3 versions as well as the running kernel are
kept to avoid breaking boot).

~~~
rocky1138
Yeah, I'm on Xubuntu and I figured this would be handled by the package
manager.

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license2e
I installed mine through Homebrew ([http://brew.sh/](http://brew.sh/)) Cask
([https://caskroom.github.io/](https://caskroom.github.io/)) and it is fine
(only last two versions).

------
AstroJetson
I'm going to post a theory that with 500Gb drives pretty much the normal size
that most people won't notice 2.5% tied up in Chrome installs.

~~~
agumonkey
Even with 1TB disk space I'm resentful of the amount of space "leaked" by
software. Maybe I'm a naz-, maybe I was born in the MB era.. can't say. The
other day I booted a P3 era machine and seeing all we did with "just" 128MB
made me feel chills all over.

~~~
drivingmenuts
I blame the perpetual-beta mentality along with lazy development practices.

Used to be, we specced out exactly what was in a release and no more. Now,
it's just whatever they can cram in under a deadline without all that
"unnecessary" optimization.

I'm probably as guilty as anyone else; I like getting a paycheck and so I keep
my mouth shut, even though shit like that literally keeps me up some nights.

~~~
agumonkey
I see a few reasons: less compiled languages, more abstractions, more best
practices, that means a lot of libs. I've seen Wirth pascal compiler, it's two
files of a few hundreds of lines, but it's not decoupled in any way. Today
most programs are larger than this because they compose lots of rules. It also
brings false laziness, since you're not used to write short code, well you
don't.

------
mariusmg
Both Chrome and Opera pull this shit. It's unbelievable they aren't fixing
this.

~~~
babayega2
Indeed. They keep freezing my Ubuntu 14.04. I need to delete ~.config/xxx
folder.

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richard_mcp
This is embarrassingly bad. I know memory is cheap and mostly plentiful, but
to have this as a bug for 5+ years is horrible. It's as though Chrome is going
the route of web pages and not paying to the size of itself.

~~~
jeffmcjunkin
This is prior versions of Chrome taking up disk space, not memory. That's a
completely separate issue.

~~~
tedunangst
Fortunately disk space, unlike memory, is infinite.

~~~
cmdrfred
I'd much rather you use 21GB on my SSD than 2.1GB of my ram.

~~~
tedunangst
It's usually easier to reclaim RAM than storage. Which application am I not
using right now? vs What data will I never need again?

~~~
NicoJuicy
Previous versions of chrome...

