Not just web apps, but “lazy” applications that use Electron. They are bloated, comparatively slow and processor intensive, compared to native applications. They are also a double security risk, because you have a “packaged” version of Chromium, which needs to be constantly updated, plus the bugs in your own code.
I really like VSCode, but it is an Electron app, but I also use Notepad++. That means:
VSCode is slow to load - it takes around 3 seconds longer than N++ to load (both no additional add-ins, 1 open file with under 50 lines, Core i5, 8GB RAM).
VSCode uses ~230MB RAM, N++ uses 7MB!
Those aren’t huge numbers (VSCode), by todays standards, but it shows how bloated it is, because it needs a web-browser to also load in the background for it to run.
VSCode might be portable, but that just means it runs just as badly on every platform.
Precisely - CPU performance in and by itself is only one side of the equation, the other being efficiency of programming. Or, rather, restraint of the user to mostly or only use “good”, efficient software. (But you pointed to that before in the VAIO comment.) In a sense, having an old CPU makes you a more discerning user.
As much as I’ve been singing the praises of older hardware, Electron app performance is one of those issues I could see being solved via hardware acceleration in the near future if Electron continues to gain popularity, which I’m sure it will since businesses love the idea of a single code base.
One of the really interesting shifts in computer performance in the last couple of years has been video editing. Just 4-5 years ago even relatively basically video editing was a “throw as much hardware at it as you can afford” kind of task. The shift to GPU hardware acceleration in video editing apps has completely blown up that dynamic where spending $100 on a CPU and $400 on a GPU will give you much better performance than a $1000 CPU with a $100 GPU, which wasn’t the case not long ago.
The same thing happened for web video playback years ago and I could easily it happening for Electron as well. I for one look forward to listening to TWiT/Security Now the week after the first Chromium Execution Chip exploit hits the wild!
