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Why are (mobile) browsers so big? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by illectrility@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Why are so many mobile browsers at least 100, if not 200 megabytes in size? Even Firefox Focus which is supposed to be small and, you know, focussed is 85MB big.

The smallest browser I could find was the /e/ Foundation's built-in browser for /e/OS. It's 12MB.

It's kind of between Firefox and Focus in terms of features so why are all other browsers so big? Is there a small version of Firefox for Android?

Edit: I just looked up the /e/ Browser repo on their GitLab and the browser appears to be bigger than the 12MB displayed in App Info. It's about 70MB, so pretty comparable to the other browsers. I was so confused by the size difference but that's cleared up now.

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[–] the_q@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

100mb isn't that big these days, bud.

[–] ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But it should be.

Better technology and more storage should never excuse a lack of optimization.

I'm not up to speed on the optimization levels of mobile Web browsers, but these days you rarely see properly optimized consumer software. Games and websites tend to be the worst offenders, and many mobile apps appear 10x the size you would expect them to be.

[–] illectrility@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Imagine the utopia we would live in if every website was as beautiful as this https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com/

[–] zero_iq@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but I'd still like to see the explanation for why a mouse driver needs to be 300MB...!

[–] the_q@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rgb.

[–] zero_iq@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Ah, of course! And it does have extra buttons too. Remarkable they squeezed all that advanced engineering in under half a gigabyte, tbh. I clearly didn't think it through!