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This might be a hot take but I've noticed some complicated electron apps are faster than some simple native apps. The striking example to me is how Vs code runs better and has a lower startup time than the stock Windows 11 File manager.
A well written electron app is better than a poorly written native app sometimes.
I mean, sure, but:
The Windows File Manager is really just awful in that regard. You can get alternative file managers that start up in a fraction of that time, with more features.
Startup time isn't really the worst of it. RAM usage is worse. And if a program uses lots of RAM, it will still appear quite performant. But it makes everything else on your system slower.
Can you recommend some third party windows file managers?
Stock file manager has an okay UI (tabs are super nice) but is kinda slow, especially on battery.
I tried explorer++ but its UI is clunky and it's only slightly faster than the stock file manager.
Well, the file manager I use on Linux, Dolphin, has an experimental Windows version.
When I learned of that a few years ago, I gave it a shot on Windows and I prefered it to File Explorer, but it's not like I compared it to other offerings or anything like that.
I do think that's the best file manager on Linux and most features were working on Windows back then, so it's not unlikely either, that it is by far the best offering for Windows. But it could also be a buggy mess. I wouldn't know...
file manager opens instantly.
genuinely curious, I have a shitton of networked drives and at least 7 volumes on this locally, file manager has always popped open ready to go at a click or hotkey.
I don't know, man. I haven't done a scientific study on it either.
It was one of the reasons why I switched from Windows to Linux. On the same HDD, with same data, Windows file manager took half a minute to open, when the various Linux file managers were all instant.
I did 'refresh' Windows beforehand, too, which Microsoft claims is like reinstalling. Couldn't easily do a proper reinstall, because of OEM license horseshit.
These days, I only really see Windows when colleagues are using it. That's all within my company's network drive infrastructure. Maybe it is being slowed down by that.
That's still proof enough for me, though, that Windows file manager is shittily coded. A proper architecture would have the UI in a separate thread from all the file operations and it should never be the case that a slow hard drive or network drive is causing the UI to appear later.
That's because all the important bits in VSCode are reimplemented in C++
You can use C++ for web technology instead of JavaScript? I'm taking a class in C++ right now so I'd be happy to swap janky JavaScript for pedantic but speedy C++ in new projects.
VSCode is a desktop app, hence using real languages is easy. For websites there is webassembly. Try this: https://www.rust-lang.org/what/wasm
Its not 1990 anymore, you have more than 2 megabytes of ram.
Honestly for me electron apps can also get pretty janky.
Plus Electron takes WAY more than 2mb of RAM.
And thus cripples battery life.
I only use things like Discord in Safari and Firefox to not have to use the Electron app.
I really don’t get how everything has to use web UI. SwiftUI is really easy to learn and you can run this on any Apple platform. Flutter is a mess but you can run it on Android. GTK looks just gorgeous and Qt can run on everything but ChromeOS (like 99% of things). Is it really too much to ask for 3 more developers in a company that build native?
Small addition: I unsubscribed like many others from 1Password because with version 8 even they switched from native to Electron. This is just crazy.
I mean guys, frickin think about people who can’t afford recent hardware! Do we really want Electron and thus Chromium/Google to force us to buy 1000€+ hardware to be able to do things?
People that are upset about electron should consider it’s not:
Electron App vs Wonderful Fully Supported Native Linux Application
The reality is that your choice is largely:
Electron App vs No App (maybe running their windows app in wine if you can get that to work)
It’s not like companies are going to go build a native linux app but electron got in their way. It was always electron or no support.
So if you like the app, remember that the ram and the cpu you paid for doesn’t provide value unless it’s doing something. There’s no trophy you get at the end of your life for “most cumulative ram left idle”
Well, there's also Tauri which requires slightly more testing since you actually use the device's built-in browser, so there might be differences. The upside is a much smaller bundle size, quick start-up times and often less RAM usage than with Electron.
A lot of the time, the alternative would be a website running in the browser.
Electron IS a browser. It's a Chromium browser to be exact with all the Chromium UI elements except the very bare minimum removed.
So the only difference that remains is running a website in a tab or in a fancy window.
I know that Electron is a browser. But the issue is that it's a different browser, and AFAIK Electron applications don't share libraries etc. like Chrome/Firefox tabs would, which makes Electron apps even more inefficient than web apps.
I'd prefer that. One firefox instance can easily run 10 big fat websites while using like 6GB of RAM. 10 electron apps on the other hand? 32GB RAM won't be enough.
There’s no trophy you get at the end of your life for “most cumulative ram left idle”
Some people like to use more than 1 app you know.
Also, RAM is never ever idle. It is used as filesystem cache when not used by programs thus speeding up read accesses significantly.
Just to nitpick, RAM is usually not idle.
Alright, let's nitpick! No, it is never ever idle, every few cycles is a refresh cycle, which is work.
I don't hate that electron is used for everything, I just hate electron itself, mostly. Starting with that it's memory consumption, measured at the example of Discord (though that may be not 100% accurate as they use a custom version), is higher than just using a separate FF instance, with a separate profile. Works for Discord and Spotify (though spotifyd + spotify-tui is better anyway). Signal etc. is still only available as an electron app.
The biggest problem I have with electron is more of a problem with Nvidia though - combining Nvidia + Wayland is bad enough, especially for windows refreshing below 60 Hz, as this causes them to flicker as in letting stripes of the wallpaper through. Electron apps are even worse, not only do they start to flicker as whole after not being in focus for 10 minutes, which is very annoying with them on other screens, but they also start to 'lag', as elements don't update fluently. That affects EVERY chromium based program - including steam.
We were so close to a much better version of electron. Mozilla just killed off the concept of a separate engine, like chromium is, due to issues with low demand but high cost and instead only has the main FF repo now. A separate FF engine would very likely mean a FF based electron alternative would be built by the community. Bug free, fully compatible with everything, not under Google's control.
What does Ctrl shift I do (I'm not at my computer and I don't have any electron apps installed)
Dude, if it doesn't hog memory then what's the problem?
It kinda do though. VSCode, without a project open has 10 processes running and uses over a half gig of ram. I like VSCode to be clear. I also like discord but it's just a chat app and apparently needs a half gig itself and 6 processes.
I hope they'll find a way to run all those applications in one browser. Like basically having a browser with multiple tabs but getting treated like seperate sandboxxed apps.