Summary
- Windows 11 Weather app hogs about 1.2GB RAM and spawns multiple Chromium processes.
- App displays ads because it wraps MSN weather in a WebView2/browser shell.
- Native macOS Weather uses ~247MB with no ads; Microsoft should port to WinUI 3.
Ads In a weather app, because of course
And yet my script to fetch from an API and display in my bar uses no more than a few megabytes with the bar included…
And even that would be considered absurd by yesterday’s standards. The entire game ROM for Super Mario Bros on NES is 40KB.
Yes, well, despite how lean I can make my kernel and userspace, technology has become more advanced to support far more than the NES.
My first thought: If it isn’t always running it honestly not a major concern how much memory the weather app uses.
My second thought: 1.2GB WTF? Ok, that is way over the top. The executive in charge should be fired.
My third thought: 250MB? That is still a little unnecessary, even if it probably does fall under the “doesn’t matter” threshold.
My fourth thought:
gnome-weatheruses 180MB, not great, not bad.I think reading how much RAM a program uses is a bit complicated. In example there are shared libraries, and RAM will be reused if multiple applications uses the same resource. If two programs using the same library uses up 1.2gb on their own, then starting up app A and measure its 1.2gb, then close and measure app B with 1.2gb would give you exactly that. But in reality if both apps would run at the same time, their total RAM usage might be just 1.4gb.
As an example, if I already run KDE on my system and another KDE app starts up, it might not use too much more RAM. But the same app on a GNOME system might require a lot of additional RAM. So the Windows 11 Weather app might not even use 1.2gb on its own. No idea how they measured it.
While shared memory is a feature in linux, it’s mostly used for inter-process communication and isn’t something that happens by default with shared libraries.
When a program loads a shared library, it creates a new instance of it that runs in the same memory space as the program.
In the example you’re using with KDE, that’s actually a system process that your program is communicating with, so it’s not quite the same as just loading a shared library (.so). Since new programs can connect to the existing system service, that can end up saving RAM by having a single system program service multiple user applications.
This isn’t really any different on Windows where the desktop environment (dwm.exe) is handling drawings and compositing for all user apps.
Edit: Based on the downvotes, maybe I got something wrong here. Maybe someone can comment on what? I’m happy to learn
Hi. Ehm I didn’t downvote, just for reference. I’m not sure either. Maybe the shared memory you was talking about is data exchange, not sharing resources of currently loaded modules from same applications.
My OS (Arch, MangoWM+Noctalia) uses about 1.3GB when no apps are running. It even includes a weather widget among other information widgets, like system monitor, all loaded in memory with their corresponding information, and it’s all included in that 1.3GB.
Had to move from Arch to Windows for a contract and it’s been painful. CPU usage rarely ever goes below 15%
I liked the idea from another article about Whatsapp webview app: if Microsoft itself doesn’t invest time and resources to write native apps, who would care to? They themselves set a low standard switching app platforms and writing web wrappers, and it’s naive to think this stops at bare Win11 being bloated - it means most other apps would also be created as bloatees. Resource consumptions just explodes, and so does the head of the end user whose brand new PC can’t handle basic desk job and work chats.
Almost 300mb to show the weather? Apple should be ashamed.
300mb is what apps on Android used to take up back when 4GB RAM was standard. Macs have shipped with 8GB on base model for many years. This is not an issue, sorry
Relative size it’s ok. Absolute it’s still way too much for what the app is doing.
Have you used the app in question? There’s animated hi res backgrounds that have to be loaded for diff locations, a live map, tons of detailed widgets and animations… 300MB seems reasonable to me. You might not want any of these things on a weather app, hence there are many to choose from out there ;)
I am sure that it is reasonable to make the app this big. But timid still big because app size was just not a priority. There was a time when apple cared about that too and they don’t anymore. That I am lamenting. Yeah, I‘l go back in my grumpy old man corner.
I got 99 problems and microsoft is all of them, except one.
Most weather apps are just data collection.
Never forget: calendar flyout
It was years ago, but that straw broke this camel’s back
I had to look it up. Yuck. A lot of users are just beta testers aren’t they? At least with Linux you know that people care about fixing it. But Windows, it’s a mess.
Yup. Also, in this case and many others, the reason they disabled the feature was to force people to use their “widgets”. i.e. see more ads.
Imagine paying for an OS and then get served ads. That shit should be illegal.
deleted by creator
Edit: There was no need to delete your reply. I just explained it without any toxicity. Context for any reader: He was saying that as a kid they had to pay for cable tv and still got ads on the tv programs. As a justification for why Windows has ads.
Because you pay for access on your cable provider, like you would pay for your internet on your internet provider. Then you can watch free channels or pay for certain channels, like you would pay for Netflix or Disney+ or whatever is called. With the paid services there shouldn’t be any ad, with the free services like YouTube, you get ads so YouTube can pay their bills.
So, you analogy was completely missing the point and is not comparable to a paid operating system. You don’t even get ads with free operating systems, or with your paid competitor Apple.
