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Comment by KoolKat23 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly this is 2026. Chrome on my phone is nearly 2gb. Google on my phone is 1gb. 4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storage. Right now my phone has 445gb unused memory and usage isn't likely to go up much. My PlayStation eats 500gb for breakfast. Heck I use a 2011 Thinkpad for casual use and it should still be fine with it.

This is also GOOGLE chrome, it serves their ends, in the past that was to render internet unimpeded (they saw a need then), needs change. I'd rather models serve most requests locally anyway, so long as it's not destroying my battery life.

Remember the whole chrome-RAM-gate saga? This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. PC's shipping 8gb ram, Google removing ad blocker extensions, these should be the real rally points.

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>4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storag

So, 4GB is outrageous because it takes the very little space left after the existing bloat.

It also still makes Chrome install at least 5X larger.

Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different.

>Not too long ago my chrome install was 30mb, this isn't anything different.

"Not long ago" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

The install file for Chrome 42 circa April, 2015 was 46MB [1].

That's eleven years ago.

The first ever Chrome release installer was around 20MB.

To say politely, you're not telling the truth.

>this isn't anything different.

Chrome installer from 2015 was 46MB.

Chrome installer from 2026 is ~140MB.

That's a 3X increase over a decade, by a grand total of 100MB.

Then they're adding 4GB to that overnight.

It is, I'd wager, something different.

[1] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/14786...

[2] https://google-chrome.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/11608...

11 years ago in laptop terms is still useable.

To get so upset over this is crazy, no need to be so pedantic. Needs change.

Your 2015 MacBook pro had 8gb ram and 128gb storage, the current equivalent has minimum 24gb ram and 1tb or 2tb. Please explain what you're using all this storage for?? Raw footage or something, well there's some double standards it's just a photo too if this is just a browser. 4gb is immaterial.

>11 years ago in laptop terms is still useable

11 years in human terms isn't "not long ago".

Nether is "never", which is the time when Chrome was under 30mb installed.

>To get so upset over this is crazy, no need to be so pedantic

Of course. It's just that those small, insignificant details that you are wrong about is your entire point.

>Needs change

What needs to change? Says who? Why?

Software not taking extra gigabytes out of the blue for features I never asked for without notifying or having an option to not do that —

— sorry, this absolutely does not need to change.

>Please explain what you're using all this storage for??

Absolutely none of your business.

I'll tell you what it's not for:

4GB LLM's that one of the browsers on my machine decides to download.

You're welcome.

You speak as if you've never used Chrome, Windows or Mac OS before.

By your same logic. You should be using chromium at the very minimum.

> the current equivalent has minimum 24gb ram and 1tb or 2tb

... and not everyone is running the current equivalent. So, while 4gb may be immaterial _to you_, that is not the case for everyone.

I don’t run Chrome and Google on my phone because they are so big on disk.

The only reason I ever install Google temporarily is because gmail requires it to log in.

Giant apps on phones is quite frustrating because some of us have small storage.

My 2011 Lenovo has 4GB ram yet everyone will tell me new PC's requiring more is "progress", this is not anything new.

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