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Comment by hnha | Hacker News Reader

I am running out of space because Play Store and Google Framework get bigger and bigger. It fills me with rage how Google actively makes my old phone less capable over time for no benefit to me.

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Yeah. I was using a Nexus One for a long time until I had to prune so many apps due to space that it wasn't worth using. I got a new phone, HTC One S (I needed a t-mobile branded phone for wifi calling) with several gigs of system partition space, and now I have to play that game again.

I recognize that there are a bunch of features now that I get to enjoy, but now I have to choose which ones I want to keep.

When I switched, 20MB was a big app. Now I have at least 30 apps that are bigger. Chrome in particular seems bogus. The desktop version isn't even this big.

   Chrome : 211MB
   Facebook: 116MB
   Google search: 70MB
   Google+: 65MB
   Amazon: 60MB
   Mantano Reader: 54MB
   Dropbox: 50MB
   Google Play services: 50MB
   Google Text-to-speach engine: 45MB
   Hangouts: 35MB
   t-mobile my account: 33MB
   SwitftKey: 33MB
   Kindle: 30MB
   Evernote: 30MB
   BaconReader: 28MB
   twitter: 25MB
   Hulu: 25MB
   Google Maps: 24MB
   Google Drive: 24MB
    <...>

I do recognize that these apps balance the data differently. Chrome is 189MB app, and facebook is 80MB data.

I have the latest Chrome for Android and it's 65MB for the app. Still large, but nowhere near 190MB.

did you disable cache somehow?

open a bunch of ssl pages and see app data space explode. same happens with firefox

I did not disable cache and it shows a large amount of cache data. But the post I responded to claimed 189MB of app data.

The cache doesn't seem relevant but I could test that. Presently my breakdown is 189MB+21MB , App+data, and 13MB Cache.

   Uninstalled.

   Reinstalled.  (play store reports 30MB download)

   Before opening the app  65MB+4KB, 0MB cache

   First launch (no sync sign-in) 65MB + 10MB, 60KB cache

   Browsed Noisy SSL page (google plus feed):  65MB + 14MB, 13MB cache
   
   Signed into sync: no change  ( 10min later, no change)

   Browsed image heavy site (imgur): 65MB + 14MB, 25MB cache

Does chrome store the old versions on upgrade? That would perfectly explain why my fresh install is 64MB, and my older isntall was 3x that size.

It does on the desktop: Omaha, a.k.a. Google Updater, follows a "keep a few recent versions around and just symlink the current one" model to enable atomic upgrades and rollbacks of failed upgrades. If Android Chrome manages its own updates, it's likely using Omaha for them.

Likewise on my Moto G running 4.4.4.

65Mb app

22Mb data

= 87Mb total

Cache is recorded separately, currently at 205Mb. I wonder if it is a question of how the figures are being displayed in different versions of Android.

used nexus one until couples months ago. even with all ext sd card hacks, i couldn't install firefox on a clean install.

app space is the only reason i generated more garbage in the world even though my current device only lacked the software to use the memory i had available.

For what its worth, the chrome Mac OS X version of google chrome is 331.9 MB on disk. Doesn't seem bogus to me.

The OSX "show info" dialog block shows the file size in disk blocks, as opposed to the actual bytes of file content. There might be a misunderstanding between people because the "real" file size is different than the "actually occupied" disk size. This is of course aggravated by lots of small files.

Just to be sure:

    $ du -h -d 0 /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app               
    317M	/Applications/Google Chrome.app

    $ tar -c -f - /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app | wc -c      
    tar: Removing leading '/' from member names
    331683840

    $ find /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app -type f -print0 | xargs -0 cat | wc -c
    331010107

On win8, the total Chrome dir is 450MB, but that includes two versions, and a backup of the installer of the latest. Excluding those and the flash plugin, the running Chrome's (37.0.2062.120) contents are 115MB.

I'm reinstalling right now to test, it shows as a ~28MB download. I feel pretty confident it's not cached data in my case, as I don't use the Chrome browser on my phone (I prefer Dolphin with gestures & LastPass integration), and on a tablet I only use it for logging into wifi hotspots.

.... And after the reinstall it shows up as 65MB of app.

Dolphin is affected too.

Checking.... Dolphin is a little weird on its own with the separate browser and "Dolphin Jetpack" (basically its own custom-built webkit engine).

Looking before removing Dolphin, Dolphin is showing 13.82MB of App plus 42MB of Data (which I believe could mostly be moved to phone storage). Also 2.3MB of cache. Jetpack is showing 18.67MB of App, 4k of Data.

After reinstalling both and a first run of Dolphin (and restoring a slightly out of date backup for bookmarks, etc.), Dolphin is using 13.80MB of App and 4.66MB of Data, while Jetpack is using 18.67MB of App.

I'm not seeing the same thing happening with Dolphin as with Chrome.

I lost the ability to write to my external sdcard when I got the kitkat upgrade. Of course rooting allowed me write access again. This is why the "rooting voids the warrant" policies are bullshit. When an upgrade is forced on a user, and removes critical functionality for no good reason, what is the user to do? I, for one, am never buying a locked down phone again. I'd rather not even have a phone.

Don't get too raged, this has been happening on almost every computer for the last 20 years. The more you use it, there more there is to store, the more apps you use, the more data is placed everywhere.

That's not what I said. I actually use my phone less as I found the apps and data I "need". Google is forcing software updates (silently even!) that leech away significant amounts of space away from me.

Yea, don't they know 128 mb should have been enough for anyone?

I don't see why shiny progress should be held up because you can't be arsed keeping up with new generations of tech. If you don't like it, go install a rom and some of the many many many alternate applications which keep sizes small.

Mobile phones began, much like desktops began, extremely limited. We are simply seeing the same thing happen, we're now getting up to sizes of around 32 gb, yes, it happened much faster this time, and that may be why many feel the pinch much more - I'm sorry for that - however it is the price to pay for being an early adopter like yourself.

Yet thankfully,it has also now reached a level where it is now almost impossible to fill with application data. Storage and processing may continue to increase but I highly doubt you will feel quite the same pain of running low on space with nothing but chrome and facebook installed.

Installing a ROM is actually why it's unlikely that my next phone will be an HTC. I made the mistake of buying what was basically their flagship phone for a little while, which was promptly dumped for the HTC One.

Take a look at the ROM situation for the HTC Ruby platform, aka the Amaze, aka the only phone in its product line. Despite what Wikipedia says, there isn't a huge mass of aftermarket ROMs because the phone itself had such a relatively small distribution and was discontinued.

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