Are they using it for Inbox, too? The memory use on that page. Yikes. To think I used to browse the web on 64MB of RAM without ever feeling memory-constrained. Sometimes with my e-mail client also open!
Web Components to the rescue!
Double-u. Tee. Eff.
Docs.google.com, with a spreadsheet open? 617/585MB. Still entirely unacceptable, but lower than an empty Inbox. The difference between the two should be more than enough to run both, even with a comically generous bloat allowance.
(I'd written then deleted something snarky about Google notoriously rigorous hiring practices really shines when we look at software that results, but seriously, all those smart people and this is what comes out? All their web software is embarrassingly bloated. Chrome's battery drain versus Safari? Android, which seems to take Do the Worst Thing that could Possibly Work as its guiding principle? What is going on in there? Is it some sort of organizational problem?)
The products have gotten bloated, slow, unusable on older devices, and the quality of the actual service has gotten worse, too.
This is just... impossible to use.
Google already is the new Microsoft, and Chrome the new IE. With this, they’re also losing any other reputation they had left.
Google products once used to be about the tiniest and fastest solution, working everywhere, and using the least possible resources, without any bullshit features.