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