Lightweight Alternatives to Heavy/Bloated Software

1. Lightweight Alternatives to Heavy/Bloated Software By Aaron Cole

2. Introduction • Moore’s law claims CPU speed will double every 18-24 months • Wirth’s law claims software will decelerate faster then hardware accelerates • Wirth’s law not implicitly true for all software, is relatively true for most software • I will use two terms when referring to large software • Bloated – Software that has no logical reason to require so much resources or have so many features • Heavy – Software that is full of features, it may be bloated but it has many features a lightweight version can’t possibly match.

3. Software Deceleration • Software deceleration can be put down to two reasons • Increase in features ‘feature creep’ • Programming • Heavy software generally caused by feature creep • Bloated software generally caused by lazy programming

4. Feature Creep • As new versions of established software are released there are two certainties for 99% of these releases; they will require more resources and they will have more features • After a few cycles the piece of software will have countless features and be many times larger then older version • This is not a problem for most software as some of these newer features may increase productivity or make the experience more user friendly • Then there are the exceptions, where with each new version the software just seems larger and doesn’t offer any extra functionality • Feature creep doesn’t only refer to user based features

5. Programming • Written in a language that runs a top a framework or VM • JVM • .net Framework • All scripting languages • Python • Perl • Ruby • Etc.. • Lazy programming and sloppy code

6. Heavy Software Photoshop MS Office* WMP Most Anti-Viruses Bloated Software Nero Burning Adobe Reader iTunes* Norton’s Anti Virus Examples

7. Bloated - Adobe Reader • The de facto standard PDF reader • Installation .exe is roughly 35mb • Default install size of the latest reader is 198mb • Memory footprint with no PDF open is 24mb • Installs other software at installation without the option to not install the other software • Sluggish when first opening

8. Lightweight – Foxit Reader • Becoming the main alternative to Adobe Reader • Installation .exe roughly 2.6mb • Requires a touch over 7mb of disc space for the latest version • Memory footprint with no PDF open is 9mb • The FoxitReader.exe is 6mb and is portable so you can chuck it on a USB and use it on any PC with windows 2000 or higher

10. Bloated* - iTunes • Installer exe for windows 65mb • Requires 85mb of disc space once installed • Also installs QuickTime at installation without the option to not install it, taking an extra 65mb • When open not playing any songs or videos has a memory footprint of 60mb • Also has many other processes running • These processes are added to the startup as well

11. Lightweight – Media Monkey • Media Monkey is a relatively light media player that has all the features of most larger media players • Installer exe 7mb • Once installed takes up 35mb of disc space • When open but not playing any media has a memory footprint of 35mb • Supports most the main features of iTunes; song statistics, ripping, burning and syncs with all current iPods

13. Advantages of iTunes • While Media Monkey will let you transfer movies onto your iPod Media Monkey doesn’t play movies • iTunes Store (maybe) • Very good smart play lists

14. Heavy – Media Monkey • If you just want to listen to your music and nothing else then Media Monkey is a heavy piece of software • If you want to just listen to some music in the background while doing work or gaming Media Monkey has more features then needed for this specific task

15. Lightweight – 1by1 • All it does it play music straight from the directory • Installation exe 114kb • After installation the 1by1 exe is 74kb • When not playing any media has a memory footprint of 6.1mb