Web apps are everywhere on the Internet and now they're taking over your computer.
Electron JS in 100 seconds
“Electron” is a name that can make even the most casual Mac user squirm. It’s a way for developers to write an app once and have it run on Windows, Mac, and the web browser. But that’s because Electron apps run in a browser, a Chromium-based browser disguised as an app. And now Agile Bits, the developer of 1Password, is dropping its official Mac app in favor of Electron. That doesn’t sound so bad, so why are people so upset?
“Thanks to the Chromium engine, with the Electron, apps are rendered as if they were running in a browser. However, this comes at a price: high CPU and RAM usage compared to [officially supported] apps,” web app developer Burak Özdemir told Lifewire via email.
Özdemir gets to the heart of the matter. The biggest problem with Electron, from a practical standpoint, is that it consumes your computer’s resources. It runs a web browser, along with several additional supporting processes, for each Electron app you use.
