Mighty plans fast Chromium browser that streams from the cloud

Posted:
in Mac Software
Developer Mighty plans to "Make Chrome Faster," by streaming the browser from the cloud -- and it's starting on macOS.

Mighty develops a streaming web browser
Mighty develops a streaming web browser


Google Chrome is famously slow on the Mac, and has been shown to be much less efficient than Safari. Now a developer is aiming to offer a browser that is "indistinguishable" from Chrome, except faster because it is streamed.

"We're excited to finally unveil Mighty, a faster browser that is entirely streamed from a powerful computer in the cloud," says Mighty in a blog post. "After two years of hard work, we've created something that's indistinguishable from a Google Chrome that runs at 4K, 60 frames a second, takes no more than 500 MB of RAM, and often less than 30% CPU even with 50+ tabs open."

"If you're not sure what that means, imagine your browser is a Netflix video but running on cutting-edge server hardware somewhere else," continues the blog. "When you switch to Mighty, it will feel like you went out and bought a new computer with a much faster processor and much more memory. But you don't have buy a new computer. All you have to do is download a desktop app."

That desktop app is a Mac one that is only available in private beta, though users can request access. It can also be seen in a demonstration video.






Mighty says that it has forked Chromium in part to make "the software interoperate with a long list of macOS features."

Running a browser remotely obviously requires fast internet connections if a user is not to keep experiencing delays.

"Lag would have been a real problem 5 years ago," continues the company, "but new advances since then have allowed us to eliminate nearly all of it."

Its solutions revolve around its own design for "a new low-latency network protocol," plus siting "servers as close to users geographically as possible." However, Mighty is still working on this, and states that part of its "master plan" is to "improve worldwide latency of the Internet."

Separately, Google itself is attempting to improve the speed and performance of Chrome, including on the Mac. It's attempting to shrink "its memory footprint in background tabs on macOS," said the company in March 2021.




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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    Mighty good idea, that.  B)

    Let the fans run where we can’t hear them. Wait, or is it better for our carbon footprint awareness if we can actually hear them screaming?

    Hmm…

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 8
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    Or.. just don’t use Chrome.
    williamlondonbaconstangthtThresher-the-Sharkwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 8
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    That layout app they're showing in Chrome running on their "powerful computer" still looks a bit janky compared to a well written native application on a plain old computer.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 8
    WgkruegerWgkrueger Posts: 352member
    From what I can see they’re running the web browser software on their servers and the stream the screen display as a video to their app running on our computers. It’s kind of like the old thin client concept but using the latest technology like virtual machines and servers distributed across “the cloud”. So, for instance, when I use their browser to log into my bank I send my bank login credentials to their server and their server is the one actually logging into my bank and their server is the one containing my bank information. And they promise to make sure they or anyone else won’t be able to see my information or browser history. Hmm, let me think about that .. nope. Never going to happen here. 
    auxiobaconstangwonkothesanewatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 8
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member
    Wgkrueger said:
    From what I can see they’re running the web browser software on their servers and the stream the screen display as a video to their app running on our computers. It’s kind of like the old thin client concept but using the latest technology like virtual machines and servers distributed across “the cloud”. So, for instance, when I use their browser to log into my bank I send my bank login credentials to their server and their server is the one actually logging into my bank and their server is the one containing my bank information. And they promise to make sure they or anyone else won’t be able to see my information or browser history. Hmm, let me think about that .. nope. Never going to happen here. 
    …or any other login data, for that matter, 
    or browsing history. 
    Or online purchasing history. 
    Or private. messages on web clients. 
    The list goes on…
    edited April 2021 watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 8
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Yup. Insanity. It might be slightly less insane if they offered super cheap clients, like a $50 Raspberry Pi with a monitor, as part of this deal. Otherwise, as fast as possible, I'm running away from this concept as it is an end-to-end waste of power, resources, heat, privacy, trust and manpower.

    Microsoft is giving streaming Windows a go, probably to make sure Citrix doesn't make too many inroads, where Windows is run on a server somewhere and than streamed to a client. I expect some high level manager in my org to propose this type of idea sooner or later. What a waste.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 8
    Or, you know, you could just use Safari?!?!

    That really is a testament about how bad Chrome got over the years, because it didn't started this way. At my work I sometimes have to work on a PC, where I have sampled Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Firefox and Opera are my favorites when I'm not working with Apple hardware. Edge is quite frustrating to use. But only Chrome can bring a 16 GB desktop to its knees. It's just absurd!

    IMHO streaming software should be motivated by hardware limitations, like when most people would like to play an intense 3D game sometimes, but would prefer not to buy expensive gear just for that. Now streaming a browser to well capable hardware because the software is kludge is missing the point of developing software altogether.
    mattinozwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 8
    jccjcc Posts: 326member
    You have to be mighty dumb to pay $30 a month for this.
    watto_cobra
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