The new Windows version of WhatsApp is a performance nightmare
Meta has turned WhatsApp’s Windows version into a RAM-hogging software nightmare
Meta has started rolling out a new version of WhatsApp for Windows. The company has retired its native Windows version of WhatsApp in favour of a simpler web app. Essentially, this new app loads a WhatsApp web page within a container, acting as a web browser instead of a dedicated application. The performance implications of this are disastrous.
Windows Latest has reported that WhatApp’s new Windows version can use 1.2GB of system memory while idling. When loading chats, the new app can use up to 2GB of memory. By contrast, the old, native Windows version of the app used 100 MB of RAM at idle and “at worst reach 300MB”. In other words, Meta has abandoned a fully functional and performant app and has replaced it with a RAM-hogging disaster.
After logging in, WhatsApp (new) memory usage increased to 2GB while trying to load all my chats. On average, it used 1.2GB when left idle in the background.
You’d realise how bad this is when I tell you the benchmarks for the native WhatsApp for comparison. I tested the old/native WhatsApp, and it uses just 190MB most of the time, dropping to less than 100MB when it’s completely idle. At worst, it would reach 300MB, which can happen only when the chat is really active.
To say the least, now is not a good time to make PC applications more memory-hungry. The world is in the midst of a memory shortage, which has caused the price of PC memory to skyrocket. By making WhatsApp less efficient, Meta is needlessly gobbling up system resources that have just become more expensive to upgrade. That’s a major blow to consumers. Under normal circumstances, this behaviour would be obhorrent. As things stand today, Meta’s decision is downright stupid.
The sad thing about this change is that Meta doesn’t care. The company has likely retired WhatsApp’s native Windows version to cut costs. They don’t care how performant their app is, or how efficiently it uses system resources. Since the app will automatically update, users will not be able to keep the older/better Windows version of WhatsApp for long. This is how little Meta cares about WhatsApp’s userbase.
You can join the discussion on WhatsApp’s new Windows version on the OC3D Forums.
