Firefox is a pretty solid example. Started slim as hell, gradually pulled plugins in until it was more bloated than IE and everyone moved to Chrome. They realized the problem and have started pulling back (although you could argue the opposite with the new integrations), but it still stands as an example.

Have been using Firefox since beta, hardware hasn't always been exactly latest and greatest and I really don't get this whole Firefox is bloated meme.

Try Chrome for a month and you'll get it. I'm switching back to Firefox, but believe me, the argument holds weight.

Use Chrome and/or Chromium all time and find the speed is almost the same.

Chrome advantages for me: - install pages as apps (Mozilla prism isn't supported anymore)

Chrome disadvantages for me: -Missing all the most useful plugins

I find the speed difference between Chrome and Firefox to be minimal at the beginning of the day.

But by 5 o' clock when I've got three windows with twenty tabs of docs / bugs / reproduction / etc. Chrome bears the weight much more gracefully.

If Firefox wasn't bloated, then nearly all of the new value-added features since version 3 or so should have been added as included (and disable-able) plugins: spell check, Hello, the new tab implementation, etc etc

"The problem is you haven't given a single example of any software that fits the model,"

Of course not. It's categories of software that have the cycle of bloat. I named three, by implication "text editors" are a fourth.

Based on the way people seem to be blinded by the word "bloat" naming specific examples would be seen as an attack, followed by vigorous defenses of how it's not "bloat", which, at least as far as I'm concerned, is a total waste of time because as you can see in other messages I consider the whole "bloat" concept a joke anyhow, so why stir up the conversation like that unnecessarily?

Naming the specific instances is irrelevant, because it's not about the specific instantiations. It's not the software, it's the cycle. Pretty much every text editor ever has started out as a "lean, fast" text editor. And then they grew. And then someone claimed that all the existing text editors are "bloated" and set out to make their own text editor.

> Pretty much every text editor ever has started out as a "lean, fast" text editor. And then they grew.

Not Notepad. http://notepadconf.com

it's hilarious, my favorites:

> .TXT: NoSQL before it was cool

> Advanced Notepad developer and VIM opponent.

> Hacking Notepad.exe : Using a hex editor to change the blue icon and more

> Workshop: Integrating Spell Checking Into Notepad. Attendees should bring a copy of Notepad, and a dictionary.