Google's Chrome OS assailed by needless, dangerous by critics - Page 4

Is this what you're referring to, in part?

http://viralpatel.net/blogs/2010/10/...i-example.html

Yes, doing specifically that task is what Google has demoed. Offline apps are focus here.


So Google wants you to be online, obviously, but they arent ignoring that there are times when you wont be able to.

Some people have better critical thinking skills than others. Some people are hopelessly (and dangerously) naive, and have the gall to suggest that more informed people are "paranoid".
I wish it weren't so, and I wish more people had the fortitude to stand up and say, "2 + 2 does NOT = 5, no matter how much you threaten me otherwise"

The link you provided to ARS also contained this:



Here's how I see the issue.

To be acceptable for a standard OS (Win, OS X, 'Nix, iOS, Android, etc) replacement, a browser-based OS must:

-- sit on top of some underlying OS with drivers, file management, task management, memory management, etc, or provide them itself
-- be able to access web content and web apps when available
-- be able to access equivalent desktop apps and content at any time
-- standardize and simplify the UX
-- have access to the underlying OS so that apps running on the desktop have function and performance equivalent to desktop apps


The final point is key, IMO!

Apparently, Google plans to use the "Native Client" plugin (linked above) to access the underlying OS.

This is somewhat similar in function to the ActiveX plugin that MS used to make IE web apps more like desktop apps (with all its plusses and minuses).

I do not believe that the OS manufacturers will allow this plugin!

I can see someone like Apple or MS rewriting apps (iWork, Office) that work with a browser interface (their browser) and take advantage of the underlying OS on their desktop that also work well with their web equivalent apps.


I don't see Apple or MS allowing Chrome OS to sit on top of their OS and have underlying access to that OS.

Likely, this means that Chrome OS desktop apps will be second class citizens -- at best equal in function to their web apps.

So, I guess this means that acceptance of Chrome OS as a replacement for a traditional OS on a computer or tablet depends on whether Google's Web apps are robust enough and a complete enough package -- that a significant number of users will use Chrome OS.


I suspect not!

1) Doesn’t iwork.com already work on other WebKit-based browsers? I thought MS was working to make their Office Live compatible with all modern browser-engines.

2) I don’t think Chrome OS is meant to unseat anyone’s primary computing device, it’s being pushed right now as a replacement for a full fledged desktop machine that is operating much slower than it should because it’s using resources that most will not utilize.

3) While I see this type of OS having a great impact in the poorest countries among the poorest people, it is being marketed as a secondary or satellite computer, much like the iPad is. The arguments against *not* having Mac OS X in full on the iPad are pretty much the same as those that say you can’t use a browser-based OS and get anything done, that’s it’s not enough “computing”, yet if I were write a book I’d much rather do it on the cr-48 notebook’s keyboard than on an iPad’s touchscreen.

PS: Your Einstein joke (different thread) made me spit up my coffee on my Mac. Thanks.

while i do hope the offline stuff actually works, it gets back to another issue. how safe is the data on the chrome os netbook? no encryption? i can't find anything stating if it is encrypted or not?

I dont know about the encryption on the device itself, but I think the Google docs use SSL like Gmail Regardless thats something that can be done on a browser-based OS. It would be nice if does have HW based encryption that could be wiped if too many failed attempts happened, just like modern smartphone OSes.

AS for how well offline apps work. Had you tried Google Gears in the past? This was Googles answer to offline web apps back in the HTML4 days. There dropping it in favor of HTML5s solutions tells me it should work just fine. As an FYI, in iOS under Settings » Safari » Databases you should see a list of sites already utilizing this feature of HTML5.

Google Docs doesn't works offline now because they are still changing to HTML5 from Gears.

Yes, but AFAIK, these all will be "lite" versions of the apps -- meant to augment the full, robust, high-performance desktop versions. I don't see Google apps having the desktop versions.

Yes, but are web apps with local store sufficient to be a replacement -- asking as I don't know.

I agree -- with qualification. The difference is that iOS is a fairly robust OS and iPad apps such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote are fairly robust -- even in their first implementation. That is because they can avail themselves of features in the underlying OS.

Here's an off-the-wall example of what I am trying to say:

1) Pages on the Mac allows use of Bezier curves to define free-form lines, shapes and masks.

2) Pages on the iPad does not support Bezier curves.

Likely, the reason for the lack of iPad support is two fold:
-- requires a graphics processor
-- requires access to Bezier API/Framework in the OS

The iPad has a respectable GPU

Until 4.0, iOS did not support the Bezier API/Framework.

Now it does, and I suspect that iPad Pages will be upgraded to support Bezier curves.

3) Pages on the Web could allow access to the GPU and Bezier API/Framework when being run from a Mac or an iDevice -- because it knows it is there and it knows that it is permitted access to the GPU and underlying OS.

4) The web versions of Word or Google's WP, likely, will not be allowed (or motivated) to access the underlying OS or API/Framework.


In this case, Pages Web == Pages iOS == Pages Mac.


I used the Bezier curve as an example, but there are a slew of things that a WP does that involve sophisticated APIs and hardware -- flowing text around images in multiple column documents, for example.

While Google aps could exploit the hardware and OS APIs when running on the server -- they, likely, will not be able to exploit the same hardware and APIs when running the app on the desktop... unless Google is supplying the OS, the APIs and the GPU APIs.



Is Chrome OS a full OS in itself or does it sit atop another OS?

I agree with all your points. In fact, the ideal for Google might be to:

-- merge Android and Chrome
-- hide the underlying Linux
-- port it to Intel as well as ARM
-- Flesh out the Google web apps to work better on the desktop (with the same UI)
-- and/or rework Android desktop apps to augment Google web apps

I'll send you a napkin... The iPad's virtual kb is a lot easier to clean than Mac kb

Well, Chrome OS is a Linux distribution but it can be viewed as a full os and not sitting atop of another.

Ahh... OK.

Been a long time since I looked at Linux!

Does Linux have APIs and Frameworks similar to the Mac & iOS Core Graphics, CoreAnimation, NSTableView, SQlite, CoreLocation, MediaPlayer, etc.

Or are all these things left to the particular desktop or X-Window interface

Note this is for several reasons. Pervasive google adsense, pervasive google analytics, pervasive gmail that drags in unwitting 3rd party personal info. Google's tentacles are literally everywhere on the web.


Thanks pmz, I only hope we can convince more people to pay attention. Even if they don't change their behavior in the near term, I just wish people would try to be critical thinkers and not dismiss the inherent problems out of hand.

solipsism, I was really hoping you would have at least responded to the point I made in post #78 here on this thread. Rather than a kind of odd summary dismissal all at once of several people's varied concerns.

Or anyone else can chime in for that matter, as I mentioned, it's not particularly targeted at solipsism more than anyone else. He'd just mentioned that he uses gmail, and I wondered if he ever considered the fact that he's dragging his friends' (potentially) personal info into google's infinitely-lived data repository.

Let me try to illustrate by example:

If you walked into, say, Best Buy, and the guy at the checkout counter said: "Hey, I see you're buying an XBox, so we have a special for you today. If you give us the names, addresses, phone #s and emails of 3 of your best friends, we'll give you $10 off your purchase!". I think most of you would laugh in their face, right? Would you even dream of doing this? (I really am curious, if you read this, I'd love your answer or comment - I wish this was in a fresh thread)

And yet what people do with gmail is much, much more invasive than that. You give away your friends' travel schedules, physical ailments, info about their (or your) children and where they live and go to school, shopping habits, who their doctors are, etc., and that doesn't even get into the super personal stuff like what kind of "subversive" organizations they belong to, or who's cheating on whom. Essentially, everything you type in gmail permanently belongs to Google. They may still be (mostly) nice guys now, but there's absolutely no guarantee of that after today, and you can almost guarantee that at some point they won't be.

I doubt many people will change their usage even after considering this, because the technology is very well-implemented, and as such it's got an almost drug-like addictive quality. But there's often a downside to such things. My real hope right now is merely to raise awareness of what you're doing when you use gmail. I've told my friends that use gmail (very few, surprisingly) that I do not want to share personal info of any kind with them via their gmail accounts. You'd think that wouldn't be a terrible burden, right? And yet for some people they just don't fucking get it. At all. Repeatedly. It's sad.

Again, my goal is not to try to make people run off and delete their gmail accounts right this minute (!), but to make sure everyone fully understands that they are not just opting themselves in, but opting their friends in as well. Into a system that they might not want to be part of and/or might not really even understand. And that's not nice.