Google announces operating system Comments by Tom Bramwell

@ kangaroo

"@miiiguel

Whoa there, I'm not saying someone isn't qualified to have an opinion. Not a bit of it.

Let me try again.

I suppose in my usual arsey way, I am just dismissing off the cuff suggestions that Google will bugger this up. "


yay, no problem it just, kinda, sounded like "a person that likes to play video-games" (uuufff... "gamer" is easy, I give you that...), is devoid of any credible analitic capability. Then again, I have a very active nervous system.
Anyway, regarding Google buisness model you are indeed correct, imo, there's something fishy going on, like I said, they're not a Commune. While MS/(insert any IT company here) have a basic and understandable (and easily "bashable") buisness model - give me you money, I give you my product - Google does something else, though, they still need the money, make no mistake. And we're not the only ones who find this all a bit strange, I remeber an interview with Ballmer on Portugues TV where the guy admitted that Google is a mistery to him for the same reasons, they do need to make money, (Milton Friedman quote here... again).

The problem is that it's not Windows vs Chrome, it's Windows vs Chrome vs Redhat vs Unix vs Unbuntu vs OS X vs SUSE vs Hundreds of other operating systems.

To be fair I expect google to grab quite a large share of the netbook market as it's pretty fresh (unlike the OS and search engine markets) at first but google don't have any significant USPs here compared with any of the other operating systems, (especially since Windows 7 seems to have been designed with one eye on netbooks). Afterall it's not like Android has really overtaken the smart phone market and it's not like Windows Mobile (or any other OS) has any sort of monoploly there.

Android is still pretty new. We are still on the first generation aren't we?

I remember when google was just a search engine, and then it slowly started being the "best" search engine and before long searching was being called "googling".

Then they released a web based email client, and half the people in the world started using it.

I don't expect big things from their OS adventures anytime in the next 3 years, but I expect that have a plan that is rather longer than that.

Wasn't already estabilished that google's sources of income are advertising and market research?

Seriously, I remember planning to install Google Desktop Search some years ago, and giving up on that notion, as soon as I read the Terms of Use carefully enough.

@kangarootoo: Keep in mind, there is an enterprise version of gmail that I'm quite sure is not free ;)

"sources of income are advertising and market research? "

That's more creepy than fishy, tbh.

Netbooks get returned once Uncle Jim can't plug his camera in to upload photos to Facebook. It's going to be hilarious watching Google slink away from this in twelve months.

Since when is Uncle Jim the target audience for netbooks?

I've not read all of the comments, but the other potential use for this is for the 'cloud' based systems such as Dave Perry's Gaikai.

It'd be nice to see how well this'd playback H.264 video in the browser on an average netbook.

"That's more creepy than fishy, tbh."

Yes, pretty creepy.

@miiiguel

"That's not what I meant, what I meant was the opposite, being a person who likes to play video-games (gamer became offesive, imo), does not disqualify someone to have an opinion."

Hey miiiguel, I think kangarootoo was referring to this particular post of Garulon's (and NOT all gamers in general, although his usage of the term was unfortunately equivocal), which imo was a pretty fanboyish post - I mean, I assume most people here know which platform Garulon loves, and his criticism of Google's effort seemed a bit sophomoric.

makeamazing: You complain about cost and then continue on about how good apple stuff is. I'm also interested in what all these supposedly free

@Xerx3s, Im complaining about the cost of the OS, not any hardware costs.. Vista is not very cost effective. It doesnt contain anything of much use except for the ability to use a PC and hasnt moved forward in many years. I purchased an Mac Mini which came with iLife, Free of charge, which is just an amazing bit of productivity software. You may not agree, but after years of using MS OS's, some of the things that Apple do in their OS, should have been in Vista years ago (MS Task Bar in Vista is pants, so is the file browsing). Dont you find it strange that there are tons of neat programs on the web allowing you to change how Windows does things such as folder browsing, program access, tagging etc etc, its because Windows isnt that intuitive.

@wush, the comment still stands, Vista wasnt that good, I didnt mind it, but ALOT of people (developers included) hated it. Dont get me started on UAC.

The problem is when MS include quality software like Internet Explorer or Media Player the EU give them a big slap for being anti competitive

Yes I hate the EU for that. IE is just a free browser, is totally the wrong thing to be going after, there are much more serious Anti competative issues going on than who has a free browser installed. I do believe that has done more damage to improving the long term of future Windows than anything. Who knows what the next thing they decide shouldnt be included.

Im not saying this because I am anti MS, in fact i have purchased alot of MS software over the years, but its just not that smooth (looks at office 2007), the same problems and issues that have plagued it for over 10 years. It seems that other software is moving forward and the OS/MS software is not getting anywhere fast. This may be the reason that MS isnt going to be doing longterm major releases anymore, so they can release features more often.

Anyway regardless of if you agree or not, another company getting involved in OS's is a GOOD thing for all involved. Because anything Google does well, you can bet the others will follow.

I anything this is a direct competitor to the Moblin OS that Intel is pushing. I installed it today and while not running directly in a browser it is a very slimmed and quite nice interface.

About Google making an OS ... when will someone start to question Google's influence and acess to our data?

Google now gets tons of data from our searches
They get our surfing habits through adsense which you find basically everywhere now
Many many sites use Google Analytics for their stats which gives google even more info about your surfing habits
Gmail gives them access to the contents of all mail (for ad-purposes and anonymously but still ...)
Everyone using Google Docs, Google Calendar etc. again gives Google access to the content
The Android OS is tightly tied to all Google services
Chrome at least in the beginning was collecting surfing data

And now they want to create another OS for Netbooks etc. which most probably will give them even more data of surfing bhabits, app usage etc., all for their purpose to serve ads ...

At which point will they have access to too much data? If it was any other company that google (imagine if Microsoft did this) people would be up in arms but just because Google say "do no harm" and are "cool and hip" it is ok?

Don't get me wrong. I use some Google services and am currently trying to learn programming in Android for my HTC Magic so I'm not necessarily anti-Google. I just think that people are taking Google's data-mining a bit lighter than they would if it was any other company. The idea that in some distant future we would all run Google OS on our computer, Google OS on our phones, Google Gmail, Google Search, use various Google Apps to do all our office stuff, GTalk fo messaging, Youtube for videos, Picassa for images etc. etc. - doesn't it scare anyone else that we are handing that much data to one company?

designed to be fast, simple and secure, getting you online within a few seconds

Isnt that what most Linux OS do? And they are mostly free

"Dont you find it strange that there are tons of neat programs on the web allowing you to change how Windows does things such as folder browsing, program access, tagging etc etc, its because Windows isnt that intuitive."

No, that's because Windows is used by milions and milions of users. Take the windows manager I use in my SuSE box, TWM, which is used by 7 persons in the whole world, and I can assure you there aren't many ready-made configurations tailored to many types of users. I can guaratee that it's not because it's perfect.
Thing is - and please let's try to avoid the fanboy route - MS has an image problem, like Swed said Google can get away with fishy stunts (I'm not say they're evil not even that their going the unethical route, just saying they managed to build a "nice/cool dudes" image, where ppl almost forget that they do not work for free), I'm sure MS couldn't. That said, I think I feel more confortable in actually paying for my products - old style trading process - than having my life datamined.

Even though Ive been using windows stuff since 3.11, its not gone anywhere good since 95/98. If anyone thinks the folder searching/browsing is good in Windows, well then they are well and truely mad. Guess i'm not going to convince some people... but some people are used to what they have and dont like change As for the 3rd party apps, there is a reason why many people are turning to them to change the way the desktop works... thats because..... you know the answer and its not just because lots of people use windows. :)

As for Google, I agree, they are just as fishy as any other major company.. and at some point everyone will be on their back, and the EU will be after them (which I think they already are). But as i said, the more companies involved the more innovation, how can that be bad... its not :)

If anyone thinks the folder searching/browsing is good in Windows, well then they are well and truely mad. Guess i'm not going to convince some people...

If that was for me, I can only say you really don't know me. I just use Windows for Exchange at work, for searching I use...ksh's find , which is awesome - though you wont find me saying MS are evil on earth because I had a blue screen back in '98. There's this strange idea that if one dude enjoys to waste his free time on a 360 he must ass wipe MS, or indeed if he likes to do the same on a PS3 he's forced to type M$.

miiiguel, aren't you? All the cool kids here are doing it :) If a man can't have his console war, what should he do with his spare time?

"will be for tech geeks, like their browser"
Wait, what? Chrome is for geeks? What the hell do you browse on, the Wii? I don't even use the damn thing, but I still have to admit it's the simplest and most straightforward of all the browsers. If I was going to give one of them to my parents to use, it'd be Chrome.

In that same vein, I hope the Chrome OS uses the same principle once it reaches desktop. I'd love for my parents to use a simple, secure piece of tech on their home PC instead of Windows. It would save so much time on the cleanup every time I drop by.

Also someone complained that old folks are sending back netbooks because their cameras don't work with Linux? Really? You couldn't pick a better example? I mean, something that's actually true? Out of all the things actually barring Linux netbooks from wide use, and you had to go and make stuff up?

But I agree with the guy complaining that datacenters and small businesses aren't going to use Google OS. After all, we all know how MacOS X failed without corporate support...
Hey, wait a minute...
You know, I understand that working as a sysadmin in a large company you might have a skewed view on the market, but not every product is meant for JPMorgan Chase to buy. There are such things as small consumers. A fuckton of them, actually.

Also I recall someone claiming the EU barred Internet Explorer from Windows because it was 'quality software'.

You might want to rethink that line of reasoning, man.

If anyone thinks the folder searching/browsing is good in Windows, well then they are well and truely mad. Guess i'm not going to convince some people... but some people are used to what they have and dont like change As for the 3rd party apps, there is a reason why many people are turning to them to change the way the desktop works...

Examples please :) I find most apps are simply alternatives rather than solutions; and it's down to the user's subjective preference. finder on Mac, and konquerer on kde aren't any better.

Also someone complained that old folks are sending back netbooks because their cameras don't work with Linux? Really? You couldn't pick a better example? I mean, something that's actually true?

Let me google that for you

"Let me google that for you"

Using the specialized site instead of just pointing to a Google search was really thoughtful of you. You could have spent that 30 seconds reading what I wrote instead.

I never claimed that Linux netbooks *aren't* being returned - it's common knowledge. I said that out of many reasons for why that may be the case, incompatibility with digital cameras is REALLY low on the list. But look at me writing, when in all likelihood you won't read this far again.

It's interesting reading up on this. It does seem to be one of those situations where the more knowlegable folk are heaving with prejudices. Slashdot is full of "I'm not computing online, what about my privacy?" and "why not use another Linux Distro?", while here is full of "This is just a web browser" and "This doesn't affect games".

Moving the PC market from a hardware based scenario to a thin client web based scenario will change PC gaming forever, if it succeeds. There's quite an overlap between what Google want to do and what Onlive et al want to do. Yes, to begin with it will just be easy and cheap netbooks, but that's the beginning. Once you wean managers off windows and have school children grow up realising there are alternatives, you've broken MS's hold of the PC market.

The potential portability of it is astounding. As long as the basic functions are flexible you could throw it on anything because the programs are web based. You could have one on anything from a phone to a PS3.

I'm not saying it will definitely revolutionise the world, but if it takes off, it'll have vast ramifications for world of computers.

Eoin

I have a fairly decent insight into how Google works, due to friends working there. They're pretty open about how they make their money. They make money through ads. The more stuff they make, the stronger their brand, the more searches they get,the more profit they make. As for data mining, if you think Google are bad, you should look at what their competitors do. There are so many morally dubious tracking tools that they don't use that a lot of their rivals do. Scary stuff.

It's also worth noting how ideologically pure the Google CEOs are. They are basically hippies. It's not an accident that they make so much stuff open source. At the moment they're one of the most morally sound companies in the world (due to employee treatment, environmental work, charitable donations etc) It may be worth arguing that we're in world's tallest midget teritory here.

I have no doubt that in 10 years time Google will be just as bad as MS are now, but for the moment they'rea very well behaved company and I'd rather deal with Open source software from them than closed software from MS (as that way we know what Google are up to)

Eoin