
How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome - cpeterso
http://gigaom.com/2013/05/22/how-google-plans-to-rule-the-computing-world-through-chrome/
======
jlgreco
I don't think I could disagree with the author more, and I am coming from the
perspective of someone who also bought a pixel. (Actually we agree there, it
is the best put together machine I've ever used... more on that later.)

I'm not running ChromeOS on my pixel right now. I tried it for a weekend, it
wasn't my cup of tea, and I slapped Debian onto it instead. No big surprise
there, I have different needs from most computer users. I want a web browser,
a tiling window manager, and a metric fuckton of urxvt's on my screen at
once... it doesn't surprise or concern me that I didn't like ChromeOS. I also
don't like OSX and Windows 7/8; clearly I have minority interests.

Who _is_ the target user of these systems then? Well, I may not like OSX or
Windows, but I certainly understand at least a segment of their market. If my
mother asks me for an opinion on what computer to get, I'm going to tell her
to get a mac, or to stick with the windows Thinkpads she's traditionally
gotten. Either of those are great for her, great for browsing the web,
watching videos, and viewing pictures from her camera. Now, as I understand
the marketing materials, this should make ChromeOS (probably not the pixel,
considering the cost, but ChromeOS) a perfect choice for her. I wouldn't even
_consider_ recommending ChromeOS to her though, the reality of ChromeOS does
not seem to fit the marketing materials or the author of this article's
described reality.

I tried browsing pictures from my phone on it. My _android_ phone. Fucking
awful experience. All of the shine but none of the grace of OSX. Wasted
screen-space everywhere, piss-poor file navigation, the works. Alright then,
how about watching some videos? Plug in my portable harddrive only to discover
that the video player on the thing has all the codec/container support of a
bargain-brand smart-tv from 2007. My _stock android phone_ does video a
thousand times better than this shit. Fine, maybe I was expecting too much of
the default video player. I don't expect my preferred mplayer to be available,
but my brothers got my mother hooked on VLC a few years ago. Can I try that?
Hahahaha no, what was I thinking? Alright, alright, what about webbrowsing?
Well I guess it works exactly as you would expect. You open chrome and browse
the web... nothing to complain about, nothing to get excited about. So score
one for ChromeOS I guess?

The Pixel's hardware though.. my god it is fantastic. Well, aside from the
absurdly tiny harddrive which would cripple any offline user with usage
patterns terribly dissimilar from mine (for example: my mother). And aside
from the uninspired RAM and processor offering... Those are not big complaints
though, those failings don't represent significant technical challenges. They
are things that could easily be fixed in the next revision. If those things
are resolved the next generation of Pixel could be a serious contender, as a
piece of _hardware_ , to any of Apple's offerings. They just don't have the
software to do it though. If this ChromeOS crap does end up taking off in a
few years it will be _despite_ the current state of affairs, much like
Android's current popularity is _despite_ the abysmal quality of earlier
versions. The market for desktop OS's is entirely different from the 2007-era
smartphone market though; ChromeOS isn't _"that thing you use if your
executives shit their pants when the iPhone was unveiled."_

Who would I recommend a pixel to? Nobody... nobody except for a very small
list of users that I know have usage patterns very similar to my own (and to
them I could not recommend the computer strongly enough). This could easily be
fixed though. Their hardware could have a future for itself.

Who would I recommend ChromeOS to, with any imaginable hardware? I honestly
have no idea, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

~~~
VikingCoder
You're confusing me, honestly. If you have a Windows box, and want to view
photos, would you settle for Paint? No, you'd be nuts to.

So when you want to browse pictures from your phone on your Chromebox, upload
them to flickr, and the experience is awesome.

When you want to watch some videos on your Chromebox, you watch Netflix
Instant Watch, or YouTube, or Google Play Movies, and the experience is
awesome.

It's like you're comparing Vanilla Windows to Vanilla Chrome. Why are you
tying one arm behind your back, like that? Install some programs on that
Windows box, and use the best of the web on your Chromebox.

~~~
sbuk
But you wouldn't use Paint. The Windows Photo View and Explorer actually do a
more than adequate job. Windows Media Player too does a reasonable job of
playing video. Netflix, YouTube and Google Play Movies don't solve the problem
of plying _my_ videos. The Mac, modern desktop Linux distos and Windows
support the functionality that the OP and you crave out of the box - as do
most tables, including the iPad. I just don't see where Chrome OS fits in.

~~~
VikingCoder
Yes, YouTube does solve the problem of playing your videos. And sharing them
with your friends. And archiving them, in case of disaster. If you're willing
to use YouTube, of course. If not, you can use Smugmug or Flickr or Vimeo
or...

ChromeOS is inherently an operating system that uses the internet to solve
users' problems.

Expecting ChromeOS to have BUILT-IN ways to do what you want to, is kind of
silly, in my mind. I validate that you may reject the design idea, but you're
forcing it into solving problems in a way it was inherently and intentionally
NOT designed to solve them.

~~~
WayneDB
YouTube or any other Internet Only service does not solve the problem of
playing my videos very well.

Why would I want to upload gigabytes of video instead of downloading a small
program to play them locally? If I care about archiving things - why would I
want to archive just my video files?

I don't think anyone expects ChromeOS to have many built-in ways of doing
things - but I also don't expect ChromeOS to be very widely used because it's
not solving users' problems very well at all. Unless of course...they add
native apps ;) Then it could be something.

~~~
VikingCoder
> Why would I want to upload gigabytes of video

To archive them. To share them.

> If I care about archiving things - why would I want to archive just my video
> files?

You wouldn't. You'd want to archive anything. I genuinely don't understand the
point you were trying to make here.

> it's not solving users' problems very well at all

I disagree. It solves my problems better than most other devices. "Playing my
videos," it does extremely well. Step one, I shoot them on my Android, so
they're instantly uploaded. If I have a video that's not on Android, I upload
it to YouTube to archive and share it.

Many people in Moore, OK are shifting through rubble, looking for family
photos. I think backing photos and videos up online makes a ton of sense...

~~~
WayneDB
I don't want or need to publish _many_ of my videos or photos online. They are
private; I'm a fairly private person.

Also - where am I supposed to put the terabytes of legally obtained digital
media that I own? Can you upload every movie you own to YouTube? Furthermore,
my NAS serves things quicker than any online service.

I also like a local player in case there's no Internet connection or if it's
slow. I go camping in the mountains and my mobile provider has spotty coverage
in remote regions.

So no, it doesn't solve the problem real well. I'll keep using _my_ NAS and
_online backup service_ and _general/full_ operating systems such as Windows,
OS X, Debian and CentOS.

~~~
VikingCoder
> They are private; I'm a fairly private person.

You don't need to publish them. I have YouTube videos uploaded which can only
be seen by me - with my two-factor authentication. I bet they're more secure
than most backups that most HN'ers use.

> So no, it doesn't solve the problem real well.

I'd wager most users don't have terabytes of data, or need to watch movies
when they go camping in the mountains.

Bummer it doesn't work for you, but I still think there a lot of people it
would work for.

~~~
WayneDB
> I have YouTube videos uploaded which can only be seen by me - with my two-
> factor authentication.

How can you be so sure? I think a Google employee or a three letter agency
could probably look at them if they wanted to. What if Anonymous gets hold of
them and wrongly identifies you as a bomber?

Also, I'd wager that most users don't _need_ to have all of their videos,
photos or other media available to them wherever they go or on whatever device
they're using.

------
millstone
> Both Packaged Apps and Native Client apps work on any computer that has the
> Chrome browser installed.

Hmm. On my Mid 2011 MacBook Air, I searched for the referenced "Cracking Sands
Racing" game on the Chrome Web Store, but found no results. I clicked on the
link from the article, and am told "This application is not supported on this
computer. Installation has been disabled." I guess they don't work on any
computer after all.

When I try the Chrome Web Store, I find it difficult to distinguish between
apps and what I would call just links to websites. For example, the top result
in the "Lifestyle" section is an "app" that is really just a link to a random
shopping site, full of the usual tracking cookies and advertising crap.

I feel tricked: if I wanted a shopping site, I'd have searched for it. Does
Google just let anyone submit a link to their site and call it an app?
Applications ought to have a higher quality bar.

~~~
Shooti
They're in the process of reorganizing the store to do exactly that. Preview
is available on Dev/Canary channels:
[http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/preview-new-chrome-
packaged...](http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/preview-new-chrome-packaged-
apps.html)

------
cromwellian
A bit overly dramatic. Long term, I think there will be a harmonization
between Chrome packaged apps and Firefox OS apps, and maybe even Surface RT. I
personally prefer 'drive by' apps and I think install should really mean
"bookmark and pin my cache".

The real issue is keeping the Web viable, as it is under attack from native
platforms, and both Google and Firefox have to keep aggressively upgrading the
platform to keep to competitive with what's available.

We've seen an astounding amount of innovation in the browser in the last few
years. As Larry Page said at I/O when asked, eventually developers should not
have to think about the platform.

~~~
Spearchucker
Not so sure. The Internet and the browser make _many_ scenarios _very_ easy
(Joel Spolsky makes a great case). Jeff Attwood, with ego firmly in hand,
named a law after himself that says any software that can be written, will be
written for the browser.

While entirely possible, that's an extreme view, and maybe not very realistic.

The web's "viability" as you put it, will naturally shrink into its natural
niche. First and foremost it's probably good to remember that the web relies
on a transport layer. There are apps (web sites, email and so on) that live on
top of that. That transport layer is what makes the web compelling, but that's
not the only possibility (or future) that that layer affords us.

I think the real viability question is not the web, but rather data ownership.
Users' personal information created Facebook, user knowledge created Stack
Exchange, and user behaviour generates Google's income (amongst many examples
on the web).

Users that _are_ the raison d'être for these web sites have no power over, or
control of their data. And it's that fact that will shift (and on mobile,
already is shifting) focus back to native client apps that are completely
decoupled from the browser. These apps use the Internet as a transport layer,
in much the same way a browser does.

The shift then, as I see it, is towards one in which the balance of power over
data is maintained in a natural equilibrium.

In that world, the Stack Exchanges will do well online because their
acquisition of user knowledge benefits users directly. The Facebooks and
Googles will (I imagine) remain relevant, but not in the way they'd like to
be.

In conclusion, what the article posits will probably come to be, to a degree
and for a while.

But it ain't the future.

------
pjmlp
Good luck. There was a company in Redmond trying to do the same with IE.

~~~
rogerchucker
Difference: IE was ugly and IE experience was ugly.

~~~
sbuk
I personally find Chrome 'ugly'. Surely 'ugly' is an opinion? Also, I
challenge your "IE experience was ugly." comment. Many seem to forget how
revolutionary and influential IE 6 _is_. Google are very much standing on
Microsoft shoulders here, like it or not.

~~~
VikingCoder
> Google are very much standing on Microsoft shoulders here, like it or not.

That's a fine point of view, but I think that it's more accurate to say that
Google and Microsoft are standing on the same shoulders.

~~~
sbuk
Really? I'd suggest that Microsoft development of XMLHTTP and by extension
XMLHttpRequest were pretty big developments for the web as we know it today.
They certainly enabled Google to produce many of their services that are taken
for granted today.

~~~
VikingCoder
As I said, there's nothing wrong with your point of view. There's no denying
that in the history of the web, those were important moments.

I'd say the creation of the web browser, HTML, HTTP, were even larger moments.
And in that regard, Microsoft and Google are standing side-by-side on the
shoulders of giants.

And I'd go further and say that when Google decided to make JavaScript
performance a top-priority, and started pushing HTML5 standards, Microsoft has
been the one playing catch-up. I'd say that those efforts enabled Microsoft to
produce Metro, which is core to their new push.

~~~
sbuk
No.

------
deepak-kumar
I used to be a Firefox fan but not anymore, I made chrome my default browser
and I am highly satisfied. Now I use FF just to test while developing things.
I love lightness of chrome and have shifted all dev related work to chrome. I
wont be surprised if chrome becomes the first choice all the developers in
next couple of years.

~~~
venomsnake
On a side note the only problem i had with chrome is that you cannot disable
disk cache. The problem was easily solved with junctions to /Device/Null for
the Cache and MediaCache folder.

~~~
robocat
Not sure if this is valid but:

User Bapabooiee:

Well, you guys are in luck (BTW, great work-around, Xenofon), since Chrome now
has two startup switches that you can use:

\--disk-cache-dir and \--disk-cache-size

Simply close Chrome, right-click your Chrome shortcut, click Properties, and
then in the field labeled "Target:", make it look something like this:

"...chrome.exe" --disk-cache-dir="CACHE_DIR" --disk-cache-size=N

Where 'CACHE_DIR' is the new cache location, and 'N' is the cache size limit,
in bytes.

Use whichever switch you need, or both. Keep in mind, however, that these
features may not be completely stable yet. But you probably shouldn't have any
problem with using them.

And to anyone who's interested, I caught gander of the existence of these
switches directly from a source code file for Chrome. See here:

[http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_s...](http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_switches.cc)

Hope this helps!

~~~
forgotAgain
Thanks! I'm trying it now. The caching directives work. Hopefully this will
fix the performance issues I've been seeing with Chrome the past two months.

The issues I'm talking about are constant disk access and freezing the entire
machine when I open multiple tabs simultaneously.

------
dochtman
This stuff seems like an excellent reason to go back to Firefox.

~~~
davesims
I tend to agree. Google is looking more and more like the MS of the new
century. Chrome's performance advantage has all but been erased by FF (and in
some cases FF is better in my anecdotal experience), and I find FF's add-on
ecosystem _still_ better than Chrome's for development.

FF is OSS (as far as that goes) and certainly not sitting still. Seems like
the obvious dev choice to me these days.

------
netcan
Google is missing a key thing in its personality or repertoire. The ability to
create god solid concepts that everyone understands. A nice tight category of
thing that can have a name and a meaning.

Apple is the example of a company that did/does. iOS apps were a clear concept
of day one. What are they? Where are they? How do you get them? How do you get
rid of them? The average user is much less likely to be confused by that
question on iOS than any other platform. They're one indivisible thing with
one icon and no hair.

Google's exploratory Failure is OK, Let The Users Figure It Out mentality is
good too. It produces some really good stuff. But, for a lot of the things
that google is trying to do, the ability to create really strong concepts is
important. "Packaged web app" or "chrome app" or even "web app" are not clear
concepts. Users don't understand them. Is it a website? Is it a Link? Is it on
my computer?

It's not just here that this ability would make a difference. Hangouts. Plus.
Wave (rip). They all had definition problems.

------
venomsnake
The precedent of Microsoft + DOJ and in Europe about IE means that some walled
garden vendors will be somewhat reluctant to restrict browsers - especially if
google has big enough legal guns. Which could give a (complicated) holes in
the wall for vendors and users that like the hardware but hate the appstores.

------
kijin
Or rather, how Google plans to rule the _consumer_ computing world.

It's been a while since the average Facebook addict really needed a computer
anyway, they can all throw their laptops away and switch full-time to phones
and tablets and I won't care.

But businesses and professionals have different needs. I don't see web apps
and NaCl apps replacing Office suites, IDEs, or 3D graphic design tools
anytime in the next decade, no matter how much Google tries to advertise
Google Drive (Docs) as an Office replacement. There's a lot more to
"computing" than shiny new consumer-grade gadgets. Although I vaguely remember
a Chrome add-on that can SSH into remote machines, why would I use it when I
have GNU utilities running natively on my OS?

> _What does your desktop look like a year from now?_

Probably the same as it does now. Lots of terminals and text editors, maybe a
browser window or two in the background.

~~~
willvarfar
FWIW, the company I work at just moved from a windows+office+outlook setup to
google apps.

And it just worked. Very smooth migration.

Just a random datapoint, not claiming its a trend.

~~~
camus
and what do you do when the network is down ?

~~~
jpatokal
Keep working offline?
[http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1628467)

------
gizzlon
If we for a second assume this is happening, I can't decide if it's worrisome
development or something I should try to exploit..

~~~
abraininavat
I think it's the nature of business that those two opinions aren't mutually
exclusive in any way.

------
ericssmith
This observation brings some potential context to the rationale for the Dart
language.

------
squozzer
Well thought-out post, but probably a little sanguine on the timeline. People
are still digesting App Store and other platforms.

------
AutocorrectThis
There are a lot of caveats to the stats.

First, look at the browser marketshare table.

Notice how Net Applications shows Chrome only at 16% while the others are
close to 40%? Wonder why?

Net Applications attempts to measure what individual users are using, while
Statcounter tries to measure how much of browsing is done though a particular
browser. That is, if you browse 1000 webpages a day and use Chrome, and your
girlfriend browses only 50 but uses Firefox, Statcounter counts you as 20
times more marketshare than your girlfriend! In this hypothetical scenario,
Statcounter will give Firefox 5% of marketshare and Chrome 95%, even though
half of people use Firefox.

This is like setting up a lookout on a road in a typical US city and
concluding that the Ford Crown Victoria is the most popular car in America,
based on the fact that you see it most since the taxicabs and police patrol
cars drive back and forth all day(since you're not tracking the license plate)
while the best selling cars like the Honda Civic/Accord, Toyota Camry/Corolla
are not driven as much during a typical day. So, if you're writing a Chrome
app, you're targeting only around 16% of people, not 40%.

Google bundles Chrome by default with Flash, Acrobat and Java updates which
are installed on 98% of computers by paying a lot for it, Mozilla has nowhere
near the huge ad revenues like Google does. Not to mention how Chrome is
pushed on Google properties like Gmail and Youtube. I keep seeing a "Slow
browser? Upgrade to Chrome." message on Gmail sometimes while using the latest
version of Opera.

The biggest challenge Chrome apps will have is that they won't run on the
hottest devices right now, the iPad and iPhones. Apple prohibits any sort of
native API or dynamic code in iOS apps so Chrome apps will be confined to
HTML5 and WebGL.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Net Applications count unique daily users, so if you surf all day you'll be
counted as exactly the same as your friend who only surfs a little each day.
However, you will both be counted 7 times more than someone who only surfs
once a week.

So both give weight to more regular web surfers, it's just that Net
Applications caps it at the level of daily use.

~~~
chadlundgren
In addition to counting vistors rather than hits, Net Applications has a
global number of 6.22% for Internet Explorer 6. No, that is not a typo, that
is the number pulled today, because Net Applications performs geographic
weighting of their data, and China has 24% usage. That inflates the global
Internet Explorer numbers and is higher than IE7. Last time I looked at
ie6countdown.com, the US and European numbers were 0.2%.

Sources:
[http://www.netapplications.com/newsletter2/20090803/nanl.htm...](http://www.netapplications.com/newsletter2/20090803/nanl.html)
[http://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-
share.aspx?qprid=2&...](http://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-
share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0) <http://www.ie6countdown.com/>

