Re: Start menu
You can lead a zealot to a decision but you can't make him think...
1913 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2009
Hmmm, so Google is adding something to Chrome that removes "unwanted software" - something that "scans for and cleans potentially harmful applications, specifically the types that negatively impact or target the Chrome browsing experience"
"Unwanted" - by whom, exactly? I know I don't want malware on my PC, but this doesn't specifically state "malware". I don't want software that enables Google (or anyone else) to track me on my PC - will it remove that? I somehow doubt it...
This is typical Google - the front is "we're helping! we're making things better for you!" - but it reality, they are merely tightening their grip over controlling what we see. Not to long ago, we had Google's adblocker, and before that blocking for sites that prompt app installation...
This creeping censorship needs to be stopped, right now. And the only way this will be achieved is to completely separate the various concerns that Google, sorry, Alphabet currently control - just as Microsoft before them were forced to display alternatives to Internet Explorer, so Google search should have to clearly label their own products in search results and present alternatives with the same prominence on the results page - no more "Upgrade your browsing experience!" calls to action at the head of the results page (probably the primary reason why Chrome now leads the browser market share).
Microsoft's control of the desktop is probably the greatest obstacle Google have right now, as when using a PC, the vast majority of people still have to go through a Microsoft product to use a Google one, hence Google's ongoing aggressive efforts to discredit Microsoft, (as opposed to getting their own house in order) - personally, I would not be surprised if the 90-day limit had its roots in anti-competition laws, and Google would be all too willing to disclose earlier if they thought they could get away with it.
They must be laughing their arses off at all the commentards in whose grudges are so deep-rooted that they cannot see what is going on right under their noses...
Go to Google and search for "docker container orchestration" - every single link above the fold is "kubernetes".
Go to bing or duckduckgo, and it's a mixture of docker, github and "what are containers" - basically, the same links that appear below the fold on Google...
Yet another example the ghoul abusing its dominant position in search to undermine the competition.
Better they are reported now than after it has been re-engineered in such a way that it can circumvent Play Store security.
It's very embarrassing how some people either have their heads stuck in the sand over potential security issues... or is this a case of attempted reputation damage limitation?
Oracle are doing this all wrong - they need to embrace open source...
... literally. Take what they need from open source, contribute to it and wrap it up in a bunch of proprietary support systems so tightly it's almost impossible to decouple without massive functionality loss.
"You only have to look at a current Chromebook to see the future..."
... and yet these are exactly the same people who are bitching about Win10 telemetry. Google's entire business is based on spying on us, it has been pretty much since day one! And people are blindly accepting it! Not even Microsoft achieved that!
Wake up!
"Of the top 30 games on Google Play, 27 apps contained ads and the same number contained in-app purchases. All were free to download and targeted casual gamers."
When faced with this sort of attitude, coupled with an ever-increasing demand for content, is it really such a surprise that game devs are turning to ads to get a return for their hard graft?
Ultimately, it's up to the consumers to reverse this situation - but when even the biggest names in game development get shot down for trying to use the free-trial-paid-full-game model, it does not bode well for the future.
Ten years ago, in the pre-iPhone/Android days, Windows Mobile was "the most popular smartphone software in the US"... but it was still Microsoft; it wan't cool.
Had Microsoft done the same thing as they had in the console market and dropped the "Windows" branding, they might have had a better chance... but I guess that was far too sensible an idea.
While I the only thing I trust Google to do is be dishonest, I can see a small amount of merit in this project, given the current environment...
(Yep, this link has "anti-adblocker" measures on it, but they're easy to disable).
2017 in review:
Microsoft: Hey, we didn't validate our update before rolling it out - top that!
Google: That's nothing - we released the latest version of our mobile OS with a bug that eats all your data - top that!
Apple: Hold my beer...
"Maybe, just maybe, Apple is better at security?"
Oh no no no no no. You just can't say stuff round here. Repeat the mantra after me:
"Open - good, walled garden - bad. Open - good, walled garden - bad."
Ignore the fact that "Open" these days means "closely tied in with a suite of proprietary support systems that it is almost impossible to operate without."
Conform.
"For the video creator..."
If Youtube were an channel created by Google and contained exclusively content that Google had paid for the use of or commissioned themselves then yes, I would agree.
But it's not - anyone and their mother can load up a video to Youtube.
It would be like if a hosting company started making PCs, then turned round to everyone whose site was hosted on their servers and said "Oh, we're only going to be serving your sites to people using the PCs we've made from now on". Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?
I'm sure we've seen this behaviour from Google before...
Not that Google would buy out the front-runner of a service, push it to the top of their search results, then once it has the lions share of the market, pull its availability from competitors in other arenas.
Feels a lot like tying to me...
"FoundEm & all the other price comparison sites develop their own search engine and make it better than Google"
That's like saying "How about Google develop their own desktop OS and make it better than Windows".
Whether or not Windows is better than Chrome OS is a matter of personal belief and irrelevant - Windows is deeply entrenched in enterprise by virtue of a massive land-grab early on, and to replace it will require changing the minds of those who are used to Windows (this probably explains Google's decision to target the education market - the "hook 'em while they're young" strategy).
Similarly, Google has made the same sort of landgrab in web search - having the best search engine at the time was vital, but ultimately by marketing themselves as the good guys ("Don't be evil") at a time when the dominant Microsoft were being torn a new one over bundling IE, they won the hearts and minds of the devs. Microsoft then missed the boat with the web as a whole, and now we have reached the point where we no longer "search the web" for something - we "google" it.
By controlling search, Google effectively control discoverability and marketing of pretty much anything on the web - their Chrome browser being a prime example. Do you think for one moment that Google will allow a competing service to make any kind of headway in winning over it audience?
Short of some kind of large-scale legal injunction, on a similar level as this one for price comparison, Google will maintain their stranglehold on web search, just as Microsoft continues to have dominance over the desktop OS market. And even then, the chances are if offered a choice of search engine in the same way Microsoft were forced to offer a choice of browser, most people would choose Google as it is what they are used to - just as they did with Internet Explorer post-browser-wars, until Google started splashing "upgrade your browser" links to Chrome all over their search pages.
So basically, Google shopping - being a "separate entity" - can bid on the slots for Google search page.
... except that Alphabet, parent to the both of these, is one of the top five most profitable companies in the world, with several billion at its disposal to invest in any of its child companies.
Yeah, any competitor to Google shopping is really going to be able to outbid that. And - as previously pointed out - potentially another way to avoid tax.
Google's capacity for evil seems to be rivalled only by the EU admin's capacity to be really stupid.
So basically, you're saying that you need to be some kind of amazing wizard in order to learn Javascript?
Given the furore over default browsers about a decade and a half ago, surely the "correct" behaviour in this instance - and indeed for whenever any browser is first started - would be to put up a page with Bing, Google, Duck Duck Go et. al. all presented in a random order and ask the user to select which one they want to make their default search engine?
Either we have forgotten the past or we're so stuck in it we can't see what is happening out there.
The new monopoly rolls on...
"... especially in domains such as medicine, where there is a large and increasing body of factual information."
In short, they did not illegallyinappropriately obtain more data?
Remember when the whole thing about Google reading you emails? Just because the person you needed to email had been suckered into signing up to a gmail account, your emails were on Google's radar with no consent?
Yeah.
Video chat with a smartphone on the other end? A smartphone app to control it? Playing Youtube videos?
'Nuff said.
There's a way round Microsoft's app security process? I guess they're just copying Google again...
bricks and mortar shops full of "geniuses".
They won't need them - all they'll do is splat a great big link on their search homepage and results page with a call to action along the lines of "Why not upgrade your mobile device experience today?", just like they did to make Chrome the #1 browser.
Hell, they'd probably "update" Chrome with the sole purpose of putting such a link somewhere on it so if Chrome's your browser of choice (ie: either your a web dev or you got taken in by the aforementioned links), you're seeing the advert every time you start your browser - especially on the mobile version when running on a competitor's device.
Then ordering will be just a couple of clicks, a name and address, a credit card number and a checkbox at next to a T&Cs link that nobody will read but contains clauses to allow Google to do what they damn well please with the device, the OS and any data they gather on you from any source, from now until the end of time.
"Google... wants a pure-play GooglePhone it completely controls."
And so the end goal is now openly on the table - Google controlled hardware running an OS that is supposedly "open", but whose major contributor is in fact Google, and is so tightly coupled to Google's own 3rd party components that it is practically proprietary. And marketed at every opportunity on Google's web search.
All they need to do now is introduce a range of low-cost Pixel phones to undercut prices and slowly run their competitors out of business. And, of course, any court cases of anti-competitive behaviour (predatory pricing, search abuse) could be dragged out long enough so as not to make any difference.
Downvote if you like - but personally, the idea of the vast majority of public electronic communication being controlled by a single entity that's sole purpose is to profile you as closely as possible and doesn't mind playing fast and loose with the law (NHS records, monopoly abuse, stolen wifi details etc) fills me with dread.
I'll be very interested in seeing what the uptake is on this - from my experience, Unity is the most popular because any idiot can download a bunch of assets and hack together a load of copy-pasted code - or worse, reskin a "complete game" asset and try to pass it off as their own work - and float their abomonation on whatever store in the utterly misguided belief that they are going to get rich.
"Birdy Flap out now on Android and iOS - now with Machine Learning!"
Geoffrey W - I can identify entirely. I started writing programs back in the 8-bit days, when you could just switch on your machine and start typing. My interest in computers is what I can create - I don't want to spend ages trying trying to cajole a machine to function as the manual says it should.
This is one of the reasons why I've never really gotten into Linux - admittedly my experiences are a few years out of date now, but whenever I have tried in past to set up a PC to run Linux, I have invariably ended up with a very expensive doorstop. So while I am no great fan of Microsoft - or any giant IT-derived company, for that matter - Windows has always done the trick for me: I buy the PC, I install the tools I need, I fire them up and I'm working.
Now if there's something I can download onto a USB which I can then boot from and install Linux with only a few mouse clicks/keystrokes, I'll hold my hands up and admit my ignorance of how things are now. But given my income and budget, I'll need some convincing, as the aforementioned expensive doorstops have gone a long way to put me off.
Ah, the difference here is in the packaging: Microsoft came into this with a history, and have a notable talent for shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to marketing etc, the pop-up with no close button and options updating to Windows 10 "now" or "later" being probably the most relevant here. The fact that compared to the big players, Microsoft's tracking prior to Win10 was pretty minimal is irrelevant.
Whereas Google have a talent for painting themselves as heroes while sliding their nastiness in on the quiet - under the guise of "free stuff" and "improving your experience", they have pretty much taken control of what is now the worlds #1 mobile operating system, abused their early success in web search to take the majority share of the browser market and attempted to undermine their competitors in other markets, and introduced more ways to track and spy on our every move than I care to imagine.
It seems we are doomed to be in a race to the bottom for the crown of "most evil"...
I guess it's because cows don't care about I.P....
Here's a fix for the worst bug on Samsung mobiles, can I have my bounty please?!
"If you think something's expired when it has a year to go then yeah....."
Assuming that cert lifespan is always three years and purchase/renewal rate is reasonably constant, by the law of averages around 66% of certs currently in use will have expired by the time this comes into effect - that's a more solid "most" than the Brexit result...