Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made Of Chrome

[endure]

An alternative viewpoint:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/go...ony_chrome_war/

[nikster]

For those too lazy to read up:

- It's Linux. They are not re-inventing the wheel

- It's a new windowing system, e.g. graphical user interface. While Linux is great, it's not easy to create a great working user interface, and the ones that are currently out there are not very good. So this makes a whole lot of sense.

- All applications written for Google Chrome OS will run in HTML 5. While I am sceptical about JavaScript - I hope it doesn't play too important a role - the benefit is that any app written for Chrome OS will automatically run on all other operating systems too! That is truly amazing, and unique. Maybe worth the sacrifices!

- Offline: Google has that covered already with Google Gears. That's web apps that run offline. I haven't read up on it yet but apparently this or a similar technology is in HTML 5 already. I currently have GMail running with Google Gears and it works just fine. What it does is create a cache of your data locally. Then when I, say, send emails, and I am offline, it also gets cached, and once network is available the caches get synchronized, emails sent, etc. It works much better than I thought it would. No doubt it helps that Google is running its entire operation on GMail.

- Viruses- yes you can absolutely design an OS that is not prone to viruses. The iPhone OS is a good example: I doubt there ever will be an iPhone virus simply because of the sandboxing between applications. While a full fledged desktop OS presents a few more challenges, it can be done. And it can certainly be done much better than what the existing operating systems do. What Microsoft is doing is plugging holes as they find them and hope things don't get too bad, knowing full well that for every hole they fix two new ones will be found, and there's an infinite supply of zero day exploits waiting to be discovered. Apple and Linux have it a bit easier because they are not under constant attack and their inherent security isn't as terrible as Windows is, but they, too, have an infinite number of holes left to be found/exploited/plugged.

Google is really aiming the cruise missiles at Microsoft right now.... amazing, and awesome.

Edited July 9, 2009 by nikster

[nikster]

Goggle will still need MS's anointing here and there for various application integration,

Half the world runs on MS office products,

Indeed but the MS Office suite is really MSs last bastion. The OS has become increasingly irrelevant, except where MS still manages to control technology, e.g. MS Office.

Guess what will be Google's next target ...

[nikster]

Name ONE os that is not vulnerable to viruses and leaks, there is NONE, when a machine runs code, it is vulernable to flaws and weaknesses in that code, no OS on the planet is exempted from that.

It's the bicycle lock theory - the more secure it is, the less likely your bike will get stolen.

What you are saying is that all bike locks can be broken. While that is, in theory, correct, it still makes a pretty big difference in practice. It's about heuristics.

Sandboxing has the potential to wipe out all viruses/malware that you don't install yourself. E.g. it won't help with social engineering where people are tricked into running a program. But it could remove all drive by malware.

[wolf5370]

Just wonder if using this will force us to use a Google stack. Especially if software is JScript dependant, we all know that there is only a fair compatability between how different browsers interpret it. If we are, then its possibly a worse scenario than M$ was sued over - giving away software with their OS.

I can see this doing well with a possible new breed of machine - web books that are just that, designed for instant (ish) web access - possibly to be used in conjunction with a more powerful box running a thicker OS for more demanding work.

Companies generally have too much money invested in M$ OS, infrastructure and Apps to move away without a serious push - this will be picked up by home users and parts of business where fast online access is crucial but power isn't (e.g. sales reps etc) - and then only if its free or cheap (one of the main reasons Linux Distributions still have a place (outside the black hat community and general M$ haters of course) - look at how Red Hat populatarity declined when it started charging).

Sandboxing isn't new either - IBM probably invented it 40 years ago. MVS runs every program in it own memory region, crossing regions is illegal and causes the program to crash if attempted (0C4 or 0C1) - as does trying to access protected memory (where the OS resides). This was being discussed for Windows 7 before Vista even had a name too - but never seemed to happen.

Edited July 9, 2009 by wolf5370

[nikster]

An alternative viewpoint:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/go...ony_chrome_war/

Andrew Orlowski... he's a bit like Robert X Cringely - always interesting, rarely right.

"Linux is a fine OS until you get to the applications - ah, yes... GIMP - and integration with the real-world, doing stuff your Mum needs to do. To make Linux n00b-friendly, Google would need to impose Google UI guidelines and do the hard work itself on a range of applications, because the cloud equivalents aren't there and Linux consistently fails to pass the consumer test."

Umm... right, it looks like that's exactly what Google is doing... they figure they don't need much because apps will be browser based. What your mom wants to do is email (GMail) and word (Google documents 2.0?), web browsing, maybe IM (meebo!) and twitter and a few other things that already have web apps built for them.

Then they take care of the one big problem with web apps - Google Gears makes them work offline.

I don't think for one second either Google or Microsoft believes this is a phoney war, somehow concocted to distract anti-trust regulators. This is the real thing. Maybe the magnitude of the ambition behind it makes it a bit unbelievable, but software moves fast.

[nikster]

Sandboxing isn't new either - IBM probably invented it 40 years ago. MVS runs every program in it own memory region, crossing regions is illegal and causes the program to crash if attempted (0C4 or 0C1) - as does trying to access protected memory (where the OS resides). This was being discussed for Windows 7 before Vista even had a name too - but never seemed to happen.

Agreed, the concept is not new. But I wasn't talking about memory access - all modern OSs protect the memory space of programs.

I was talking about keeping an application contained on disk as well. iPhone is a good example: Each application has its own application folder, and read-write rights only for that folder and nothing else. An application can therefore never access the system areas of the OS, and it can never modify other applications or even read data from other apps.

So let's say you write an exploit for the movie player - media players are vulnerable because they are often based on a plethora of codecs, each one of them might have a few bugs that makes the media player crash and allows for the possibility of injecting code. On Windows, you can do whatever you want at that point, so your virus can install system level drivers for itself and turn your machine in a Zombie. Vista makes it a bit harder because you have to get around UAC. Same for Mac OS. But on a sandboxed system like the iPhone, you can't do anything. You are confined to the folder of the video player app, and can't get out. You can't install system level drivers, or anything that will continue running once the media player is shut down. You can't even read people's emails, or scan for passwords.

Clearly a strict system like this would have some issues on the desktop level - what if you download an application and want to run it? But it's very secure.

[nikster]

Companies generally have too much money invested in M$ OS, infrastructure and Apps to move away without a serious push - this will be picked up by home users and parts of business where fast online access is crucial but power isn't (e.g. sales reps etc) - and then only if its free or cheap

Indeed - if I think about companies I work for the main problem is the people who are running the infrastructure. The IT people only know Microsoft technologies. Nobody pays them to learn anything different. And they are usually swamped, in part because keeping Windows systems running involves a lot of manual labor.

I don't know if it's just our guys but I don't think so - they know what they are doing when it comes to Windows stuff. Automation seems to be a foreign concept on these systems. Except stuff that better not be automated like when suddenly automatic windows update is enabled on the servers and takes them all down (oh, the fun!).

The money invested in OS licenses, I don't think matters much, compared to the salaries of the IT people paid to keep it all running. It's hard to even find IT people who can do Linux or anything outside Microsoft.

It's just another stronghold of Microsoft. I don't know how Chrome OS will try to address that but I am sure Google knows the problem. Google also has a technical solution - their own systems. Google is a huge corporation and they're running everything on their own or open source technologies - they use Gmail company-wide, for example. Maybe they'll develop a Google University for IT staff next... ?

[mnbcm]

If I am not mistaken this is one of the in the clouds, runs on google things. I live in Thailand, an OS that only works over a good internet connection is not only a dumb idea , its a stupid one. Plus why would I trust them with everything on my PC i.e. now on thier web site. Now if they are cutting cd's and have a real OS then lets see the iso and give it a spin like we would any Linux distro. OS's other then windows have been around but they don't ever have enough of those button thingees on them so most people fear using them.

Agreed. They are going to have a hard time stealing market share from MSFT with it's apparent dependency on a good internet connection. Most of the world doesn't have a decent internet connection.

[cdnvic]

It will have to work hard to pull Linux off my netbook.

It is Linux

I should have said Kubuntu. My mistake.

[sjaak327]

Umm... right, it looks like that's exactly what Google is doing... they figure they don't need much because apps will be browser based. What your mom wants to do is email (GMail) and word (Google documents 2.0?), web browsing, maybe IM (meebo!) and twitter and a few other things that already have web apps built for them.

Then they take care of the one big problem with web apps - Google Gears makes them work offline.

I don't think for one second either Google or Microsoft believes this is a phoney war, somehow concocted to distract anti-trust regulators. This is the real thing. Maybe the magnitude of the ambition behind it makes it a bit unbelievable, but software moves fast.

The trouble is, that Apps are indeed the main thing, imagine running video editing through a web browser, technical drawings, or even photoshop, not feasible at the moment.

I actually thought that they would build something from the ground up, however it is a linux incarnation, sorry for misreading that part of the article (must be the excitement). Needless to say, now it all sinks in, the phrase "is this all Google can come up with" is fully justified. No nuclear bomb, not even a tiny grenade..

I doubt anyone in Redmond is loosing any sleep, or is even worried. This has been tried before, by very revered software companies (IBM, Oracle, Sun) and without exception they failed in replacing the full blown desktop OS. So will google, maybe in 10 years they might have a better change, but certainly not now, considering the lack of killer apps and the lack of proper connections the world over.

Not to mention, that the risks for businesses are just too great, regardless of IT personell that only knows how to support Microsoft products, I have no doubt this applies to some, to others it won't

And as a consumer, this might be a nice thing, maybe as second os, for the quick and dirty boot times, for serious work it's useless, not to mention the fact that I am not prepared to fully trust Google, a company that makes money in advertising and tracking internet usage.

Too bad, it's time that a company really builds something from the ground up for the Pc, the last company to do so was Microsoft, and that was 20 years ago..

[torrenova]

If people want M$ users to convert then they are going to have to make it less geeky. I'm no expert for sure but I've used computers for 20+ years and M$ just make things simple (and then frustrating I agree). I used Apple Macintosh at uni but never afterwards apart from a little here and there. I know about Linux but don't know how to pronounce it ! It is just too geeky and seems that it is constantly fluid and like wikipedia, where changes are made all the time and then, when you really need it, your stuff won't work.

I know that is probably not true but who do you sue if your Linux thing screws up your PC and costs you a fortune ? Perhaps the brand of Google is what is needed to stabalise Linux or whatever OS they want to develop / use and let non geeks trust it enough to adopt it.

[sometime]

An alternative viewpoint:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/go...ony_chrome_war/

And another viewpoint http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43156/141

[Mosha]

Bye bye Windows

Been hearing that for 20 years.

from Amiga users,

Apple users,

Linux users, etc, etc......

Inertia is a powerful thing.

Exactly.

Let's see if they can pull off what they promise, no viruses, no need for updates, sounds wishfull thinking to me.

I doubt if it will wipe out Windoze, but if it has an effect on MS pricing structure that can only be a good thing.

My thoughts too. Especially outside of the USA

[verydumbubba]

The beauty of all this is the variety & choices we are given - more is better.

Google states it will deliver a full-blown OS, and not some chopped-up, Netbook/PDA/half&half.

That it is full-blown or a middleware or web-concentric is a given - thats where we live, 24/7

Dragging all your baggage along with you or not - travel lite, or leave it on a server. Or at home

My iPhone already does it all - I simply need larger peripherals

Embedded is probably where its ultimately going, as it reduces power & complexity, is reliable & portable.

Beats sitting on a camel.

Bubba

[Digitalbanana]

An alternative viewpoint:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/go...ony_chrome_war/

And another viewpoint http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43156/141

And another http://www.pcworld.com/article/168156/goog...tml?tk=rss_news called Google's Chrome OS Has 'Fail' Written All Over It.

[RKASA]

There is going to be all sort of FUD flying on both sides of this one and they really haven't started yet.  Reading on it seems a full desktop version of Google Linux is in the works and hardware is going to get aboard with them.  

This is nothing like in the past, but again its not off the ground yet ether.  I think for the first time we will see a real jump in open source upcoming.  Vista did bump the Linux numbers and a lot of FUD was out to say otherwise, but count on Steve Ballmar to rain on his own party and admit that it did in fact happen and in a larger amount then they care to see.  His estimate was a real 10% Linux penitration.  That was his estimate it was posted here so down fanboys.  Not in the market share its free but in the use on desktops where it counts.  

MS is acting like a kid stomping its feet in the EU with no browser etc etc. They are arm twisting the netbook with chip and RAM restriction or pay more conditions which will backfire and send netbooks toward Linux as well.   Why should they hold back features for their netbooks just to sell more win7 for MS.  Hardware is getting sick of MS and MS has faulty leadership aboard and they are going to take a dip.  Sell your stock.  

But I said vista would be a flop and was told then I have no idea what I am taking about Vista as it is the OS of the future yad yad yad now thats all I hear about win7 which is an improvment, but it cost a lot and thats not a good thing right now.  Timing is important.  Free is going to be a really cool feature in OS's for awhile.

Thats just my HO I could be wrong.

[CosmicSurfer]

May I remind everyone of a few Facts:

A "CLOUD" is :

- Light and feathery... easily blown away in a breeze

- Dark and forboding.... Full of scary things like Thunder and Lightning

- Unstable and insecure... hard to pin down and constantly changing and evolving

- Unreliable... here now, and overthere or gone a moment later

Bottom line for me is I've heard it all before... Larry Ellis (Oracle) predicted and promoted the 'Netbook' (or did he call it webbook???) years and years ago (Internet time) .. All we would need was Net access and all apps and data would be held on centralized servers... gone was the harddrive.... (timesharing revisited... and that is all that so-called "Cloud" computing really is.. Timesharing revisited!)

I said it then and I still say it.... I want my data on MY computer, also my Apps... I want to work, when I want to work.. not when I can get access... and there is no such thing as a "SECURE" cloud... if it's online someone can break into it. The safest place is my own computer.. and if it's really important I can just keep it on a computer and drive that is NOT connected to the net at all... now that is Really secure.

First Bill Gate$ and M$ wanted to take over the world (I Hate the use of M$.. It's MS and I respect all they have done to promte computing and how they made apps interoperable through one standerdised OS. I remermber all too well the days of standardless computiung and pre-Cut & Paste... Thank you MS for making standardised computing a reality.) Then along came Netscape and Mozilla, Sun and Apple... and of Course Steve Jobs (Who is more Evil then Steve???) and now it is Google... all touting "Holier than Thou" BS and how Microsoft is the big bad enemy... as if they too aren't trying to impose their standards and software on all of us.. plus make a pile of $$$$$$$$$$$$$ all at the same time... and all at the expense of convenience and intuitive useability for the NON-GEEK end-users.

But aren't they all in business, just like MicroSoft.. and isn't that what they are suppossed to do.. make money ??? So why do we knock MS... Because they evolve their products by incorportating more useability in the first place??? Because things don't always work??? (I seem to recall a few Space Shuttles malfunctioning too.) Don't people advise you NEVER to buy a new model car in the first year... Why? Because they have to get the kinks out.. So why should something as complicated as an O/S be any different??? If you jump on it right away, if you must be an Early adapter to need to pay the price... Just aske all those suckers that paid more than $500 for the original iPhone... what was it.. just around a year ago, wasn't it? how much is an iPhone today?? and much has it changed??? Duhhh.. Now isn't Steve Jobs just Gods gift to his Customer Base???

I hate the entire idea of "Cloud" computing... Why?? What for??? Harddrives are getting physically smaller, faster and Larger capacity all at the same time. And, do I want to allow Google to make money of of MY CONTENT?? Screw them.. I won't wear a fashion T-shirt, unless I'm paid for the Advertising Logos they slap all over it.... I won't give Google access to my info without my permission either... 'cause I just don't trust them... They remind me too much of how two-faced Bush was.

The Politically Correct have a nasty habit of evolving into the very kind of intolerant people they have demonstrated against.

In the same way.. Google has evolved into the same kind of "Evil Empire" it swore to avoid becoming!

Remember the old saying... and still true today:

"Power (Money) Corrupts And Absolute Power (Greed) Corrupts Absolutely "

No way I trust Google... At least Bill Gates is putting his money into promoting Education. I'll support him.

CS

Edited July 10, 2009 by CosmicSurfer

[RKASA]

When this first came out I was not to sure they planned a desktop and I won't be using any cloud of google or other wise I don't like it ether.  I don't have or plan on having a netbook I can carry a full size without hassle.

Google is talking about a Linux desktop version later and because its later it seems to be forgotten.  It won't be kde or gnome but something else. There is no code that will up load your data, they get all the info they need from sites like TV and others that call home every time you visit a page or do search.  That might not be true for a cloud system, and why I don't like facebook or other sites ether.

Yes,  as a person I like Bill Gates.  He has hired my daughters business to teach in early childhood development programs.   Shes has talked to him and been at several events held by them.  Keep in mind he does not even work at MS anymore.  Maybe part time but I am not sure even that anymore.   As well my son in law rents mostly to persons working at Redmond.  I don't wish bad things for them.

It can be fun to call MS evil, but its never really been the point, the point has been not unlike that of the telcos in the past.  We are stuck with the same ol same ol because of there size and control. If it were not for Linux and apple then windows would still look like win95, but you would still be buying something new every few years, they had to do more then that.

The problem with the telcos was maybe worse then this, even the internet may not have happened until something was done about it.  I still recall the 6 party phone line that cost twice what I even pay today.  I bet most don't even know what a party line was.

We need more and bigger players in the OS area to make it better for everyone over the long run.

I think a good example would be letting just a few players control the internet in Thailand,  Look how well that has been working,  also look at the internet controllers in the States and its the same thing.  As they are in more control the system has been falling behind, they even took a shot at caps and limits for no reason other then they could.  Even So. Korea has better internet then the US.  We need more and bigger providers just like we need more and bigger OS suppliers.  Apple has been happy to be just Apple, never had one never will and they really don't care,  thats not even a big concern to MS, as Steve said so himself.  Linux is more a real up comer because its open.  

[CosmicSurfer]

I don't have anything against competition and innovation... I'm just tired of all those people knocking "M$" and Bill Gates.

I agree, it is the competition that forces MS to make it better... sometimes a competitor is even better and wins (Quicken).

And, believe me, I have plenty of problems with MS products too... I won't even open IE8 anymore... But my preferred browsers still use an IE infastrucure and just put a better Shell on it.

Just because "Google" has created something, or plans to create something doesn't mean that it will be an MS Killer... Chrome Browser still has a LOONNNG way to go. And until Google actually creates a working Desktop OS, it's still a Phantom ... and no one can know how it will compare with Windows. But thinking the Cloud will one day overtake the desktop is foolish... and people need to Get their heads out if it (The cloud) and back to reality.. Won't happen in our lifetimes !!!

Google is great at figuring how to make money on advertising, which is something else I don't understand, because everyone I know uses one kind of ad-blocking software or another, plus I never read or click on any ad that does come through.. Text or Graphic. I even studiously avoid all those Preffered Sites that pop up on the top of a Google Search page. They never are what I'm looking for anyway!

As for their other software.. I have most of them, but they are just choices rarely used as default. Picasa cute but I use another. Gmail... Like I said.. I'm not into Clouds or Web-Based computing.. I have an address, just like I have a Hotmail address and a Yahoo address... But never give them out. Google Earth... a toy. No better or worse than MS. I won't even mention any web Apps. I won't use Office Live either.

But Google does do Search well... I have been comparing it with Bing.. and Google still gave me the best choices.. But after I was forced to give up AltaVista, I've never allowed myself to get overly attached to any "Latest & Greatest" Search engine again. So who know???

CS

[verydumbubba]

The only sense that has come out of this GOS speculation, is the Telco dominance - one of my pet conspiracy

theories of all time. It is also the ultimate kaibosh of any/all comms, which is where we live.

I suspect that Congress, et al, will be all over it real soon, as it is one great big cartel.

Makes M$ look like a noob.

It is worse here in LOS, which is why the Net is so immature - it totally impedes both commerce & education.

Look at any 3rd World country - it smacks of the deep South 'keep 'em barefoot & pregnant' mantra

Bubba

[sjaak327]

There is going to be all sort of FUD flying on both sides of this one and they really haven't started yet.  Reading on it seems a full desktop version of Google Linux is in the works and hardware is going to get aboard with them.  

This is nothing like in the past, but again its not off the ground yet ether.  I think for the first time we will see a real jump in open source upcoming.  Vista did bump the Linux numbers and a lot of FUD was out to say otherwise, but count on Steve Ballmar to rain on his own party and admit that it did in fact happen and in a larger amount then they care to see.  His estimate was a real 10% Linux penitration.  That was his estimate it was posted here so down fanboys.  Not in the market share its free but in the use on desktops where it counts.  

MS is acting like a kid stomping its feet in the EU with no browser etc etc. They are arm twisting the netbook with chip and RAM restriction or pay more conditions which will backfire and send netbooks toward Linux as well.   Why should they hold back features for their netbooks just to sell more win7 for MS.  Hardware is getting sick of MS and MS has faulty leadership aboard and they are going to take a dip.  Sell your stock.  

But I said vista would be a flop and was told then I have no idea what I am taking about Vista as it is the OS of the future yad yad yad now thats all I hear about win7 which is an improvment, but it cost a lot and thats not a good thing right now.  Timing is important.  Free is going to be a really cool feature in OS's for awhile.

Thats just my HO I could be wrong.

Well some companies did try to get Linux into netbooks, and every one saw what happpened, people don't want Linux as desktop OS. No matter what you say, most if not all of the Linux distro's out there are useless to be used by your average user. Maybe if OEM's would completely configure it for them, it might be usable, but the netbook disaster seems to be showing that even in usage, people prefer Windows.

Funny you should mention the browser issue in the EU, first of all, I don't think MS is the one that is acting like a kid here, second, I wonder what the EU will do when Google releases it's Chrome OS, seems to me like a nice case to get their teeth in.

Vista is not a flop by the way, it's a rock solid operating system, and I for one have been using it too my full satisfaction for a long time (over three years), Windows 7 is a bit better, since they added some trigger stuff in services and tasks.

By the way, I don't get all the hatred against MS, and furthermore all the profets that year in year out say that Microsoft will take a hit. sell your stock blah blah balh, not going to happen any time soon. (this projection is based on years of doomsday projections that never amounted to anything )

[Rawkus]

Too bad, it's time that a company really builds something from the ground up for the Pc, the last company to do so was Microsoft, and that was 20 years ago..

An interesting assertion. What exactly did Microsoft build from the "ground up" 20 years ago? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

They have been astonishingly successful at buying things and leveraging that success (hint: why are the print interfaces for Word, Excel and Powerpoint so different if they are part of a single suite of applications?).

They are astonishingly bad at building things (hint: Internet Explorer, Outlook, ActiveX, DLLs and the concept of a central Registry).

Disclaimer: I do not derive a single penny of my salary from promoting or supporting one OS over another, can you say the same before you answer?

[CosmicSurfer]

[

An interesting assertion. What exactly did Microsoft build from the "ground up" 20 years ago? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

Disclaimer: I do not derive a single penny of my salary from promoting or supporting one OS over another, can you say the same before you answer?

Question 1 > Answer > Windows

Question 2 > Answer > Absolutely

It is irrelevant that Microsoft may have "Copied" the idea for Windows from Apple... As Apple "Stole" the Idea for the Mac from Zerox!

As they say... there are only 7 original stories ever told... everything else is a variation of those.

Excel is a copy (progression) of Lotus 123 which was a copy of VisiCalc... and all Browsers stem from NSCA Mosaic.

That's progress!

CS

Edited July 10, 2009 by CosmicSurfer

[sjaak327]

Too bad, it's time that a company really builds something from the ground up for the Pc, the last company to do so was Microsoft, and that was 20 years ago..

An interesting assertion. What exactly did Microsoft build from the "ground up" 20 years ago? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

They have been astonishingly successful at buying things and leveraging that success (hint: why are the print interfaces for Word, Excel and Powerpoint so different if they are part of a single suite of applications?).

They are astonishingly bad at building things (hint: Internet Explorer, Outlook, ActiveX, DLLs and the concept of a central Registry).

Disclaimer: I do not derive a single penny of my salary from promoting or supporting one OS over another, can you say the same before you answer?

A full yes to your last question, I can say the same.

Regarding the first question, strange question, are you suggesting that they did not build the current Windows from scratch ?

If so what is their basis for the NT system ?

Funny you should say they are bad at building things, Outlook is a fine mail client, together with Exchange, it is the number 1 mail system in use today, and that is not because of marketing, simply because it is a robust system, used the world over. Internet explorer isnt' bad either, IE8 as released a few months back is nothing to be ashamed off, and is tested right up there with firefox, I myself vastly prefer it over FF, but that's just a personal taste thing.

Regarding the concept of a central registry, I think it is vastly better then the concept of separate configuration files, remember they used to do that in ancient history (the ini files), and linux is still using it, maybe that might be one of the reasons why consumers aren't so Linux minded.

[Rawkus]

An interesting assertion. What exactly did Microsoft build from the "ground up" 20 years ago? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

Question 1 > Answer > Windows

Question 2 > Answer > Absolutely

It is irrelevant that Microsoft may have "Copied" the idea for Windows from Apple... As Apple "Stole" the Idea for the Mac from Zerox!

Excel is a copy (progression) of Lotus 123 which was a copy of VisiCalc... and all Browsers stem from NSCA Mosaic.

That's progress!

CS

WRT question 1, Windows wasn't built from the ground up, it was (and in some ways still is) a shell for DOS which they bought the rights to, very smart marketing but very bad coding imho.

Everything in the Office suite of apps has been bought in/absorbed by MS, there is nothing there that has been coded from the ground up; they have seen a good idea, bought it and absorbed it.

I never mentioned Apple, you did. And by the way it's Xerox, not Zerox. But thanks for playing, try to keep up next time

@sjaak327

Funny you should say they are bad at building things, Outlook is a fine mail client, together with Exchange, it is the number 1 mail system in use today, and that is not because of marketing, simply because it is a robust system, used the world over. Internet explorer isnt' bad either, IE8 as released a few months back is nothing to be ashamed off, and is tested right up there with firefox, I myself vastly prefer it over FF, but that's just a personal taste thing.

Regarding the concept of a central registry, I think it is vastly better then the concept of separate configuration files, remember they used to do that in ancient history (the ini files), and linux is still using it, maybe that might be one of the reasons why consumers aren't so Linux minded.

Is Exchange really the #1 mail app now? I would have thought that Sendmail or Postfix are probably larger in terms of overall users but I am prepared to be proven wrong.

Outlook is an awful mail client, it is riddled with vulnerabilities, hard to configure with anything except an MS server and also susceptible to a lot of the IE problems that affect all versions. If IE8 is so great why can't I get a version that runs on my Mac or Slackware machines?

I think the registry idea is truly bad, it is writable by any application that an idiot user running as root (the Windows default) gives permission to and is very hard to understand. Simple text files with clearly written comments are far superior, but again that is my humble opinion.

[sjaak327]

Is Exchange really the #1 mail app now? I would have thought that Sendmail or Postfix are probably larger in terms of overall users but I am prepared to be proven wrong.

Outlook is an awful mail client, it is riddled with vulnerabilities, hard to configure with anything except an MS server and also susceptible to a lot of the IE problems that affect all versions. If IE8 is so great why can't I get a version that runs on my Mac or Slackware machines?

I think the registry idea is truly bad, it is writable by any application that an idiot user running as root (the Windows default) gives permission to and is very hard to understand. Simple text files with clearly written comments are far superior, but again that is my humble opinion.

Right, of course the registry vulnerabilities have been taking care off by Vista (which is out for more then 2.5 years already). And running as admin on that system is not the equivalent of running as Root on linux systems, as UAC gives the user that is running as admin a lesser token, both for file system access and execute properties. Registry virtualisation further, ensures that applications that insist on accessing the registry directly, are taken care off.

I personally like the registry above the conf file approach, as it is much much quicker to customise your system this way, then it is to using config files, where in the linux world, you really have to search where it resides, as there is no clear standard. For consumers, neither is important, they don't care about regedit anymore then they care about nano, and the good thing about Windows, is they don't need to, that is one of the reasons why Windows has such a huge market share.

Regarding IE, the fact that it isn't available on OSX (anymore) or on Linux, is hardly a reason to think it's bad, Microsoft probably decided that given the tiny marketshare, there is no reason to invest money in developing it for those systems.

Edited July 10, 2009 by sjaak327

[cdnvic]

Regarding IE, the fact that it isn't available on OSX (anymore) or on Linux, is hardly a reason to think it's bad, Microsoft probably decided that given the tiny marketshare, there is no reason to invest money in developing it for those systems.

The market gets even tinier when you factor in that most Mac users would gag at the thought of putting IE on their Macs when they have Safari, Firefox, or any others to choose from. (I don't even want it on Windows except for downloading Firefox)

Edited July 10, 2009 by cdnvic

[Rawkus]

Right, of course the registry vulnerabilities have been taking care off by Vista (which is out for more then 2.5 years already). And running as admin on that system is not the equivalent of running as Root on linux systems, as UAC gives the user that is running as admin a lesser token, both for file system access and execute properties. Registry virtualisation further, ensures that applications that insist on accessing the registry directly, are taken care off.

I personally like the registry above the conf file approach, as it is much much quicker to customise your system this way, then it is to using config files, where in the linux world, you really have to search where it resides, as there is no clear standard. For consumers, neither is important, they don't care about regedit anymore then they care about nano, and the good thing about Windows, is they don't need to, that is one of the reasons why Windows has such a huge market share.

Regarding IE, the fact that it isn't available on OSX (anymore) or on Linux, is hardly a reason to think it's bad, Microsoft probably decided that given the tiny marketshare, there is no reason to invest money in developing it for those systems.

LMFAO! Well played, that was hilarious.

Edited July 10, 2009 by Rawkus

[sjaak327]

Regarding IE, the fact that it isn't available on OSX (anymore) or on Linux, is hardly a reason to think it's bad, Microsoft probably decided that given the tiny marketshare, there is no reason to invest money in developing it for those systems.

The market gets even tinier when you factor in that most Mac users would gag at the thought of putting IE on their Macs when they have Safari, Firefox, or any others to choose from. (I don't even want it on Windows except for downloading Firefox)

Well very funny considering not so long ago it was shipped at the default browser on that OS. It was when Apple released Safari, that MS stopped development of IE for mac. I remember that on jaguar we still used IE, as safari wasn't capable to do a lot of stuff. We are now at Safari 4, and I still think it is a crap browser, so I use FF on Leopard, no way it goes on my Windows system though, not a slim chance.

I guess it's personal, I simply don't like FF, especially their handling of tabs.

@Rawkus

Good to see I amuse you, have no clue as to what part would be hillarious though, maybe it was the part about consumers not wanting to fiddle with config files on linux ?

Edited July 10, 2009 by sjaak327