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This is the worst day in commercially available operating system security in my lifetime. There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus

by rdl 11y ago

This is the worst day in commercially available operating system security in my lifetime. There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus Microsoft, like 98 and XP...), but rarely has anyone taken a great security product (ChromeOS) and merged it with the worst currently-shipping security product (Android). This is a horrible day for security.

kzahel 11y ago
It depends. Maybe we just see the Play store added to chromebooks, and chromebooks are rebranded as android devices. I mean, there's already so many different android runtimes/versions, what's one more?
guelo 11y ago
With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome. They've also done a lot of work on sandboxing using SELinux. Also, after stagefright they started doing monthly security patches and have gotten buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches. Android's biggest security challenge has been getting the manufacturers and carriers to update their software but there has been a lot of work towards changing that, from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated independently of the core system, to applying business pressure. Presumably updates will be easier on Chromebooks than on phones.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Still waiting for Samsung fixes....
  - 72deluxe 11y ago
    We may be waiting forever... time to ditch it for a loss
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      Yeah, the problem is what to get instead if staying on Android. I surely won't pay what Google is asking for their devices, given lack of SD card and changeable battery. Plus, they also proved they aren't trustworthy by not providing a path for those that gave them money for the Nexus with TI processor. As if Google didn't had the money to keep supporting them.
      - 72deluxe 11y ago
        It's like they don't care, which is sad. They have got into a great position to be a contender in the fickle horse-race that is the mobile phone industry, but the same horse is trampling the people that funded them to get there. "What about security updates for my phone?" The hurdle is jumped, and the patron has the Google horse land on them, causing death
      - s73v3r 11y ago
        If TI decides to leave the market, there's nothing to be done. You can't force TI to come back if they don't want to.
        pjmlp 11y ago
        You can maintain the code yourself for the existing devices, that is a lame excuse. Goggle has the knowledge and money to do so.
        s73v3r 11y ago
        How can you do that if TI didn't give you the rights to it in the first place?
      - nradov 11y ago
        Unfortunately the latest Samsung devices don't have SD cards or changeable batteries either. They have apparently voluntarily eliminated two of their key differentiating features, not sure why.
- ilurk 11y ago
  > runtime-permission-prompt model So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. > buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches How does this work? Is there any legal obligation for manufacturers/vendors to provide these patches in X weeks? If there isn't then I won't keep my hopes up. > from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated separately from the core system How exactly? By moving from Android to google proprietary apps? If so then this is a two-edged sword as it inevitably binds you to google spyware. Either you own an half-phone or you give away your data. Sorry if I sound bitter but I see what Android could be and get defeated by what it is. I never owned an iPhone but my next phone will be one. Maybe I'll still be disappointed, but at least won't have to deal with CM, Xprivacy, manual updates and all the other shenanigans. Disclaimer: I'm an increasingly disappointed Android user.
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    > So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. I think you might misunderstand what the Marshmallow upgrade will allow. Users will have the ability to turn off any given permission for any given app. Don't want google maps to have GPS access? Cool, just turn it off and the app will have to deal with the lack of information. It's not a Windows model carte blanche per-run thing. Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system.
    - malka 11y ago
      > Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system. The OS could give fake data to the apps. Such as a arbitrary GPS location, or an empty contact list.
      - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
        Hopefully, that would be unnecessary. If my calculator app won't run without full access to my address book, I'll seek out an alternative calculator which will; at this extreme, with an open marketplace, there will surely be alternatives.
- chetanahuja 11y ago
  "With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome" This is horrible from a usability perspective. Note that large bulk laptop purchasers (schools, large enterprises with mostly web application requirements etc.) have been the biggest markets for chromebook. One of the biggest reasons for that popularity is the lower cost of management of chromebooks compared to windows or mac laptops. In that the base OS not only just works, it also just updates. A huge saving in admin time and headache. The other factor is that all user data is automatically in the cloud, which means backups/restores/replacements/upgrades are trivial operations now. One way chromebooks can retain this ease of use/administration is by basically shipping a laptop with chrome running on Android OS but no other apps installable by the user (outside of chrome sandbox). This will get Google out of the two OS kernels management business but could still retain the essential goodness of the chromebook concept.
  - lnanek2 11y ago
    > Android OS but no other apps installable by the user There are quite a few device management solutions out there for Android that can white list, black list, deny all installs of apps. It's very common to setup in business and already completely supported. It's even far more powerful than that with capabilities to do things like deny certain apps/networks unless you have certain password complexity requirements, etc..
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus Microsoft, like 98 and XP...) Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad. Unsandboxed Windows and OS X apps can do an awful lot with your computer.
- rdl 11y ago
  Yeah, but they've been getting better over time. It's monotonically non-decreasing security, at least, and the desktop->mobile transition has been amazing from a security perspective. This is a step backward. The only question is how big is that step.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Traditional UNIX is no different. Without containers every p0wned process has full access to $HOME and can do everything the user is capable of. I really like that Apple and Microsoft are pushing for sandbox models in their OSes.
  - lazaroclapp 11y ago
    In all fairness, you don't run any modern UNIX server without giving each sensitive server its own user, which effectively sandboxes it (not quite the same as chroot/containers/VMs, but still). Of course, desktop UNIX/Linux tends to have many important processes running as the same user, but that falls under "Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad".
    - rdl 11y ago
      Everyone sane runs sensitive systems "system high" now, where there's a machine dedicated per task. User/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly. You can use VMs for some of that, but that's the limit on sharing (and that's if you trust your hypervisor to be a separation kernel thing; reasonable for many people. Not for others.) Docker/containers isn't enough. Users aren't enough. Processes aren't enough.
smt88 11y ago
Flash and Java are still shipping...
ctz 11y ago
Android will have good security just once they've added more stapled-on legs. Security doesn't come from engineering and good design, it comes from adding more things!
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  Thank you for saying this! I am an Android developer and I wanted someone to come here and say good things about Android so I could feel safer for my job!
Mikeb85 11y ago
There's nothing insecure about Android. It just gives a few more ways to install apps (side loading for example) which clever social engineers/scammers use to their advantage. It's like saying your credit card is insecure because you gave it to the homeless guy on the street when he promised to only buy a sandwich...
- pedrocr 11y ago
  Android security is typically horrible when you consider that most phones ship with software that never gets updated throughout their life and has been put together in a quite haphazard way. It's not a fault of Android per-se but it's the case in pretty much anything that isn't a Nexus.
  - Mikeb85 11y ago
    > It's not a fault of Android per-se And that's pretty much the answer... BTW, I've found Samsung to be decent with updates as well.
    - derefr 11y ago
      > And that's pretty much the answer... Not really. Android got big because OEMs can do as they like with it. And what OEMs like doing, apparently, is not updating the OS on their device. An Android OS that, from the start, controlled OEMs in some way (by e.g. forcing them to ship updates on a certain schedule) would likely not have become a viable contender in the market. It's not the fault of Android that OEMs are stupid, but Android was created specifically to cater to OEMs and their stupidity. Android's existence is itself the problem. (It'd be great if their licensing model up until now was just a bootstrapping strategy, though, and they began requiring things of their OEMs.)
      - Mikeb85 11y ago
        It would be nice if they forced OEMs to use stock Android and update regularly, but they're already under government investigation for requiring Android branded phones to use certain Google services like Play... To a certain degree, they're forced to either be open as they are now, or sell devices. Given absurd government rulings, forcing stock Android on OEMs would probably bring an antitrust suit against them.
cwyers 11y ago
Most of ChromeOS's safety "features" come at the expense of not being able to do anything; ChromeOS can't run arbitrary malicious code because it can't really run ANY arbitrary code. Yes, yes, Emscripten, the birth and death of Javascript, etc. -- the fact is that security through uselessness isn't a recipe for adoption.
- ZenPsycho 11y ago
  why do you consider running in a sandbox "useless" ? that's pretty extreme. you really can't think of any use at all for code running in a context where its ability to take power away from the user, and do things without the users permission is greatly reduced? Is your primary goal and idea of utility about doing those sorts of things? ..Or maybe you simply have a deficient imagination?
- mehrdada 11y ago
  JavaScript is not the only way to do things; cf. Native Client[1]. [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview
  - iofj 11y ago
    Things that all software on the planet is compatible with if you would just redesign and recompile and ... * chromebooks * web browsers * a turing machine implemented by having a grad student a car drive around on a long street * https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ Of course it might be a bit slower, it might take a bit more effort, time and imagination on the part of the user. But seriously: it needs to run existing programs without recompilation.
    - mehrdada 11y ago
      That's beside the point made in the OP, which attributed Chrome's great security to its lack of functionality, which is just false. You argument is a valid one with respect to its lack of popularity. That said, while compatibility helps adoption, it is not absolutely necessary. If it were, we would all be stuck with Windows computers in our pockets running on Atom processors having 1:30 hours battery life.
bitmapbrother 11y ago
What an ignorant comment. To call Android the "worst currently-shipping security product" is representative of your knowledge on the matter.
- rdl 11y ago
  Within the space of general purpose desktop/mobile operating system products: Windows 10 (pretty good). OS X (not great -- which is a shame). Most Linux distributions (OK to good as shipped, can be great). Most BSD distributions (good to great). iOS (fucking AMAZING). ChromeOS (great, RIP). Windows Phone (honestly don't know much about it). BB OS 10/QNX (great, but irrelevant sadly). And then there's Android.
  - bitmapbrother 11y ago
    This is pretty funny considering Windows is the cause for nearly all of the security exploits that occur. The horror stories of people being infected with viruses, malware and ransomware all have one thing in common - Windows. You only need to look at the thousands of security patches this OS has had applied to it over the years and the new ones applied every month to truly grasp what a sieve it really is. BTW, where are all of the horror stories concerning the Stagefright exploit that so many "pundits/idiots" predicted would be a disaster for Android? I'm still waiting for that. Also, was there a reason you started referring to specific versions of OS's like Windows 10 and BB OS 10 and then disrespectfully mentioned Android without a version number? Don't you think that was a bit disingenuous, and lame, of you to start mentioning specific OS versions and leave out Android? If you're going to use version numbers then shouldn't you have applied them to all of the OS's you mentioned instead of cherry picking OS versions and then shitting out the line "And then there's Android" at the end?
    - rdl 11y ago
      OK -- Android (until absolute latest) = lovecraftian horror. Android marshmallow = exceptionally bad. BB10 is a fundamentally different OS (QNX based) than pre-BB10. but Pre-10 was also a good OS from a security perspective, just utter shit to develop meaningful third party apps for. Windows...used to be horrible. Big changes around Vista (although, ~unusable). Since Windows 7, it's been "reasonable" in a highly managed corporate environment, and not bad even out of the box. 8, 8.1, and 10 have been improvements on that. It's actually easier to do a 10k user highly locked down Windows deployment (although expensive, and involving a lot of experts and third-party tools) than to do a 10k user locked down Mac OS X deployment. Apple had a lot of advantages by starting from UNIX and from basically starting after security was a "thing", but hasn't done as good a job on OS X security as I'd like. iOS, on the other hand, is amazing -- the only serious deficiencies I find with iOS are a lack of "enterprise as sole root of trust" (which no one does, with the possible exception of (Blackberry Pre-10 and post-10), or roll-your-own open source linux/bsd with a lot of trusted computing grafted on in ways which are not at all trivial to do), and a lack of emphasis on anti-forensics on the device itself -- if you unlock it, it contains an sqllite db with ~every message, which shouldn't be how they do it. OTOH, on cloud services, Google is far and away superior to Apple. The biggest problem with Apple is you're largely pushed toward iCloud which is not amazing from a security perspective. The true win of ChromeOS was you were equally pushed to the Google ecosystem, which is amazing for cloud service security -- the sole problem being you're 100% exposed to Google, Inc. which is both a US company and a single third-party entity, but if you had to pick a single company to be responsible for your cloud services security, you'd probably pick Google on the merits.
irascible 11y ago
You're a moron.
- dang 11y ago
  > You're a moron. Personal attacks are not allowed and comments like this will get your account banned on HN. Please post civilly or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
rtpg 11y ago
How do you qualify Android as the worst security-shipping product? Is it mainly due to the lack of sound update mechanisms? Because conceptually, Android's model (each application is its own Unix user) seems pretty good
DominikR 11y ago
I don't know what's so horrible about an OS that by default encrypts all data on the device, allows applications only to run in a sandbox and uses SELinux.
devanti 11y ago
Security aside, I would argue that 98 and XP were the best versions of Windows during that period
- ygra 11y ago
  98 was so bug-riddled that only 98 SE was actually usable. And I'd argue that Windows 2000 was much better-liked than XP on that period. XP was horrible at launch and needed two service packs to become actually liked.
melling 11y ago
Nah, you just don't see the big picture. You're coming at it from the tech side. It's better to look at the business side. Microsoft has 89% desktop market share, so they basically own the desktop. Apple will never be a real threat because of price. Chrome/Android has an excellent chance to be a real alternative on the desktop. if it gets a large enough market share, perhaps we'll see Adobe's apps, for instance, along with all other major apps.
- bphogan 11y ago
  Is Apple really that much more expensive? Or is that just something that people believe because it used to be true? I keep hearing this repeated, but I bought my dad a $499 Mac Mini. With Microsoft producing a laptop of their own that starts at $1499, I think all we can really say is "Apple doesn't produce bargain laptops".
  - acdha 11y ago
    It was true to varying extents before Apple switched to Intel processors. Since then it's never been true by more than ± few percent for equivalent hardware. The complicating factor, and why it's such an enduring belief, is that Apple doesn't ship adware and has minimal hardware standards which are higher than the lowest-end PC market. You see this over and over again where someone is either unable to back up claims or, when pressed, has to admit that the $400 notebook they said was “just like” the MacBook Air had a previous generation processor, magnetic hard drive instead of SSD, low-contrast/dim display, mushy keyboard or unusable trackpad, etc. The same manufacturer probably even makes something fairly competitive, too, but it costs about as much.
    - scholia 11y ago
      Doesn't really matter. Apple makes a very narrow range of products for high-end consumers, and that's a small portion of the market. Apple has nothing for the average home user who wants a $199-$399 laptop. Or even for the geek or gamer who wants a reasonably-priced tower.
gopowerranger 11y ago
ChromeOS is based on Linux so, please, let us hear just how bad you are saying Linux is.
jordanthoms 11y ago
What about if it's Android that gets killed, not Chrome OS? Then it'd be a great day :)
- zacharypinter 11y ago
  That's where I thought they were heading when ChromeOS got support for running Android apks.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  That's an intriguing possibility. Given their relative marketshares, even if the plan were to kill Android in favor of ChromeOS, they'd probably say exactly what they're saying now.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
frik 11y ago
I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture (too much sits in the main thread, too many object oriented classes). Low latency UI isn't possible by the initial pre-Google (Android company) bad design choices. Even my high end Android phones is just as fast and responsive as the iPhone 6s but has 4 times as much CPU and a lot higher CPU raw speed and 4 times as much RAM. Beside that Android is the good guy, it's the Win95 20 years later - an universal OS that can be used for many things without restrictions. The Android 5+ UI theme is really outstanding great, I personally favour it over iOS 7+ and Win8+. Maybe Android will get HTML5 web apps as first party citizens. And don't forget about the lovely Go language.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture If, as stated in the article, they merge ChromeOS into Android, rather than abandoning ChromeOS in favor of Android (which seems to be how you and many others have interpreted it), they aren't limited to what is currently in Android, since they bring all the capabilities of ChromeOS are now in Android. A merger is functionally equivalent regardless of direction, which just becomes about branding (and its hardly surprising that Android is the more marketable brand.)
  - frik 11y ago
    Ok, thanks for pointing that out, we will see.
eggnet 11y ago
That's a pretty bold statement to make. The announcement contains zero detail, to the point that I'm left questioning what the purpose of leaking the information was other than page views.

by rdl 11y ago

kzahel 11y ago

It depends. Maybe we just see the Play store added to chromebooks, and chromebooks are rebranded as android devices. I mean, there's already so many different android runtimes/versions, what's one more?

guelo 11y ago

With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome. They've also done a lot of work on sandboxing using SELinux. Also, after stagefright they started doing monthly security patches and have gotten buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches. Android's biggest security challenge has been getting the manufacturers and carriers to update their software but there has been a lot of work towards changing that, from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated independently of the core system, to applying business pressure. Presumably updates will be easier on Chromebooks than on phones.

pjmlp 11y ago
Still waiting for Samsung fixes....
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  We may be waiting forever... time to ditch it for a loss
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Yeah, the problem is what to get instead if staying on Android. I surely won't pay what Google is asking for their devices, given lack of SD card and changeable battery. Plus, they also proved they aren't trustworthy by not providing a path for those that gave them money for the Nexus with TI processor. As if Google didn't had the money to keep supporting them.
    - 72deluxe 11y ago
      It's like they don't care, which is sad. They have got into a great position to be a contender in the fickle horse-race that is the mobile phone industry, but the same horse is trampling the people that funded them to get there. "What about security updates for my phone?" The hurdle is jumped, and the patron has the Google horse land on them, causing death
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      If TI decides to leave the market, there's nothing to be done. You can't force TI to come back if they don't want to.
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        You can maintain the code yourself for the existing devices, that is a lame excuse. Goggle has the knowledge and money to do so.
        s73v3r 11y ago
        How can you do that if TI didn't give you the rights to it in the first place?
    - nradov 11y ago
      Unfortunately the latest Samsung devices don't have SD cards or changeable batteries either. They have apparently voluntarily eliminated two of their key differentiating features, not sure why.
ilurk 11y ago
> runtime-permission-prompt model So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. > buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches How does this work? Is there any legal obligation for manufacturers/vendors to provide these patches in X weeks? If there isn't then I won't keep my hopes up. > from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated separately from the core system How exactly? By moving from Android to google proprietary apps? If so then this is a two-edged sword as it inevitably binds you to google spyware. Either you own an half-phone or you give away your data. Sorry if I sound bitter but I see what Android could be and get defeated by what it is. I never owned an iPhone but my next phone will be one. Maybe I'll still be disappointed, but at least won't have to deal with CM, Xprivacy, manual updates and all the other shenanigans. Disclaimer: I'm an increasingly disappointed Android user.
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  > So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. I think you might misunderstand what the Marshmallow upgrade will allow. Users will have the ability to turn off any given permission for any given app. Don't want google maps to have GPS access? Cool, just turn it off and the app will have to deal with the lack of information. It's not a Windows model carte blanche per-run thing. Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system.
  - malka 11y ago
    > Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system. The OS could give fake data to the apps. Such as a arbitrary GPS location, or an empty contact list.
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      Hopefully, that would be unnecessary. If my calculator app won't run without full access to my address book, I'll seek out an alternative calculator which will; at this extreme, with an open marketplace, there will surely be alternatives.
chetanahuja 11y ago
"With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome" This is horrible from a usability perspective. Note that large bulk laptop purchasers (schools, large enterprises with mostly web application requirements etc.) have been the biggest markets for chromebook. One of the biggest reasons for that popularity is the lower cost of management of chromebooks compared to windows or mac laptops. In that the base OS not only just works, it also just updates. A huge saving in admin time and headache. The other factor is that all user data is automatically in the cloud, which means backups/restores/replacements/upgrades are trivial operations now. One way chromebooks can retain this ease of use/administration is by basically shipping a laptop with chrome running on Android OS but no other apps installable by the user (outside of chrome sandbox). This will get Google out of the two OS kernels management business but could still retain the essential goodness of the chromebook concept.
- lnanek2 11y ago
  > Android OS but no other apps installable by the user There are quite a few device management solutions out there for Android that can white list, black list, deny all installs of apps. It's very common to setup in business and already completely supported. It's even far more powerful than that with capabilities to do things like deny certain apps/networks unless you have certain password complexity requirements, etc..

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus Microsoft, like 98 and XP...) Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad. Unsandboxed Windows and OS X apps can do an awful lot with your computer.

rdl 11y ago
Yeah, but they've been getting better over time. It's monotonically non-decreasing security, at least, and the desktop->mobile transition has been amazing from a security perspective. This is a step backward. The only question is how big is that step.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 11y ago
Traditional UNIX is no different. Without containers every p0wned process has full access to $HOME and can do everything the user is capable of. I really like that Apple and Microsoft are pushing for sandbox models in their OSes.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  In all fairness, you don't run any modern UNIX server without giving each sensitive server its own user, which effectively sandboxes it (not quite the same as chroot/containers/VMs, but still). Of course, desktop UNIX/Linux tends to have many important processes running as the same user, but that falls under "Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad".
  - rdl 11y ago
    Everyone sane runs sensitive systems "system high" now, where there's a machine dedicated per task. User/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly. You can use VMs for some of that, but that's the limit on sharing (and that's if you trust your hypervisor to be a separation kernel thing; reasonable for many people. Not for others.) Docker/containers isn't enough. Users aren't enough. Processes aren't enough.

smt88 11y ago

Flash and Java are still shipping...

ctz 11y ago

Android will have good security just once they've added more stapled-on legs. Security doesn't come from engineering and good design, it comes from adding more things!

fiatjaf 11y ago
Thank you for saying this! I am an Android developer and I wanted someone to come here and say good things about Android so I could feel safer for my job!

Mikeb85 11y ago

There's nothing insecure about Android. It just gives a few more ways to install apps (side loading for example) which clever social engineers/scammers use to their advantage. It's like saying your credit card is insecure because you gave it to the homeless guy on the street when he promised to only buy a sandwich...

pedrocr 11y ago
Android security is typically horrible when you consider that most phones ship with software that never gets updated throughout their life and has been put together in a quite haphazard way. It's not a fault of Android per-se but it's the case in pretty much anything that isn't a Nexus.
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  > It's not a fault of Android per-se And that's pretty much the answer... BTW, I've found Samsung to be decent with updates as well.
  - derefr 11y ago
    > And that's pretty much the answer... Not really. Android got big because OEMs can do as they like with it. And what OEMs like doing, apparently, is not updating the OS on their device. An Android OS that, from the start, controlled OEMs in some way (by e.g. forcing them to ship updates on a certain schedule) would likely not have become a viable contender in the market. It's not the fault of Android that OEMs are stupid, but Android was created specifically to cater to OEMs and their stupidity. Android's existence is itself the problem. (It'd be great if their licensing model up until now was just a bootstrapping strategy, though, and they began requiring things of their OEMs.)
    - Mikeb85 11y ago
      It would be nice if they forced OEMs to use stock Android and update regularly, but they're already under government investigation for requiring Android branded phones to use certain Google services like Play... To a certain degree, they're forced to either be open as they are now, or sell devices. Given absurd government rulings, forcing stock Android on OEMs would probably bring an antitrust suit against them.

cwyers 11y ago

Most of ChromeOS's safety "features" come at the expense of not being able to do anything; ChromeOS can't run arbitrary malicious code because it can't really run ANY arbitrary code. Yes, yes, Emscripten, the birth and death of Javascript, etc. -- the fact is that security through uselessness isn't a recipe for adoption.

ZenPsycho 11y ago
why do you consider running in a sandbox "useless" ? that's pretty extreme. you really can't think of any use at all for code running in a context where its ability to take power away from the user, and do things without the users permission is greatly reduced? Is your primary goal and idea of utility about doing those sorts of things? ..Or maybe you simply have a deficient imagination?
mehrdada 11y ago
JavaScript is not the only way to do things; cf. Native Client[1]. [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview
- iofj 11y ago
  Things that all software on the planet is compatible with if you would just redesign and recompile and ... * chromebooks * web browsers * a turing machine implemented by having a grad student a car drive around on a long street * https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ Of course it might be a bit slower, it might take a bit more effort, time and imagination on the part of the user. But seriously: it needs to run existing programs without recompilation.
  - mehrdada 11y ago
    That's beside the point made in the OP, which attributed Chrome's great security to its lack of functionality, which is just false. You argument is a valid one with respect to its lack of popularity. That said, while compatibility helps adoption, it is not absolutely necessary. If it were, we would all be stuck with Windows computers in our pockets running on Atom processors having 1:30 hours battery life.

bitmapbrother 11y ago

What an ignorant comment. To call Android the "worst currently-shipping security product" is representative of your knowledge on the matter.

rdl 11y ago
Within the space of general purpose desktop/mobile operating system products: Windows 10 (pretty good). OS X (not great -- which is a shame). Most Linux distributions (OK to good as shipped, can be great). Most BSD distributions (good to great). iOS (fucking AMAZING). ChromeOS (great, RIP). Windows Phone (honestly don't know much about it). BB OS 10/QNX (great, but irrelevant sadly). And then there's Android.
- bitmapbrother 11y ago
  This is pretty funny considering Windows is the cause for nearly all of the security exploits that occur. The horror stories of people being infected with viruses, malware and ransomware all have one thing in common - Windows. You only need to look at the thousands of security patches this OS has had applied to it over the years and the new ones applied every month to truly grasp what a sieve it really is. BTW, where are all of the horror stories concerning the Stagefright exploit that so many "pundits/idiots" predicted would be a disaster for Android? I'm still waiting for that. Also, was there a reason you started referring to specific versions of OS's like Windows 10 and BB OS 10 and then disrespectfully mentioned Android without a version number? Don't you think that was a bit disingenuous, and lame, of you to start mentioning specific OS versions and leave out Android? If you're going to use version numbers then shouldn't you have applied them to all of the OS's you mentioned instead of cherry picking OS versions and then shitting out the line "And then there's Android" at the end?
  - rdl 11y ago
    OK -- Android (until absolute latest) = lovecraftian horror. Android marshmallow = exceptionally bad. BB10 is a fundamentally different OS (QNX based) than pre-BB10. but Pre-10 was also a good OS from a security perspective, just utter shit to develop meaningful third party apps for. Windows...used to be horrible. Big changes around Vista (although, ~unusable). Since Windows 7, it's been "reasonable" in a highly managed corporate environment, and not bad even out of the box. 8, 8.1, and 10 have been improvements on that. It's actually easier to do a 10k user highly locked down Windows deployment (although expensive, and involving a lot of experts and third-party tools) than to do a 10k user locked down Mac OS X deployment. Apple had a lot of advantages by starting from UNIX and from basically starting after security was a "thing", but hasn't done as good a job on OS X security as I'd like. iOS, on the other hand, is amazing -- the only serious deficiencies I find with iOS are a lack of "enterprise as sole root of trust" (which no one does, with the possible exception of (Blackberry Pre-10 and post-10), or roll-your-own open source linux/bsd with a lot of trusted computing grafted on in ways which are not at all trivial to do), and a lack of emphasis on anti-forensics on the device itself -- if you unlock it, it contains an sqllite db with ~every message, which shouldn't be how they do it. OTOH, on cloud services, Google is far and away superior to Apple. The biggest problem with Apple is you're largely pushed toward iCloud which is not amazing from a security perspective. The true win of ChromeOS was you were equally pushed to the Google ecosystem, which is amazing for cloud service security -- the sole problem being you're 100% exposed to Google, Inc. which is both a US company and a single third-party entity, but if you had to pick a single company to be responsible for your cloud services security, you'd probably pick Google on the merits.

irascible 11y ago

You're a moron.

dang 11y ago
> You're a moron. Personal attacks are not allowed and comments like this will get your account banned on HN. Please post civilly or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

rtpg 11y ago

How do you qualify Android as the worst security-shipping product? Is it mainly due to the lack of sound update mechanisms? Because conceptually, Android's model (each application is its own Unix user) seems pretty good

DominikR 11y ago

I don't know what's so horrible about an OS that by default encrypts all data on the device, allows applications only to run in a sandbox and uses SELinux.

devanti 11y ago

Security aside, I would argue that 98 and XP were the best versions of Windows during that period

ygra 11y ago
98 was so bug-riddled that only 98 SE was actually usable. And I'd argue that Windows 2000 was much better-liked than XP on that period. XP was horrible at launch and needed two service packs to become actually liked.

melling 11y ago

Nah, you just don't see the big picture. You're coming at it from the tech side. It's better to look at the business side. Microsoft has 89% desktop market share, so they basically own the desktop. Apple will never be a real threat because of price. Chrome/Android has an excellent chance to be a real alternative on the desktop. if it gets a large enough market share, perhaps we'll see Adobe's apps, for instance, along with all other major apps.

bphogan 11y ago
Is Apple really that much more expensive? Or is that just something that people believe because it used to be true? I keep hearing this repeated, but I bought my dad a $499 Mac Mini. With Microsoft producing a laptop of their own that starts at $1499, I think all we can really say is "Apple doesn't produce bargain laptops".
- acdha 11y ago
  It was true to varying extents before Apple switched to Intel processors. Since then it's never been true by more than ± few percent for equivalent hardware. The complicating factor, and why it's such an enduring belief, is that Apple doesn't ship adware and has minimal hardware standards which are higher than the lowest-end PC market. You see this over and over again where someone is either unable to back up claims or, when pressed, has to admit that the $400 notebook they said was “just like” the MacBook Air had a previous generation processor, magnetic hard drive instead of SSD, low-contrast/dim display, mushy keyboard or unusable trackpad, etc. The same manufacturer probably even makes something fairly competitive, too, but it costs about as much.
  - scholia 11y ago
    Doesn't really matter. Apple makes a very narrow range of products for high-end consumers, and that's a small portion of the market. Apple has nothing for the average home user who wants a $199-$399 laptop. Or even for the geek or gamer who wants a reasonably-priced tower.

gopowerranger 11y ago

ChromeOS is based on Linux so, please, let us hear just how bad you are saying Linux is.

jordanthoms 11y ago

What about if it's Android that gets killed, not Chrome OS? Then it'd be a great day :)

zacharypinter 11y ago
That's where I thought they were heading when ChromeOS got support for running Android apks.
jessaustin 11y ago
That's an intriguing possibility. Given their relative marketshares, even if the plan were to kill Android in favor of ChromeOS, they'd probably say exactly what they're saying now.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

frik 11y ago

I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture (too much sits in the main thread, too many object oriented classes). Low latency UI isn't possible by the initial pre-Google (Android company) bad design choices. Even my high end Android phones is just as fast and responsive as the iPhone 6s but has 4 times as much CPU and a lot higher CPU raw speed and 4 times as much RAM. Beside that Android is the good guy, it's the Win95 20 years later - an universal OS that can be used for many things without restrictions. The Android 5+ UI theme is really outstanding great, I personally favour it over iOS 7+ and Win8+. Maybe Android will get HTML5 web apps as first party citizens. And don't forget about the lovely Go language.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture If, as stated in the article, they merge ChromeOS into Android, rather than abandoning ChromeOS in favor of Android (which seems to be how you and many others have interpreted it), they aren't limited to what is currently in Android, since they bring all the capabilities of ChromeOS are now in Android. A merger is functionally equivalent regardless of direction, which just becomes about branding (and its hardly surprising that Android is the more marketable brand.)
- frik 11y ago
  Ok, thanks for pointing that out, we will see.

eggnet 11y ago

That's a pretty bold statement to make. The announcement contains zero detail, to the point that I'm left questioning what the purpose of leaking the information was other than page views.