4 ms·

In exchange for taking control of Chrome updates out of the hands of users Google is accepting the moral responsibility for fixing security issues for those use

In exchange for taking control of Chrome updates out of the hands of users Google is accepting the moral responsibility for fixing security issues for those users. They are now abandoning those users. I would hope that as a minimum they would show a very obvious alert to people on abandoned platforms warning them that the autoupdate agreement between user and browser vendor has been broken and that they need to find a new browser. But I think they should go further. Google's logic for taking control over updates away from users is that it's too dangerous to let people continue to use old insecure versions of web browsers. If old browser versions are too dangerous to use then they should prevent Chrome from running on unsupported platforms since the only versions that will run on those platforms are by definition old insecure versions.

sbierwagen 11y ago
Jesus christ, what "moral responsibility"? None of these people are paying for a service contact from Google. Nobody anywhere is obliged to actively maintain a piece of software forever.
- anon1385 11y ago
  I didn't ask them to maintain it forever. I said they should prevent the insecure versions from running, which is what their current policy is anyway.
kybernetyk 11y ago
>is accepting the moral responsibility for fixing security issues for those users. They are now abandoning those users. Google is a business. They decided to stop supporting a platform they don't think is relevant to their business anymore. There is no "moral" responsibility there besides looking at what's good for Google. If users (customers) decided back then that they'd rather have free browsers and didn't support commercial (paid) alternatives they are now the only ones to blame for this happening. At this point the user can't even vote with their wallet now. They willingly gave away all their power for free stuff. Clinging onto some "moral responsibility" is delusional. Now I get the allure of free stuff. But I also think many people blissfully ignore the fact that everything they do will have some form of consequences down the road and that there is no "free" stuff in life.
- anon1385 11y ago
  Morality has nothing to do with money changing hands or not. People would consider it immoral for Google to fail to patch serious vulnerabilities in Chrome on supported platforms, even though Chrome is free. Why? Because Google advertises Chrome as being secure and failing to patch it leaves millions of people vulnerable to exploitation. It's very disturbing that there are people in the tech industry who think that giving a product away for free absolves you of any moral responsibility.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
> But I think they should go further. As long as you're writing the checks to do so.
- anon1385 11y ago
  I'd be happy to write a final version of Chrome for those platforms that was just a "This platform is no longer supported" message. I'd even do it for free.
yuhong 11y ago
I think they are showing a warning message. Preventing Chrome from running would do more harm than good.

sbierwagen 11y ago

Jesus christ, what "moral responsibility"? None of these people are paying for a service contact from Google. Nobody anywhere is obliged to actively maintain a piece of software forever.

anon1385 11y ago
I didn't ask them to maintain it forever. I said they should prevent the insecure versions from running, which is what their current policy is anyway.

kybernetyk 11y ago

>is accepting the moral responsibility for fixing security issues for those users. They are now abandoning those users. Google is a business. They decided to stop supporting a platform they don't think is relevant to their business anymore. There is no "moral" responsibility there besides looking at what's good for Google. If users (customers) decided back then that they'd rather have free browsers and didn't support commercial (paid) alternatives they are now the only ones to blame for this happening. At this point the user can't even vote with their wallet now. They willingly gave away all their power for free stuff. Clinging onto some "moral responsibility" is delusional. Now I get the allure of free stuff. But I also think many people blissfully ignore the fact that everything they do will have some form of consequences down the road and that there is no "free" stuff in life.

anon1385 11y ago
Morality has nothing to do with money changing hands or not. People would consider it immoral for Google to fail to patch serious vulnerabilities in Chrome on supported platforms, even though Chrome is free. Why? Because Google advertises Chrome as being secure and failing to patch it leaves millions of people vulnerable to exploitation. It's very disturbing that there are people in the tech industry who think that giving a product away for free absolves you of any moral responsibility.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> But I think they should go further. As long as you're writing the checks to do so.

anon1385 11y ago
I'd be happy to write a final version of Chrome for those platforms that was just a "This platform is no longer supported" message. I'd even do it for free.

yuhong 11y ago

I think they are showing a warning message. Preventing Chrome from running would do more harm than good.