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I'm not at all defending the practice, but I think it has to do with the legacy. Google is (somewhat) up front about tracking, and has always required an accoun
by gregmac 8y ago
I'm not at all defending the practice, but I think it has to do with the legacy. Google is (somewhat) up front about tracking, and has always required an account. There was never a Chrome OS that didn't track you.
Windows didn't used to do this, so it feels like they're changing the rules after you've agreed and bought into the platform. If Microsoft had instead called "Windows 10" something completely different, and similarly was up front about what it was doing, I suspect there wouldn't be the same backlash. Some people would still disagree with it, and would be unhappy they were moving to replace Windows with this other thing, but it wouldn't have the same impact that acting like it's just another major version upgrade does.
- toyg 8y agoNo, it's just that the volumes are still not comparable. Everyone at some point has had a Windows machine, including the privacy-conscious and the paranoid -- simply because, at the time, there was no realistic alternative. Once you reach 90% penetration, any special-interest group with a pet complaint will be sizeable. That's not happened with Chromebooks and it's unlikely to ever happen. Privacy-conscious users now have NSA-hardened Linux and "won't-let-FBI-in" iPhones, they will never have to deal with Google if they don't want to. They are not forced to use any of their services, since there are alternatives for pretty much everything -- even superior ones, in most cases. The only service that used to be unmatched was Search, and sure enough, plenty of people still complain about tracking searches.
- phobosdeimos 8y agoFunny how I can block in-app ads and trackers on Android even without root. Although that's more thanks to Linux than Google I'm sure.