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This is a situation of their own making. They're the ones that pushed for invisible automatic extension upgrades. Firefox's old system of you needing to manual

by vxNsr 7y ago

This is a situation of their own making. They're the ones that pushed for invisible automatic extension upgrades. Firefox's old system of you needing to manually initiate upgrades was much more secure, and encouraged user responsibility for the code running on their machines. Google wants to infantilize the user, take away all choice, claim users can't make good decisions and then claim anything control they remove is for the user's benefit. They're a bunch of stinking liers. At this point anyone claiming to be a platform needs to regulated just like we regulate platforms before the internet. I have a friend who works in the compliance department of one of the big international commodity exchanges. They are responsible for regulating the platform (his words) and preventing anything untoward happening, but that also means the company itself cannot "double deal" it can't participate in the markets in anyway. In addition they have two fed watchdogs that do regular invasive audits to ensure that they're actually following the laws and regulations. It's time for internet companies to be put to the same standard: If you call yourself a platform get ready to be treated as such. If you don't wanna be a platform and you have 70%+ of the market get ready to get broken up.

rileymat2 7y ago
> Google wants to infantilize the user, take away all choice, claim users can't make good decisions and then claim anything control they remove is for the user's benefit. As a developer with 18 years experience, I am not sure I have the time to make good decisions. I am not going to audit the code of everything I install by reputation. An average user has no hope.
- Santosh83 7y ago
  No offence but you seem to have just done exactly what GP accuses Google (and most other big s/w corps to be honest) of doing. I am an average user (in the sense I'm not a professional s/w dev although I do know coding and have a more than normal interest in the inner workings of computers, but most youth are similar anyway. No one is dumb unless they've been trained to relinquish thought), and in two decades of using computers and the Internet I have to say I did not get hoodwinked into installing a single malware or getting a single virus. And uptil at least the last decade s/w wasn't as controlling and infantilising as it has lately become, and I got along just fine. In fact the slight difficulty actually enabled me to learn interesting stuff which modern UX almost totally stonewalls with its opaque "let me hold your hand" interfaces.
- greggman2 7y ago
  Random thoughts 1. I generally trust when I update linux that things have been inspected. Maybe I'm dumb. I also trust that if I don't update immediately but a few weeks or months later, if anything snuck in it has been found, reverted, fixed. So, by not making updating automatic that would seem to help somewhat? Of course the opposite is if there is a critical vulnerability then automatic updating helps many people. I believe this is mostly why Windows is so insistant on updates is that so many non-tech users were not updating and then getting powned. 2. It seems like maybe there'd be a market for a curated service. Neither Google's App store, nor Apple's, nor the Chrome Web Store, nor the Firefox Extension Gallery are curated well IMO. They are all 80-95% full of crappy software meant to scam you in one way or another. I wonder if someone would make a startup that for $$ curated software and/or extensions including checking changes. Maybe publishers would have to pay to certified or maybe users would pay to fund the checking. Well I can wish :P

by vxNsr 7y ago

rileymat2 7y ago

> Google wants to infantilize the user, take away all choice, claim users can't make good decisions and then claim anything control they remove is for the user's benefit. As a developer with 18 years experience, I am not sure I have the time to make good decisions. I am not going to audit the code of everything I install by reputation. An average user has no hope.

Santosh83 7y ago
No offence but you seem to have just done exactly what GP accuses Google (and most other big s/w corps to be honest) of doing. I am an average user (in the sense I'm not a professional s/w dev although I do know coding and have a more than normal interest in the inner workings of computers, but most youth are similar anyway. No one is dumb unless they've been trained to relinquish thought), and in two decades of using computers and the Internet I have to say I did not get hoodwinked into installing a single malware or getting a single virus. And uptil at least the last decade s/w wasn't as controlling and infantilising as it has lately become, and I got along just fine. In fact the slight difficulty actually enabled me to learn interesting stuff which modern UX almost totally stonewalls with its opaque "let me hold your hand" interfaces.
greggman2 7y ago
Random thoughts 1. I generally trust when I update linux that things have been inspected. Maybe I'm dumb. I also trust that if I don't update immediately but a few weeks or months later, if anything snuck in it has been found, reverted, fixed. So, by not making updating automatic that would seem to help somewhat? Of course the opposite is if there is a critical vulnerability then automatic updating helps many people. I believe this is mostly why Windows is so insistant on updates is that so many non-tech users were not updating and then getting powned. 2. It seems like maybe there'd be a market for a curated service. Neither Google's App store, nor Apple's, nor the Chrome Web Store, nor the Firefox Extension Gallery are curated well IMO. They are all 80-95% full of crappy software meant to scam you in one way or another. I wonder if someone would make a startup that for $$ curated software and/or extensions including checking changes. Maybe publishers would have to pay to certified or maybe users would pay to fund the checking. Well I can wish :P