3 ms·

Which means that Google can simply lock you out of your Chromebook, for entirely arbitrary (and not even necessarily disclosed) reasons, at any moment. There's

Which means that Google can simply lock you out of your Chromebook, for entirely arbitrary (and not even necessarily disclosed) reasons, at any moment. There's no practical avenue of appeal - Google is vast and even governments have trouble keeping it to heel. Individuals have no chance against these obdurate nation-sized entities. I think any Chromebook purchase, beyond the most cheap and cheerful throwaway, would be a crazy hostage to fortune.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Not going to comment much on how much of a risk it is to use a Google product in this way. Just going to say that ChromeOS is pretty much designed to work with Google's primary apps: GMail, Drive, Hangouts (or whatever it's called these days), etc. So my point is that if you want to stay out of the Google ecosystem, it wouldn't make sense to use ChromeOS in any case.
- aussiesnack 4y ago
  A willingness to selectively use the Google ecosystem, versus signing over your bare ability to even use a purchased general-purpose computing device entirely to Google's pleasure, are two distinctly different things though. I'm not making a 'Google is evil' argument (that would be a different conversation). I just couldn't bear to trust any corporation with that degree of arbitrary power over physical objects in my possession, regardless of whether or not I'd use their webapps. The power imbalance is just too great. Google (or Microsoft or Apple) is, in practise if not in theory, above any law that can be wielded by individuals.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    I'm with you. We're driving into the world of Snow Crash like Tina Belcher, and all I hear when folks talk about how marginally better for browsing these devices are is: "ehhhhhhhhhhhhh". On a more specific (read: paranoid) note, these security chips give me the heebie jeebies. How long until I need to register a program hash with the FAANG-that-be just to run my own software?
- afandian 4y ago
  I only asked in the first place because so many people say that it’s good for Linux. It seems like that’s predicated on a Google account.
isr 4y ago
Actually, I don't believe this is accurate. There is a single "desktop" user on chrome os - 'chronos'. Even when you login with different accounts, everything is still running as chronos (id 1000). What happens is that there are separate loopback filesystems, 1 per each "google account", all stored under /mnt/stateful_partition. These filesystems are encrypted (ecryptfs). When you login, the relevant filesystem is decrypted and bind mounted over /home/chronos. All of this is done locally, no network queries involved. I don't think that you lose your local files if your google account is somehow borked. You just lose the online aspects of that. But as a general rule, your overall point about not being too reliant on googlopoly is one which should be well taken.
- aussiesnack 4y ago
  Interesting, thanks. That's something then - I don't know much about ChromeOS. I've considered it for parents, but in the end have opted for something modest running one Linux or another. A true laptop-appliance with an immutable-ish OS, decent security and fast/easy updates is actually a quite compelling notion. I'd be pretty uncomfortable with it not being local-first for user data though.
  - grey_earthling 4y ago
    > A true laptop-appliance with an immutable-ish OS, decent security and fast/easy updates is actually a quite compelling notion. I'd be pretty uncomfortable with it not being local-first for user data though. Fedora Silverblue may suit your needs.
    - aussiesnack 4y ago
      I was thinking more for the sort of non-technical users a Chromebook would suit, which at a minimum means pre-installed with little or no admin needed. Chromebooks are a great idea, it's just a pity they're so deeply intertwined with Google services (though given way the consumer market has developed, some such corporate entanglement is I suppose inevitable).

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Not going to comment much on how much of a risk it is to use a Google product in this way. Just going to say that ChromeOS is pretty much designed to work with Google's primary apps: GMail, Drive, Hangouts (or whatever it's called these days), etc. So my point is that if you want to stay out of the Google ecosystem, it wouldn't make sense to use ChromeOS in any case.

aussiesnack 4y ago
A willingness to selectively use the Google ecosystem, versus signing over your bare ability to even use a purchased general-purpose computing device entirely to Google's pleasure, are two distinctly different things though. I'm not making a 'Google is evil' argument (that would be a different conversation). I just couldn't bear to trust any corporation with that degree of arbitrary power over physical objects in my possession, regardless of whether or not I'd use their webapps. The power imbalance is just too great. Google (or Microsoft or Apple) is, in practise if not in theory, above any law that can be wielded by individuals.
- pksebben 4y ago
  I'm with you. We're driving into the world of Snow Crash like Tina Belcher, and all I hear when folks talk about how marginally better for browsing these devices are is: "ehhhhhhhhhhhhh". On a more specific (read: paranoid) note, these security chips give me the heebie jeebies. How long until I need to register a program hash with the FAANG-that-be just to run my own software?
afandian 4y ago
I only asked in the first place because so many people say that it’s good for Linux. It seems like that’s predicated on a Google account.

isr 4y ago

Actually, I don't believe this is accurate. There is a single "desktop" user on chrome os - 'chronos'. Even when you login with different accounts, everything is still running as chronos (id 1000). What happens is that there are separate loopback filesystems, 1 per each "google account", all stored under /mnt/stateful_partition. These filesystems are encrypted (ecryptfs). When you login, the relevant filesystem is decrypted and bind mounted over /home/chronos. All of this is done locally, no network queries involved. I don't think that you lose your local files if your google account is somehow borked. You just lose the online aspects of that. But as a general rule, your overall point about not being too reliant on googlopoly is one which should be well taken.

aussiesnack 4y ago
Interesting, thanks. That's something then - I don't know much about ChromeOS. I've considered it for parents, but in the end have opted for something modest running one Linux or another. A true laptop-appliance with an immutable-ish OS, decent security and fast/easy updates is actually a quite compelling notion. I'd be pretty uncomfortable with it not being local-first for user data though.
- grey_earthling 4y ago
  > A true laptop-appliance with an immutable-ish OS, decent security and fast/easy updates is actually a quite compelling notion. I'd be pretty uncomfortable with it not being local-first for user data though. Fedora Silverblue may suit your needs.
  - aussiesnack 4y ago
    I was thinking more for the sort of non-technical users a Chromebook would suit, which at a minimum means pre-installed with little or no admin needed. Chromebooks are a great idea, it's just a pity they're so deeply intertwined with Google services (though given way the consumer market has developed, some such corporate entanglement is I suppose inevitable).