6 ms·

Lacros on Chromebooks transition plan won’t be quick

modeless 3y ago
> So how does a browser that should provide a fully integrated experience on a Chromebook do the same? That browser has to communicate with the operating system which provides some of that functionality. Google has had to create much of that functionality for an external, or non-integrated browser over the past three years. Does this also mean it would be feasible to port Firefox and have it be the native and default browser on ChromeOS with the same OS integration as Chrome? That would be pretty cool. (I'm aware that there are ways to run Firefox on ChromeOS today).
- nateb2022 3y ago
  It's already possible to run Firefox on chromeOS, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/run-firefox-chromeos https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/run-firefox-chromeos > with the same OS integration as Chrome? This, however, would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do. It would be possible in a fork of chromeOS, though that would be a lot of work and would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
  - mdwalters 3y ago
    > It's already possible to run Firefox on ChromeOS True, but what about running Firefox natively, without the sandbox?
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
      You mean running without the VM? Sandbox doesn’t mean non native, Chrome itself is arguably running in a sandbox.
  - modeless 3y ago
    As my original comment said very clearly, I am aware that you can run Firefox on ChromeOS today. That's not what I'm talking about. > This, however, would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do Lacros is exactly those changes, though. That's my point. Google already did the work to add all the integration points you need to integrate a browser into the OS.
    - nateb2022 3y ago
      > Lacros is exactly those changes, though. Lacros doesn't give Firefox the APIs that ChromeOS utilizes from Chrome that Firefox lacks. E.g. web battery API, web bluetooth API, web USB API, etc. These are the changes I'm referring to. That's my point. That's what I mean when I said: > [this] would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
  - adfgionoi 3y ago
    It's possible to run a virtual machine on ChromeOS, and within that virtual machine it's possible to run Firefox. This is not the same as running Firefox. A ton of things (like drag and drop, video calls, and some aspects of rendering) are subtly broken. There is no hardware acceleration. Performance is atrocious; expect 15 FPS video maximum. There is a separation between Firefox and the rest of the system, with two filesystems and links opening in the wrong software. Accessing any hardware peripherals such as security keys, cameras, or microphones is unreliable at best. To anyone who has never had the misfortune of using a Chromebook: this stuff works terribly. Don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise. (I think it's actually a container rather than a virtual machine.)
    - bpye 3y ago
      It is a VM though with a light weight VMM > crosvm is a custom virtual machine monitor that takes care of managing KVM, the guest VM, and facilitating the low-level (virtio-based) communication. However the actual application is run within a container inside that VM - if I understand correctly. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/containers_and_vms.md#Overview https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/con...
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Firefox had an OS, and it was rebranded to KaiOS, which is still extant and active today. FirefoxOS/KaiOS, however, is targeted only for feature phones, and therefore, resource-constrained systems. I did enjoy one such phone, and it had a fairly decent browser, though I can't say that it had any Firefox-like features that I could identify, because it was so incredibly minimal.
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      The browser might be OK. The rest of the OS is absolute hell. Missed opportunity.
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    > would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do. literally the entire linked article is about them doing this work
    - nateb2022 3y ago
      > literally the entire linked article is about them doing this work Lacros doesn't give Firefox the APIs that ChromeOS utilizes from Chrome that Firefox lacks. E.g. web battery API, web bluetooth API, web USB API, etc. These are the changes I'm referring to. That's my point. That's what I mean when I said: > [this] would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  It does seem that way, at least assuming that the APIs are stable - and I assume they will be since the whole point is that both sides won't have to coordinate their releases.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    I suspect "stability" will look a lot different from Windows though. They won't be supporting old versions of the API for 30 years but maybe 3 months, since both browser and OS are still expected to be kept up to date for security reasons and supporting old versions of code is onerous. Edit: found this - > The API boundary initially will be semi-stable: it will tolerate 1-2 milestones of version skew. We may allow larger amounts of skew in the future. FF would have a hard time keeping up I think.
    - insanitybit 3y ago
      I imagine that as things stabilize Firefox will be able to handle it. After all, it needs to be manageable by the Chrome team too. Unless the Chrome team is given hidden notice about API changes well in advance, which seems sort of unlikely.
      - bagacrap 3y ago
        Every time an API changes, whether by a little or a lot, the FF team has about 2 months to deal with it. You think that's going to happen? There's just a squad of engineers sitting around doing nothing at all times, waiting for the next emergency to drop? The amount of resources moz would need to allocate to this project (which has little purpose given alternatives) would be prohibitive.
        insanitybit 3y ago
        > Every time an API changes, whether by a little or a lot, the FF team has about 2 months to deal with it. You think that's going to happen? Yes? That doesn't sound that hard. Browser release on a tighter cadence than that. And it's just starting off at 2 months. > There's just a squad of engineers sitting around doing nothing at all times, waiting for the next emergency to drop? Uh... no? They would be normal FF engineers who would sometimes get a release ticket that says they need to update to a new API... > The amount of resources moz would need to allocate to this project (which has little purpose given alternatives) would be prohibitive. Totally disagree. This sounds like something engineers could take as a chore.
bitwize 3y ago
Somewhere inside Google: "What if -- and stay with me here lads, this is a doozy of a brainwave -- what if we shipped ChromeOS as like a regular OS, a regular Linux distribution, with Chrome on top as an app?"
- predictabl3 3y ago
  To be fair, I remember "desktop Linux" when I got my cr-48 and Linux has come a long way since then. I think you're being a bit cheeky but I see the ChromeOS devs as pretty pragmatic. They shipped functional Linux and built a lot to make it work. And seem smartly open to re-using standard Linux bits where possible. For example, this move, or them adopting Wayland for their own presentation layer now that is mature enough, etc.
  - Already__Taken 3y ago
    it was genius, IT admins didn't deploy Linux laptops they deployed chrome browsers everything ran on already. The management on Chromebooks is great and instant. I'd be very worried the nix world hasn't learnt anything yet from the Chromebook ux
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      I tend to come up as UNIX critic, however during university I was actually a UNIX zealot for the most part. My critics and re-focus on Apple, Google and Microsoft ecosystems, steam from having discovered the alternative universes happening outside Bell Labs, being a fan of UNIXes that went their own way like NeXTSTEP, NeWS, A/UX, Irix, Solaris, instead of being yet another UNIX System V clone in user/developer experience. Not sure if GNU/Linux has learned much from ChromeOS/Android UX, given the current state of desktop fragmentation.
      - prmoustache 3y ago
        > Not sure if GNU/Linux has learned much from ChromeOS/Android UX, given the current state of desktop fragmentation. Maybe after 3 decades it is time to stop viewing "GNU/Linux or Linux" as a single entity/organisation. This is such a naive view. This rant all over again is like complaining that the IT industry is fragmented and we have Google, AWS and Microsoft fragmenting the cloud offering, or that Render and Fly.io should not exist because Heroku was already there and people should just work for Heroku and make it a better product. Or that Apple and Microsoft should be working together. Or that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo should stop duplicating their efforts and only offer a single, well made game console. Why have we so many cars brands? Why can I buy so many different yogurts?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dmarinus 3y ago
This reminds me of when Internet Explorer and Explorer in Win9x got integrated and "couldn't get separated". Then Google did the same thing with ChromeOS and now they are reverting on this decision..
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Twice, that was the same on Android.
- omnifischer 3y ago
  I think google did that because they did not use X windows. Purposefully. They specifically used Chrome's UI with some patches in-house so that it is slim and the login/bootup does not flicker like typical linux.
bentcorner 3y ago
> In the current situation, whenever the Chrome browser needs an update, say for a security patch, Google has to push that to Chromebooks in a ChromeOS update. Surely they saw this coming from a long way away. It makes me wonder about the conversations that set them down this path in the first place.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  I guess it started something like: "<Insert your favourite emacs is an OS/window manager/whatever>" "Uh, wait, what if the browser was actually the OS? After all most people work in the browser most of the time right?" "<Mind blown meme>" "How hard would it be to run chrome directly kn hardware?" "Nah, just put a little Linux kernel and a bit of strictly necessary user land and we can pretend chrome runs natively" ... Time passes "We need a file manager, we need a notification bar, we need a dock, we need a clipboard, we need support for Android apps, we need ... an OS that's not just a browser"
  - kotaKat 3y ago
    > "We need a file manager, we need a notification bar, we need a dock, we need a clipboard, we need support for Android apps, we need ... an OS that's not just a browser" That's what 100% absolutely kills me with Chrome OS. When I first used the CR48 it felt like a companion device to my main desktop Chrome environment. Now it's trying too hard to be a primary device, and now with Google deploying Android tablets and Chrome OS-powered tablets it's like nobody knows what platform needs to be on what endpoints anymore. Will the laptop run Chrome OS? Lacros? Android? Who knows! I really really wish I could have a ChromeOS fork that goes back to the simple "the browser window is the OS, no more, no less".
- izacus 3y ago
  The ones that enabled them to launch the most popular Linux distribution in the world by far? One that's really really hard to break because it uses phone-like A/B partitioning with read-only OS installation making separately updateable system browser hard. It was a tradeoff, and a good one based on history. Remember that, as long as the device isn't EOL, ChromeOS updates with the same cadence as Chrome the browser.
andromeduck 3y ago
How long until I can download and run Edge on Chrome OS? Also why not just replace it with Android like "Andromeda" was supposed to do? Chrome OS already supports android, Chrome is already and android app, why not combine efforts?!
- notimetorelax 3y ago
  I wouldn’t want an Android version of Chrome as the main browser for a laptop OS.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Serious question: why would anyone want to run Edge? Most people in tech use Edge exactly once: to download another browser. Firefox I can understand, but Edge?
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    I use edge for MS Teams, office 365 and anything that use microsoft ssO on my linux works computer. I don't want to taint my firefox profile/experience with microsoft stuff, and I figured the microsoft stuff will be better tested on edge than anything else, especially teams videocalls. Since my company mandate the use of microsoft stuff I decided to put everything behind Azure SSO with Edge for linux and keep everything else on firefox. The only thing I use behind Azure SSO that is not on edge is AWS because I take advantage of the multi containers extension to run several profiles in parallel. But for that I use another browser, librewolf.
  - kryptiskt 3y ago
    I use Edge sometimes, I like the tabs on the side and the PDF reader supports annotating the PDFs with text and drawing which is a great feature and keeps me using it for reading. Otherwise it's a Chromium browser, so it's not a hardship to use it. Too bad they removed the EPUB reader functionality when going Chromium.
    - qingcharles 3y ago
dathinab 3y ago
The side has some serious design issues making it basically unusable in some browsers...
cpach 3y ago
For those, like me, who wasn’t familiar with Lacros, here’s an official document from the Chromium project: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/lacros.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/l...
faust201 3y ago
I believe this would a great thing. Make IETF standard for cloud notebooks - If there is an username/password then - Login from the screen - If the backend (dropbox or MS or nextcloud or webdav) supports * Drive(or storage) then it is loaded into a file manager * Password manager -> it is loaded * Bookmarks etc This would mean they can claim that chromebooks are - NOW UNIVERSAL - No lockin - No monopoly - if other OEMs want they can replace the browser and ship it (I discussed this with Firefox management that they should build this cloud notebook instead of boot2gecko-firefoxOS but...)
- pjmlp 3y ago
  We are back at the network computers all over again.
  - omnifischer 3y ago
    Think it is great to go back to mainframe days. But the law makers need to provide some safety from AI/ML eating into privacy and law enforcement snooping.
- tectec 3y ago
  Do you think there are many sales lost of chromebooks because there is lockin? I think most people care way less about that then you would hope.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zarzavat 3y ago
This site is absolute cancer. Always amazed how people manage to break scrolling, a feature that comes for free with every web page. Archive link: https://archive.is/WC3qp https://archive.is/WC3qp
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  JFC. Stop talking before they turn scrolling and the back button into microtransactions.
miki123211 3y ago
How does this change affect Chrome OS's UI? I was under the impression that most of their system UI was written in html/css and displayed by the built-in Chrome browser? Is this incorrect?
- insanitybit 3y ago
  I don't think that's the case, but in general this should be an invisible change to users - the main thing being that their browser will update more quickly and without any change to the OS.
completeshock 3y ago
> In the current situation, whenever the Chrome browser needs an update, say for a security patch, Google has to push that to Chromebooks in a ChromeOS update. That takes more time and effort than it does for the Chrome browser on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Oh no, nobody could see this would be the natural outcome of deeply integrating your browser into your OS. mild shock
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Yeah, especially Google. They definitely don't have any experience with a common mobile OS and the need to update the system web view independently from the base os. /s

> So how does a browser that should provide a fully integrated experience on a Chromebook do the same? That browser has to communicate with the operating system which provides some of that functionality. Google has had to create much of that functionality for an external, or non-integrated browser over the past three years. Does this also mean it would be feasible to port Firefox and have it be the native and default browser on ChromeOS with the same OS integration as Chrome? That would be pretty cool. (I'm aware that there are ways to run Firefox on ChromeOS today).

nateb2022 3y ago
It's already possible to run Firefox on chromeOS, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/run-firefox-chromeos https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/run-firefox-chromeos > with the same OS integration as Chrome? This, however, would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do. It would be possible in a fork of chromeOS, though that would be a lot of work and would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
- mdwalters 3y ago
  > It's already possible to run Firefox on ChromeOS True, but what about running Firefox natively, without the sandbox?
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    You mean running without the VM? Sandbox doesn’t mean non native, Chrome itself is arguably running in a sandbox.
- modeless 3y ago
  As my original comment said very clearly, I am aware that you can run Firefox on ChromeOS today. That's not what I'm talking about. > This, however, would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do Lacros is exactly those changes, though. That's my point. Google already did the work to add all the integration points you need to integrate a browser into the OS.
  - nateb2022 3y ago
    > Lacros is exactly those changes, though. Lacros doesn't give Firefox the APIs that ChromeOS utilizes from Chrome that Firefox lacks. E.g. web battery API, web bluetooth API, web USB API, etc. These are the changes I'm referring to. That's my point. That's what I mean when I said: > [this] would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
- adfgionoi 3y ago
  It's possible to run a virtual machine on ChromeOS, and within that virtual machine it's possible to run Firefox. This is not the same as running Firefox. A ton of things (like drag and drop, video calls, and some aspects of rendering) are subtly broken. There is no hardware acceleration. Performance is atrocious; expect 15 FPS video maximum. There is a separation between Firefox and the rest of the system, with two filesystems and links opening in the wrong software. Accessing any hardware peripherals such as security keys, cameras, or microphones is unreliable at best. To anyone who has never had the misfortune of using a Chromebook: this stuff works terribly. Don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise. (I think it's actually a container rather than a virtual machine.)
  - bpye 3y ago
    It is a VM though with a light weight VMM > crosvm is a custom virtual machine monitor that takes care of managing KVM, the guest VM, and facilitating the low-level (virtio-based) communication. However the actual application is run within a container inside that VM - if I understand correctly. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/containers_and_vms.md#Overview https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/con...
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Firefox had an OS, and it was rebranded to KaiOS, which is still extant and active today. FirefoxOS/KaiOS, however, is targeted only for feature phones, and therefore, resource-constrained systems. I did enjoy one such phone, and it had a fairly decent browser, though I can't say that it had any Firefox-like features that I could identify, because it was so incredibly minimal.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    The browser might be OK. The rest of the OS is absolute hell. Missed opportunity.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  > would require a lot of changes in chromeOS itself that Google won't do. literally the entire linked article is about them doing this work
  - nateb2022 3y ago
    > literally the entire linked article is about them doing this work Lacros doesn't give Firefox the APIs that ChromeOS utilizes from Chrome that Firefox lacks. E.g. web battery API, web bluetooth API, web USB API, etc. These are the changes I'm referring to. That's my point. That's what I mean when I said: > [this] would involve adding several APIs to Firefox that chromeOS relies on.
insanitybit 3y ago
It does seem that way, at least assuming that the APIs are stable - and I assume they will be since the whole point is that both sides won't have to coordinate their releases.
- bagacrap 3y ago
  I suspect "stability" will look a lot different from Windows though. They won't be supporting old versions of the API for 30 years but maybe 3 months, since both browser and OS are still expected to be kept up to date for security reasons and supporting old versions of code is onerous. Edit: found this - > The API boundary initially will be semi-stable: it will tolerate 1-2 milestones of version skew. We may allow larger amounts of skew in the future. FF would have a hard time keeping up I think.
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    I imagine that as things stabilize Firefox will be able to handle it. After all, it needs to be manageable by the Chrome team too. Unless the Chrome team is given hidden notice about API changes well in advance, which seems sort of unlikely.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      Every time an API changes, whether by a little or a lot, the FF team has about 2 months to deal with it. You think that's going to happen? There's just a squad of engineers sitting around doing nothing at all times, waiting for the next emergency to drop? The amount of resources moz would need to allocate to this project (which has little purpose given alternatives) would be prohibitive.
      - insanitybit 3y ago
        > Every time an API changes, whether by a little or a lot, the FF team has about 2 months to deal with it. You think that's going to happen? Yes? That doesn't sound that hard. Browser release on a tighter cadence than that. And it's just starting off at 2 months. > There's just a squad of engineers sitting around doing nothing at all times, waiting for the next emergency to drop? Uh... no? They would be normal FF engineers who would sometimes get a release ticket that says they need to update to a new API... > The amount of resources moz would need to allocate to this project (which has little purpose given alternatives) would be prohibitive. Totally disagree. This sounds like something engineers could take as a chore.

bitwize 3y ago

Somewhere inside Google: "What if -- and stay with me here lads, this is a doozy of a brainwave -- what if we shipped ChromeOS as like a regular OS, a regular Linux distribution, with Chrome on top as an app?"

predictabl3 3y ago
To be fair, I remember "desktop Linux" when I got my cr-48 and Linux has come a long way since then. I think you're being a bit cheeky but I see the ChromeOS devs as pretty pragmatic. They shipped functional Linux and built a lot to make it work. And seem smartly open to re-using standard Linux bits where possible. For example, this move, or them adopting Wayland for their own presentation layer now that is mature enough, etc.
- Already__Taken 3y ago
  it was genius, IT admins didn't deploy Linux laptops they deployed chrome browsers everything ran on already. The management on Chromebooks is great and instant. I'd be very worried the nix world hasn't learnt anything yet from the Chromebook ux
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    I tend to come up as UNIX critic, however during university I was actually a UNIX zealot for the most part. My critics and re-focus on Apple, Google and Microsoft ecosystems, steam from having discovered the alternative universes happening outside Bell Labs, being a fan of UNIXes that went their own way like NeXTSTEP, NeWS, A/UX, Irix, Solaris, instead of being yet another UNIX System V clone in user/developer experience. Not sure if GNU/Linux has learned much from ChromeOS/Android UX, given the current state of desktop fragmentation.
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      > Not sure if GNU/Linux has learned much from ChromeOS/Android UX, given the current state of desktop fragmentation. Maybe after 3 decades it is time to stop viewing "GNU/Linux or Linux" as a single entity/organisation. This is such a naive view. This rant all over again is like complaining that the IT industry is fragmented and we have Google, AWS and Microsoft fragmenting the cloud offering, or that Render and Fly.io should not exist because Heroku was already there and people should just work for Heroku and make it a better product. Or that Apple and Microsoft should be working together. Or that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo should stop duplicating their efforts and only offer a single, well made game console. Why have we so many cars brands? Why can I buy so many different yogurts?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dmarinus 3y ago

This reminds me of when Internet Explorer and Explorer in Win9x got integrated and "couldn't get separated". Then Google did the same thing with ChromeOS and now they are reverting on this decision..

pjmlp 3y ago
Twice, that was the same on Android.
omnifischer 3y ago
I think google did that because they did not use X windows. Purposefully. They specifically used Chrome's UI with some patches in-house so that it is slim and the login/bootup does not flicker like typical linux.

bentcorner 3y ago

> In the current situation, whenever the Chrome browser needs an update, say for a security patch, Google has to push that to Chromebooks in a ChromeOS update. Surely they saw this coming from a long way away. It makes me wonder about the conversations that set them down this path in the first place.

ithkuil 3y ago
I guess it started something like: "<Insert your favourite emacs is an OS/window manager/whatever>" "Uh, wait, what if the browser was actually the OS? After all most people work in the browser most of the time right?" "<Mind blown meme>" "How hard would it be to run chrome directly kn hardware?" "Nah, just put a little Linux kernel and a bit of strictly necessary user land and we can pretend chrome runs natively" ... Time passes "We need a file manager, we need a notification bar, we need a dock, we need a clipboard, we need support for Android apps, we need ... an OS that's not just a browser"
- kotaKat 3y ago
  > "We need a file manager, we need a notification bar, we need a dock, we need a clipboard, we need support for Android apps, we need ... an OS that's not just a browser" That's what 100% absolutely kills me with Chrome OS. When I first used the CR48 it felt like a companion device to my main desktop Chrome environment. Now it's trying too hard to be a primary device, and now with Google deploying Android tablets and Chrome OS-powered tablets it's like nobody knows what platform needs to be on what endpoints anymore. Will the laptop run Chrome OS? Lacros? Android? Who knows! I really really wish I could have a ChromeOS fork that goes back to the simple "the browser window is the OS, no more, no less".
izacus 3y ago
The ones that enabled them to launch the most popular Linux distribution in the world by far? One that's really really hard to break because it uses phone-like A/B partitioning with read-only OS installation making separately updateable system browser hard. It was a tradeoff, and a good one based on history. Remember that, as long as the device isn't EOL, ChromeOS updates with the same cadence as Chrome the browser.

andromeduck 3y ago

How long until I can download and run Edge on Chrome OS? Also why not just replace it with Android like "Andromeda" was supposed to do? Chrome OS already supports android, Chrome is already and android app, why not combine efforts?!

notimetorelax 3y ago
I wouldn’t want an Android version of Chrome as the main browser for a laptop OS.
kramerger 3y ago
Serious question: why would anyone want to run Edge? Most people in tech use Edge exactly once: to download another browser. Firefox I can understand, but Edge?
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I use edge for MS Teams, office 365 and anything that use microsoft ssO on my linux works computer. I don't want to taint my firefox profile/experience with microsoft stuff, and I figured the microsoft stuff will be better tested on edge than anything else, especially teams videocalls. Since my company mandate the use of microsoft stuff I decided to put everything behind Azure SSO with Edge for linux and keep everything else on firefox. The only thing I use behind Azure SSO that is not on edge is AWS because I take advantage of the multi containers extension to run several profiles in parallel. But for that I use another browser, librewolf.
- kryptiskt 3y ago
  I use Edge sometimes, I like the tabs on the side and the PDF reader supports annotating the PDFs with text and drawing which is a great feature and keeps me using it for reading. Otherwise it's a Chromium browser, so it's not a hardship to use it. Too bad they removed the EPUB reader functionality when going Chromium.
  - qingcharles 3y ago

dathinab 3y ago

The side has some serious design issues making it basically unusable in some browsers...

cpach 3y ago

For those, like me, who wasn’t familiar with Lacros, here’s an official document from the Chromium project: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/lacros.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/l...

faust201 3y ago

I believe this would a great thing. Make IETF standard for cloud notebooks - If there is an username/password then - Login from the screen - If the backend (dropbox or MS or nextcloud or webdav) supports * Drive(or storage) then it is loaded into a file manager * Password manager -> it is loaded * Bookmarks etc This would mean they can claim that chromebooks are - NOW UNIVERSAL - No lockin - No monopoly - if other OEMs want they can replace the browser and ship it (I discussed this with Firefox management that they should build this cloud notebook instead of boot2gecko-firefoxOS but...)

pjmlp 3y ago
We are back at the network computers all over again.
- omnifischer 3y ago
  Think it is great to go back to mainframe days. But the law makers need to provide some safety from AI/ML eating into privacy and law enforcement snooping.
tectec 3y ago
Do you think there are many sales lost of chromebooks because there is lockin? I think most people care way less about that then you would hope.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zarzavat 3y ago

This site is absolute cancer. Always amazed how people manage to break scrolling, a feature that comes for free with every web page. Archive link: https://archive.is/WC3qp https://archive.is/WC3qp

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
JFC. Stop talking before they turn scrolling and the back button into microtransactions.

miki123211 3y ago

How does this change affect Chrome OS's UI? I was under the impression that most of their system UI was written in html/css and displayed by the built-in Chrome browser? Is this incorrect?

insanitybit 3y ago
I don't think that's the case, but in general this should be an invisible change to users - the main thing being that their browser will update more quickly and without any change to the OS.

completeshock 3y ago

> In the current situation, whenever the Chrome browser needs an update, say for a security patch, Google has to push that to Chromebooks in a ChromeOS update. That takes more time and effort than it does for the Chrome browser on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Oh no, nobody could see this would be the natural outcome of deeply integrating your browser into your OS. mild shock

_ea1k 3y ago
Yeah, especially Google. They definitely don't have any experience with a common mobile OS and the need to update the system web view independently from the base os. /s