5 ms·

Another honest question, are alternative browsers allowed on Chromebooks running ChromeOS?

Karunamon 14y ago
They're not disallowed, if that's what you mean. You flip a switch on the back in order to enable developer mode, and then you can do whatever you want with the machine. There are already a couple of Ubuntu releases for Chromebooks.
- luser001 14y ago
  What about without flipping the switch? What (security?) do you give up by moving to developer mode?
- cube13 14y ago
  "Sure, if you install OS" is always the wrong answer to "Can you run X?" The answer, apparently, is no, you cannot run Firefox with CromeOS. You can root the device and install it manually, but I'm not sure how well that works. MS is doing the exact same thing as Apple with iOS Safari and Google with ChromeOS. Not sure why they're evil here, but oh well.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    >You can root the device and install it manually Some clarification is in order here. Flipping an explicitly provided and documented switch is not "rooting" the device. That carries the connotations of hacking around some form of enforced security getting in your way. And yes you can install it manually without hacking the OS... It's just a form of Linux after all. Go bug Firefox and get them to offer a package that works with the OS if this is too much trouble. Now, is your problem that they don't go out of their way to add compatability for random third party packages on a cloud based OS? You're not the target market, then :P
    - cube13 14y ago
      >Now, is your problem that they don't go out of their way to add compatability for random third party packages on a cloud based OS? You're not the target market, then :P I'm not bothered by Google, Apple's, or MS' decision, really. It's just that answering "Can you run Firefox on ChromeOS" with "You can run Firefox on a Chromebook... if you run Ubuntu" just doesn't help anyone that actually wants to run ChromeOS. Also, I'm aware that it's just flipping the switch. It's not, for example, the same steps you need to do to root a Kindle Fire, but it's still the same result: You still need root access to install(and possibly run) Firefox with ChromeOS.
      - Karunamon 14y ago
        I'm not sure what else you would expect though. The browser is the operating system in the case of ChromeOS. (It's even in the name!) It would be like taking a system designed explicitly for Konqueror, for KDE, and all of the specific things that entails, and then turning around and wanting to reconfigure that system to use Dillo or Iceweasel or something else.
htilford 14y ago
Yes, Nacl supports JIT. Mozilla could port Firefox to Nacl so it could run a Chromebook. not without it's usual validation which makes it non trivial to implement.
- azakai 14y ago
  > Mozilla could port Firefox to Nacl so it could run a Chromebook. Not very well, though. NaCl supports JIT, basically enough for Mono. But it does not support self-modifying arbitrary asm code, which is absolutely necessary for fast JS, PICs need that. Also, NaCl increases code size significantly due to its sandboxing mechanism. Finally, NaCl performance is good on x86 but less so on x86_64 and ARM, again due to how it sandboxes (on x86 there are some nice tricks that make it work better). Finally, you would need to port to NaCl. It isn't trivial, you need to use the Pepper APIs. So you could run Firefox, but it would need to run JS in the interpreter, it's code size would be very large and performance would be significantly slower than a true native app. It would not be a competitive browser on a Chromebook due to those large limitations. So practically speaking, Chromebooks do not allow other browsers.

They're not disallowed, if that's what you mean. You flip a switch on the back in order to enable developer mode, and then you can do whatever you want with the machine. There are already a couple of Ubuntu releases for Chromebooks.

luser001 14y ago
What about without flipping the switch? What (security?) do you give up by moving to developer mode?
cube13 14y ago
"Sure, if you install OS" is always the wrong answer to "Can you run X?" The answer, apparently, is no, you cannot run Firefox with CromeOS. You can root the device and install it manually, but I'm not sure how well that works. MS is doing the exact same thing as Apple with iOS Safari and Google with ChromeOS. Not sure why they're evil here, but oh well.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >You can root the device and install it manually Some clarification is in order here. Flipping an explicitly provided and documented switch is not "rooting" the device. That carries the connotations of hacking around some form of enforced security getting in your way. And yes you can install it manually without hacking the OS... It's just a form of Linux after all. Go bug Firefox and get them to offer a package that works with the OS if this is too much trouble. Now, is your problem that they don't go out of their way to add compatability for random third party packages on a cloud based OS? You're not the target market, then :P
  - cube13 14y ago
    >Now, is your problem that they don't go out of their way to add compatability for random third party packages on a cloud based OS? You're not the target market, then :P I'm not bothered by Google, Apple's, or MS' decision, really. It's just that answering "Can you run Firefox on ChromeOS" with "You can run Firefox on a Chromebook... if you run Ubuntu" just doesn't help anyone that actually wants to run ChromeOS. Also, I'm aware that it's just flipping the switch. It's not, for example, the same steps you need to do to root a Kindle Fire, but it's still the same result: You still need root access to install(and possibly run) Firefox with ChromeOS.
    - Karunamon 14y ago
      I'm not sure what else you would expect though. The browser is the operating system in the case of ChromeOS. (It's even in the name!) It would be like taking a system designed explicitly for Konqueror, for KDE, and all of the specific things that entails, and then turning around and wanting to reconfigure that system to use Dillo or Iceweasel or something else.

htilford 14y ago

Yes, Nacl supports JIT. Mozilla could port Firefox to Nacl so it could run a Chromebook. not without it's usual validation which makes it non trivial to implement.

azakai 14y ago
> Mozilla could port Firefox to Nacl so it could run a Chromebook. Not very well, though. NaCl supports JIT, basically enough for Mono. But it does not support self-modifying arbitrary asm code, which is absolutely necessary for fast JS, PICs need that. Also, NaCl increases code size significantly due to its sandboxing mechanism. Finally, NaCl performance is good on x86 but less so on x86_64 and ARM, again due to how it sandboxes (on x86 there are some nice tricks that make it work better). Finally, you would need to port to NaCl. It isn't trivial, you need to use the Pepper APIs. So you could run Firefox, but it would need to run JS in the interpreter, it's code size would be very large and performance would be significantly slower than a true native app. It would not be a competitive browser on a Chromebook due to those large limitations. So practically speaking, Chromebooks do not allow other browsers.