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"To recap, Page criticized Microsoft for treating Google as a rival, blasted Oracle for caring too much about money, and then whined about everyone being so neg

by dvt 14y ago

"To recap, Page criticized Microsoft for treating Google as a rival, blasted Oracle for caring too much about money, and then whined about everyone being so negative. Heck, if it weren’t for those other companies standing in the way, Google would have probably already solved world hunger." I mean, pretty much this (assuming the above was facetious). The Youtube thing really made me lose a lot of hope in Google as a company. Even though, I feel that we've made great strides in the past 10 years, I can't help but be reminded that: 1) I have people on my Facebook that I can't add to my phone without some ridiculous hacks (that essentially scrape FB, breaking the TOS) - thanks Facebook 2) I can't use GMail in the vanilla mail app on my touchscreen W8 laptop - thanks Google 3) I can't have a Metro Chrome app - thanks Google 4) My sister can't have almost anything (native) Google-related on her ARM-based W8RT tablet - thanks Microsoft 5) I can't have a distro-agnostic framework that "just works" for downloading/updating/installing/uninstalling Linux packages - thanks FOSS infighting cliques 6) I don't have full control over my Android/Apple phone, over my Android/Apple/Windows tablet, (and soon over my Google glass) unless I root said devices This is simply a consumer-space extension of the legal battles that these companies are so fond of (see Samsung vs. Apple). The sad part is, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Oh, well.. c'est la vie.

gkoberger 14y ago
A lot of things you mentioned are more "why would company A bother building for company B's platform?" than "the companies are evil!"
- CloudNine 14y ago
  Then why does Vimeo have a Windows Phone 8 and WinRT app while YouTube with a much higher revenue can't make one? Why does the zombie company Yahoo Mail bother to a Windows Metro app while Gmail doesn't? Or perhaps Google doesn't want to support Windows Phone and WinRT for the fear of rivaling Android phones and tablets.
feduphacker 14y ago
Thanks for sharing. I pretty much lost all hope in the big tech companies too. It's starting to become clear from their actions, none of them give a fuck about compromise. It's a battle for control and none of them are even giving a fucking inch for the sake of user experience.
jmillikin 14y ago
2 - Gmail supports SMTP and IMAP, so any mail client should work. The top hit for [windows 8 gmail] is http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8-gmail-hotmail-outlook-yahoo/ http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8... , which indicates that the Windows 8 mail app has an icon specifically for configuring Gmail accounts. 3 - According to http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.html http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.ht... , Chrome has supported Metro since June 2012 when running on a non-RT version of Windows. Computers running Windows 8 RT can't run any browser in Metro mode (see http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users-need-browser-choice-too/ http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users... ), so it's not like Google has a choice there. 6 - To root a device means to gain full control over it. It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.
- icambron 14y ago
  > It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it. It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.
  - jmillikin 14y ago
    From a security and reliability perspective, having root enabled by default is a terrible idea. The arms race between OS vendors and malware developers means that defaulting root to disabled is both desirable and inevitable. Only root can install malware into the kernel or BIOS. Only root can pull keys and passwords out of /dev/mem. Only root can damage an installation beyond the ability to factory reset. I eagerly await the day when every major OS will require jumping over some basic hurdle (e.g. rebooting into single-user mode and running /sbin/root-me-harder) before enabling root access, because that will eliminate entire categories of security risks from consumer-oriented computing.
    - nileshtrivedi 14y ago
      Which of these arguments does not apply to computers?

by dvt 14y ago

gkoberger 14y ago

A lot of things you mentioned are more "why would company A bother building for company B's platform?" than "the companies are evil!"

CloudNine 14y ago
Then why does Vimeo have a Windows Phone 8 and WinRT app while YouTube with a much higher revenue can't make one? Why does the zombie company Yahoo Mail bother to a Windows Metro app while Gmail doesn't? Or perhaps Google doesn't want to support Windows Phone and WinRT for the fear of rivaling Android phones and tablets.

feduphacker 14y ago

Thanks for sharing. I pretty much lost all hope in the big tech companies too. It's starting to become clear from their actions, none of them give a fuck about compromise. It's a battle for control and none of them are even giving a fucking inch for the sake of user experience.

jmillikin 14y ago

2 - Gmail supports SMTP and IMAP, so any mail client should work. The top hit for [windows 8 gmail] is http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8-gmail-hotmail-outlook-yahoo/ http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8... , which indicates that the Windows 8 mail app has an icon specifically for configuring Gmail accounts. 3 - According to http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.html http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.ht... , Chrome has supported Metro since June 2012 when running on a non-RT version of Windows. Computers running Windows 8 RT can't run any browser in Metro mode (see http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users-need-browser-choice-too/ http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users... ), so it's not like Google has a choice there. 6 - To root a device means to gain full control over it. It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

icambron 14y ago
> It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it. It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.
- jmillikin 14y ago
  From a security and reliability perspective, having root enabled by default is a terrible idea. The arms race between OS vendors and malware developers means that defaulting root to disabled is both desirable and inevitable. Only root can install malware into the kernel or BIOS. Only root can pull keys and passwords out of /dev/mem. Only root can damage an installation beyond the ability to factory reset. I eagerly await the day when every major OS will require jumping over some basic hurdle (e.g. rebooting into single-user mode and running /sbin/root-me-harder) before enabling root access, because that will eliminate entire categories of security risks from consumer-oriented computing.
  - nileshtrivedi 14y ago
    Which of these arguments does not apply to computers?