Google Announces PC Operating System to Compete with Windows

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Google is releasing a lightweight, open-source PC-operating system later this year, the company announced Tuesday night, a move that threatens the very heart of Microsoft, long seen as Google’s biggest rival.

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What a great boost for the Linux community.

 

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I never could get why so many people see Microsoft as an evil company but happily follow Google in whatever direction they take. Google as a company have some pretty dodgy practices.

An online OS doesn't appeal to me at all. Why would I handover my entire online life to a single company, and god forbid I want to have some functionality when offline...

 

Vaporware.

... and I said it first!

 

A. I do not see M$ as an evil company. I see them as an "our way is the only way" company.

B. I don't "happily follow Google in whatever direction they take", and they do "have some pretty dodgy practices". What I do stand behind is freedom. And freedom to choose.

Hmmmmm.......isn't that what M$ already has you doing?

 

A Web-based OS? No thanks.

 

You *can* choose. You can choose to go with Microsoft, Linux, Apple, or Google. And if you choose Microsoft, you can choose your hardware or software options.

But... you knew that... you just wanted to make it sound sensational.

Uh... preventing you from having access to your OS while offline? Er... no... not at all. In truth, you don't even have to be connected to the Internet.

 

this.

You want a virus then get an online OS tis the only way to be sure of one

 

Hi Geek, my comments were not aimed at you but rather the wider world of google fan boys. In their eyes Google can do no wrong.

The first thing that made me sit up and question their ethics was the Google Book Search feature. In theory a good idea but when the company started to scan copyrighted works who's authors were still alive, then make those author jump through hoops to get the documents removed it showed me that their "do no evil" moto went out the window the minute they started to make money.

This is not going to be an OS for me ...

 

Last year i started transfering a portion of my documents over to google docs to give it a bash. I was really keen on the idea.

Over the following months i had a couple of occasions where i really needed to access those docs. It just so happened that my connection at home went down once and the other time google docs couldn't be accessed. This really made my mind up for me that cloud computing wasn't quite ready for the masses yet.
There's nothing like being able to access stuff whenever you want 100% of the time.

Granted, if your not tech minded at all, a really casual user and you don't mind the occasional hiccup when you can't access something then the new OS may appeal to you.

I'll try it when it comes out purely out of curiosity and that's it gives everyone yet another choice be it good or bad.

 

No it's not!

 

apart from porn

 

Well, I'm pretty sure that you could use the OS offline just that you can't really do much with it if all the applications reside in the cloud.

The main problem for me is the sheer invasiveness of google from within their own OS. Think about it, you won't be able to do anything without google knowing about it and tracking it not to mention the control they could exercise over your access to their cloud based applications.

The majority of people look at MS and think that because they make a lot of money they must be evil, but money isn't power, information is. It is the power of information that enables you to make money and google does just that with all the information that everyone freely gives. Google took in 5 billion revenue in the first quarter of 2009 thanks to their information collecting and targeted advertising derived from that information.

If freddy were here, he'd probably say that google are the good guys because they use linux or because they oppose Microsoft, but I know who I trust more.