Google Pack

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Another step towards world domination...

http://pack.google.com

Could do with a free anti-virus product instead of Norton though.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Nice.

 

I couldn't agree more.

To me it sounds like a free, lets bring your PC to it's knees and hog all available resources pack

 

Did anyone see "The world according to Google" on friday night? I had it taped - haven't seen it yet.

 

Watched it yesterday - not a great deal of new info in it, but I wish I'd bought the shares.

 

I'm curious.... Does anyone see anything there that isn't already on most computers or isn't readily available as a free service on the internet?

I can't figure out why anyone would want to install that pack. I've been reading the hype about how companies like MS are keeping an eye on this, but now that I see it, it's nothing unique or of real substance other than Firefox, and it's freely available as a standalone. What's the draw? The marketing and the name?

IMO, if this is the best Google can do, Google isn't going to challenge anyone or anything. Their stock is going to drop big time.

 

I think the general idea is pretty good, although the choice of programs need looked at. It's a nice idea to allow people to be able to download all the necessary software in one pack. Minus the bloatware of course. Specially new users, and let's face it, thats who its designed for.
I hadn't tried Picasa until the other day, and think its a very nice program. Very quick and easy to use. It also has a nice slideshow feature, that burns photo's to cd. Nothing new i know, but very simple to use for the beginner. Nice big buttons, and all the features in one window.

Neall

 

It's only a beta but I think it's got potential - keeping your software updated automatically might help newbies.

It will be interesting to see how they develop it - will open office or Thunderbird be added?

If the software selection does expand it could be an easy way to add software to any new builds you do.

 

Ok.

The way I look at this if Google becomes a "middle man", so to speak, with this "package" of theirs how do updates work? Is Google going to have add extra software to update all these products all the time? It seems to me that they are. Either way Google is going to have to create a situation in which they modify these software packages to "call home" every so often to check for updates, or, they are going to have to run an application in the background that checks for updates for each of the applications in the "package" and then updates them. Either way they are going to be adding more running processes to any system their package is installed on.

Is this really something those of you who sell services to consumers are really going to be comfortable with? I'm not sure I would be. How many of you run Google Desktop? I don't and I never will. I don't want Google searching my computer. I wouldn't install it on any of my customer's computers either, and for the same reason: privacy. I'd spend the time to teach my customers how to use their computer, not dumb down their experience.... I've only come across one person whom I couldn't teach to maintain her computer and become knowledgeable enough to understand what she was doing.... She was 85 years old and had the beginnings of Alzhiemers.... The rest have all enjoyed the learning experience and have very much appreciated the fact that they understood far more about what they were doing.

 

To be honest I can't see what's in it for Google - unless they think they can increase revenue from the Firefox & IE Toolbars.

Google Talk needs a google mail account and I'd guess most people use msn/yahoo/aol or skype.

Perhaps they get a % from symantec for any norton downloads.

As for how it works - I've put it on a test machine & it does indeed have a little application that sits on your PC checking for updates.

Re the Google desktop. I run it and it's rescued me on a couple of occassion when I've lost a document. You could argue the RSS and news feeds with the sidebar increase the customer learning rather than dumbing it down. But that's another a discussion for another day

The privacy aspect can be a concern but I suppose I trust Google. If they do something stupid with the data they collect then it could destroy their whole business.

 

Looks like the sort of thing that I would install out of curiosity then regret for ever as it b@llocksed all my settings up then refused to uninstall.

 

Is that all it does? Does it "phone home" on a regular basis? Can you sniff the traffic to see exactly what it does or is some of the traffic encrypted?

I ask because even some of the apps I used to trust, such as ZoneAlarm, have become applications that phone home and you can't shut it off or read the traffic. That's not a comforting proposition in my book.

I think, the last time I read something on it that ZoneAlarm may have fixed what they denied existed for a few months, and then called a "bug" in their software, but these things really cause privacy concerns when they are designed to sit and run on your desktop. Especially when they are designed to "phone home" on a regular basis.... I always wonder exactly what they are sending back as it's a rather practical impossibility to run a sniffer on your computer 24/7 just to keep track of it.

 

What does this mean?

 

Just what it says.

Does the Google application contact Google on a regular basis by design?

If you put a packet sniffer on your computer can you read all the traffic or is some, or all, of the traffic encrypted so it can't be read even if it is caught and recorded by the packet sniffer.

 

Not sure how often it checks - I'll delete the firewall rule that lets it out and see what happens.

Also, I thought occurred to me - use google pack to install all the software and then uninstall it, leaving just the software.

 

Those of you worrying about privacy from Google should read this BBC News story. Seems like Google is the only company prepared to protect their users' privacy.