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Google Planning Web Browser?
Kick the Donkey writes "John Dvorak has just posted a very interesting, albeit hypothetical, analysis of Google's future directions. Citing the 'unusual' hires of Rob Pike (from Bell labs), Ben Goodger, and Darin Fisher (both from Mozilla) and the acquisition of the gbrowser.com domain, Dvorak speculates that a Firefox based Google browser and Google-OS may soon be coming to a cluster near you."
It's a dead horse, let's go beat it.
A browser is one thing and apparently the only thing the evidence supports. Why the jump to a Google OS?
The last article about Google browser speculation is here.
I know for a fact. It will be announced in two months and four days.
Must have read slashdot about the same thing. Now he writes it up and people pay attention?
...is for Google, if the browser news is true, that they base it on Firefox and INCLUDE all extensions people add to Firefox in the browser's installation script. Of course these should be [installation] options.
You're half right.
I wish this would finally happen, so we don't have to hear about the possibility of it anymore. A google browser, perhaps a re-skinned upgraded version of firefox, would be quite nice. With all the google functions built in. It would be interesting, if nothing else.
Google, although well known for its search engine, is making money out of advertisement.
The friendly article might have hinted a possible failure of such Googled-attempts - "Think of the potential advertising revenue you can generate when you own the entire desktop environment."
The reason why I choose and stick to Firefox is its simplicity and nothingness.
And even Microsoft dare not put a single advertisement in its desktop OS.
Simply put, most people use a tool because it works, and it does only what it's meant to do. An ad-serving (albeit how intelligent it is) browser or desktop is definitely not my cup of cappuccino.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I hope they have something to add to browser use that isn't already covered by Firefox, and I'm not just talking about having the Google logo plastered all over it in an attempt at 'integration'. Otherwise it's going to be what is known as a pointless endeavour.
Isn't this the John C. Dvorak that has worked in technology for several decades, making many predictions, talking of supposed trends... and being wrong on almost all of them?
I mean, really? According to him, Apple is deader than BSD. It will be interesting to see if he manages to get through this article without projecting doom about something...
event: Google hired a dark fibre negotiator
press conclusion: "They must be doing VOIP!"
event: google hires clever browser developer
Press conclusion: "They must be doing their own browser!"
event:Google hired a plan 9 developers
press conclusion: "They must be doing their own OS!!"
What's next - google hires a plumber - the end of IT as we know it?
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Where's the proof for the GoogleOS?? Really? Isn't this all just really taking a total shot in the dark, except for gbrowser? This article is totally pointless, its just some guy trying to write something that gets some attention. Don't believe everything you read.
No, they aren't.I mean come on! We already heard about these rumors a loooong time ago. It's not true. Stop posting about it.
Le français vous intéresse?
You know, because we've discussed this news before? Four months ago? Some would say it's basically a dupe.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
....Tomorrow ze world. Muhahahahahhaha. Letz hire everybodyz who can maken ze browserz und take over!
Um, nice conspiracy theory, but they're a web technology company. Predicting that they'll build new web technology isn't exactly what I'd call newz...ahem...I mean news.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It's kind of clear for a while that they have something in mind. http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls =org.mozilla:en-US:official
<IMG HEIGHT="1" WIDTH="1" SRC="http://switch.atdmt.com/action/google_web_bro wser">
Oh my God. I think that's the first time I've ever seen Google-OS in a /. headline (note: headline).
We've entered a new era.
I think a Google browser will be excellent, and a just imagining a Google OS makes me giddy. Yup, giddy.
[joke mode]
That's the start of Google Grid, and next thing you know, it's E.P.I.C. before you know it ! [/joke mode]
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
I liked the idea of a Google branded browser just for the ideas they'll introduce, even if I don't want to use it. But with Dvorak's record, if he says it's so you can pretty much bet the farm against it...
Even Jason Kottke speculated on this in ummm, last September.
Is it more credible now that Slashdot's found the story?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Blake Ross, in his blog, had some insightful commentary that I didn't see mentioned here on Slashdot:
Google's interest in Firefox shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. At the end of the day, 90+% of Google's users are accessing its service through the browser created and controlled by its largest competitor. Would you feel comfortable if customers had to walk through your competitor's shop to get to your own? This is really what Firefox is all about from a strategic standpoint, and this is what "it's just a browser!" naysayers are missing: he who owns the window to the web owns the web. When there's one porthole on the ship, everyone has to look through it. Firefox seeks to add more portholes to make sure people really understand what's going on outside.
If they're planning an entire OS to make codifying and searching your data easier, I can't see that happening anytime in the short-term. After all, awhile back there was a shoot-out of desktop search tools, and the Google Desktop Search wasn't top-ranked (yet).
- shadowmatter
Here.
Clearly the "browser war" is back on and Internet Explorer is clearly the loser of the bunch. With so many great choices like FireFox, Opera, Safari for OS X and now an offering from Google (as well as assorted and high quality offerings from assorted OSS projects) maybe it is time to admit that the browser is not part of the OS, pull IE out and at the same time reduce your security issues significantly? If you like this idea please feel free to use it without giving me any credit, the extra time off for I.T. staffers everywhere will be thanks enough.
Anyway: I use the Google Desktop search to find things hiding in Outlook. It does not work with Firefox (yet) but that's cool, b/c I don't want to search my browser cache anyway.
But if you take the desktop search tool that runs in a browser, you could get away with using nothing else OS related. Sure you would use your Office Apps, your browser, your mp3 player, but looking for files, you could begin to use your desktop like a DMS.
Nice speculation, John (and welcome back)
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
hey all you domain squatters forget grabbing all the i-noun e-noun domain names the new letter is g! I have dibs on onads.com
I don't think a "google os" is something google wants to spend time on.
Maybe they're going to customize firefox and linux and create a livecd distribution "Googlix".
ajf
Both this story and the last were dupes of dupes of...
/. font. Anyone know where I can get a copy or what it's called?
I now understand the trolls, Slashdot is indeed shit and useless as a news source.
I think I'l go read some real news. Like Wikinews. Or The Sun.
I do, however, really like the
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
never understood why this guy has such a following...
Google could also roll out a thin client service in which you do everything within any browser window connected to Google. Google could host user accounts that go beyond email and search. A person could browse through the google browser, manage their googlefiles, run googleoffice, send gmail, buy stuff through froogle, etc. It would be a totally portable thin client service.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The web client is, in fact, the #1 application on the desktop these days. Literally, many people just click the "maximize" button after the browser is launched, and the web client occupies the entire surface of the screen. Off they go to read e-mail, look at porn, or cause a raucus on Slashdot by posting provocative articles.
Then, the next step for Google is to create Gunix (Google + Lunix), pronouced "goon-ix". With the Google client in place, you download Gunix and swap out M$ Window$.
Then ...
<waking up in a code sweat>
Google has a very good search engine, but I would prefer that Google stay off my desktop. I like Google just like it is -- a web site which I visit to read the latest news and to search for the best porn pictures.
The problem with Google taking over my desktop is that I would then be swapping one monopoly for another: Micro$oft. What I like about open source is the decentralization, anti-monopoly attitude of the folks behind the Free Software Foundation. This kind of environment tends to encourage programmers from all parts of the world to contribute her little bit to creating a peace of great software. No one group of developers becomes dominant like Micro$oft or eventually Google.
According to "whois gbrowser.com", the domain was created almost a year ago (2004-Apr-26), so, being true, this is a long time plan...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
The browser market is already filled for now. Maybe they will take firefox and modify it. Much like our old speculations. I think google is not a go for the browser market. What would be cool is interactive browsing. It will use google's technology to direct you to the sites you want when you want them.
Will it have Dvorak as the default keyboard layout? I would love to see this happening :)
As long as it's Firefox based and they *fix gmail's cutting off of messages in Firefox*. Seriously, this is getting on my nerves. Works fine in IE, but gmail chokes in Firefox. This didn't happen a few weeks ago...
I'm sure it doesn't take a roomful of analysts at Google to realize that their greatest vulnerability is in web access. If MS were to embed their "next-generation" search so deeply into the UI experience of a future (Longhorn?) OS that the average consumer would become accustomed to simply using the, say, always visible MS search bar in the Sidebar for all web and desktop searches, Google would be toast. And you can bet Microsoft's roomful of analysts have come to exactly the same conclusion: the way to defeat Google is to make it hard to access Google.
So, if you're Google, are you going to sit around with your hands in your ridiculously deep pockets and let Microsoft dictate the future growth of your business? Hell no. In fact, recent comments from MS make it clear that war has been declared.
Defensive strategies are already in the works (e.g. using AdSense to "spread" their ad revenue generation so that it doesn't depend on hits to Google proper) so, how to counterattack?
Well, Google hires smart engineers and likely equally smart business strategists who know that Firefox's success is a free trial balloon -- and it hasn't popped. Google's best move is to build a browser and challenge MS on its own turf. There's a reason Google is always in need of Windows developers and its not just to work on the Google Toolbar.
Is Google building an OS? Who knows. But is Google building a browser? They better be.
"Dvorak speculates that a Firefox based Google browser and Google-OS may soon be coming to a cluster near you."
Just as I said last time the idea of a Google OS was brought up, there is no reason for Google to start it's own OS when it has everything running in a way that is platform-agnostic to begin with.
Google is above the OS wars.
I wish Google would start an instant messaging service based on XMPP. They then could build as well a web based client front end to XMPP, so we could have the benefit of both a structured protocol like XMPP and as well a browser interface and people could use them simultaneously. Google could apply its knowledge of search facilities to XMPP extensions, searchable chat rooms, user directories, come to mind, as well as being able to search ones own chat room. A web interface could be built for all of that as well. It would be good to see Google get behind XMPP, being the interoperable IM protocol it is, like -email you can communicate with people on different servers.
An operation system by most accounts that I have heard is the program that handles devices, files & filesystem, processes(process manager), and I/O(input/output).
Processes written in JavaScript and/or a server-side language, I/O through the browser interface, files through WebDAV, and how is a web UA not an operating system? This is what scared Microsoft into adopting its anti-Netscape strategy.
It would be very interesting to see Google take Firefox and Gecko as their next platform of choice, perhaps finally making truly web-dependant computing using XUL, etc? Where you use Firefox to access your full-featured Gmail interface and Google word processor, spread sheet, etc... which all save the documents on Google's servers.
Isn't this what MS tried to do?
don't mod me troll untill/unless you read the entire comment please. (I am just trying to make a helpful suggestion.)
you can certainly tell when its a slow news day, two dupes in a row about topics that are questionably "news" in the first place. I like the suggestion that was made earler; fire the editors and put the story submissions on the front page according to mod points just as the comments are. this would resolve several common problems all at once. I guess that would make it more difficult for "editors" to post as many of these obvious paid-for ads that that have been posing as "news" recently though so I don't imagine you will take the suggestion very seriously.
"http://switch.atdmt.com/action/Google_Browser"
It MUST be true!
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
gbrowser = YES g/OS != YES g/OS had been considered, but too many issues.
Google could also roll out a thin client service in which you do everything within any browser window connected to Google. Google could host user accounts that go beyond email and search. A person could browse through the google browser, manage their googlefiles, run googleoffice, send gmail, buy stuff through froogle, etc. It would be a totally portable thin client service.
Which all sounds fantastic, but they could do all of that with either XUL, or XAML (if it ever shows up). In the end they may simply be getting in some people to do some XUL applications. If they want to include a browser in that suite of applications then rebranding Firefox seems the obvious way to go. As for having an office suite - that one is a surpringly large amount of work.
In general the concept of Google using, say, XUL to create a suite of basic applications (a browser, a mail reader, a chat client, some calendaring and groupware etc. makes some sense. I wonder how much of that would simply be a matter of rebranding all the mozilla sub-projects?
It's possible, but I still rate it all as highly unlikely.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
This would be a trivial thing for google to do, and I think its where they are heading. If they release a browser, look for them to shortly thereafter release a web based office suite (that only works in their browser), or possibly a web based vnc viewer type app (again that only works in their browser), then they can sell desktop apps over the web, charge a monthly service fee, you get 10TB of storage on google's cluster, you get access to the compute power of that cluster, you have access to it anywhere, everywhere, fast and easy.
This will be the death of MS, but as other posters have said, it is scary as all hell. Google is a nice company now, but this kind of power concentrated in 1 companies hands will prove horrible for the net.
pronounced goo-gloss
Instances 1-10 of about 127,00 Instances of mywidget.app (0.23 seconds)
Tip: Trying to launch a program?
Gooooooooooogle
man, I feel like mold.
So this google web browser is old news and people have pretty much said it's not happening.
Maybe they aren't building a web browser. Google is in the information organization sector. (you may argue they are in the ad business, but that business is dependent upon their core business of analyzing data). The more logical conclusion in my opinion is if they are building a "gbrowser" that it's a file system browser application. Something that arranges info better than Microsofts Windows Explorer thingie.
Just my two cents. I doubt this is even true, they most likely just registered the domain name as a provision.
You can visit Slashgoogle right now.
Dvorak is mosty entertainment. You don't watch wrestling thinking that it's real ... I mean c'mon. Dvorak throws out speculation for fun and profit. So what? He's not wrapping himself in the mantle of an objective reporter. He's a pundit and he makes his money off of outrage. So what?
When you consider that they now have a store locator tool (local.google) complete with built-in mapping tools, it makes that recent acquisition all the more interesting. Will we soon have directions mapped onto live satellite footage?
We need REAL competition in many aspects of modern IT, BUT face-it many relevant markets are pre-dominated by Microsoft.
The first step of nearly every major player would be to weaken MS in that specific area. What's MS cashcow? Definitely not services. It's Operating Systems and Office revenues.
Why that? Nearly everyone these days (say: every home user) knows how to deal with MS Office on a Windows machine.
If you weaken that fact, your weakening every aspect of MS.
How?
Set up a fund. Let the big players invest, just a bit and bring ALL those great OSS developers into one central project. Improve Linux and OpenOffice, establish a solid gaming API (or improve OpenGL), get around the distri-wars, establish a SOLID competition to MS Office/Windows. Listen to enterprise customers, talk with hardware manufacturers. Bring up an alternative!
Linux needs to take the next step. Employing some hundred of the best OSS developers should be easy for the big players, the costs would be neglectable.
Google could lead that achievement. They could change everything.
my 2 cents.
Google, don't get too ambitious and create a fluffy browser. Firefox is simple. I don't like extra bars full of useless or redundant stuff. :-)
That said, I believe you can do a good job based on your previous successes.
Google's a search engine company, I don't want to see any other product from them.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Oh, and properly handle help files, dhtml, xml, mhtml, zip attachments or pretty much any other form of file known to man.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'd accept if this was moderated Troll or Offtopic, but I object to it being called Flamebait.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
A really useful function would be to perform a search which doesn't show pages that you've already visited - clicking through several pages of search results before you find links that you haven't visited is a bit troublesome. Obivously, privacy concerns (and probably search engine server capacity limitations) would require this processing of results to be made on the client-side (i.e. by the browser).
Didnt this guy create the Daleks? If so whats he doing spreading rumors about "Gbrowser" and "Gos". He must have better things to do, like taking over the world!
I personally think Google is making a web browser. All the information points to it;
7 59)
- they registered a domain (gbrowser.com)
- they are hiring people who worked on IE at Microsoft (there's an interview with a MS employee about that at NYTimes)
- they hired the man behind the success of Firefox
- they hired numerous people that worked on Netscape
- Fritz Schneider a Google employee (software engineer) is fixing bugs on Mozilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=253
And I accidently found that "A Mozilla bug was marked closed with this comment, This is a duplicate of a private bug about working with Google. So closing this one."
Seriously, they master web searching and email, they released a software to manipulate digital images, they released Blogger, desktop search, purchased Keyhole, released the Google toolbar,... Their every product is web sentric in some way.
I think the question one might ask is 'why wouldn't Google make a web browser?'
The company lives on ads, just think about how much would an ad cost in a browser that ~50 million people use. It could be something similar as Opera's ad but displaying 'Google relevant ads', or it could be something completely different. As I said I think Google will release a browser this year and it will be highly integrated with gmail and blogger.
Coming soon: Google-condoms and Google-brand suppositories!
Bite me. Seriously, I enjoy it.
GBrowser isn't a browser in the normal sense, but a webapp. It could be written using XUL and run within the user's normal browser.
This has got to be good. Firefox base+Google's money = The Ultimate Browser.
We're talking some wowser amazing techno feat here, boys and girls, if Google pulls this off ...
and next thing you know, it's E.P.I.C. before you know it !
Infuriate left and right
I predict that they will be releasing the gmini in the near future. :)
Brian.
How does Firefox assign and keep track of memory? Last I checked, it used system calls, which are part of the OS.
How does Windows or Linux put your computer to sleep? Last I checked, it used ACPI calls, which are part of the BIOS. In the case of browser-as-platform, the host OS (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, etc.) assumes the role of a BIOS. Replacing the BIOS with something a bit more powerful could eliminate that middleman altogether.
I salivate at the thought of Google pouring funding into a browser and an OS. Just think how much a company like Google can improve firefox, and then, to really blow your mind, think of how Google can improve other open source projects, such as...oh... :)
*NIX?
let me be the first to not only welcome our new computing software overlords, but also to grovel at their feet to be included in their beta testing
Oct
Isn't Google the new Microsoft?
Has Google done anything new? Not really. Much like the early Microsoft, they simply take existing ideas and improve them. Google wasn't the first search engine. They weren't the first webmail provider. They weren't the first web site that searched Usenet (in MS fashion, they bought deja). Even Picasa, which they bought, is being transformed into a PC version of iPhoto.
Based on their past history, it wouldn't surpise me if they were to boldly attack Microsoft on browser, OS or even on an Office-type product.
That's extremely insightful. This would make complete sense. If Google could develop a useful thin client that came in at a very low price point, say $50-$100, they could own the casual computer user market. Heck, for the right price I'd consider one for the kitchen counter, even though I'm not a casual computer user.
I've been saying for a while, an inexpensive device with a good display that can access the web, and nothing else, would be pretty compelling to a huge segment of the population. If this $50 device is basically a window to Google, GMail, Froogle, and the other Google services, everyone is happy. In fact, with the increase in ad revenue Google would see, they may be able to subsidize a device and sell it at a loss, like Microsoft does with the XBox.
No thanks to their insane privacy invading email system and no thanks to whatever insane privacy invading browsing software they will come up with.
Time to wake up and smell the sell-out here folks! Google is out to OWN you and so far a rediculous number of you have been happily handing them the keys to your life.
It would be so un-Slashdot, except... "We LUV U Google! Kissy-Kissy".
STOP IT!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Imagine if instead of selling an "appliance" they sell a USB keychain a-la bootable (stripped down) live linux with firefox. Or instead of selling the USB drive, you just download an image into any commodity USB drive.
Most of your stuff is on-line. Your "computer" is online + on your keychain.
They won't need to sell hardware, you won't need an OS on your computer (except for games), you won't think about virii anymore.
Of course, this is all pure speculation. OTH, John Dvorak has been right a hella-lot-more than he's been wrong. He may be on to something.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
...might be that, rather than a full-blown OS, Google is looking into building the next generation of information storage and retrieval. If they were to take a standards-based browser with a platform for plugins and add that to their current search and store technologies, they could create any number of tools. Want a data mining app? GMine! Need an executive dashboard app? GDash! How about a POS terminal? GCash! I'm betting dev for such projects would be wicked quick, too.
Then again, they may just want to make Google incompatible with IE...can you imagine the looks on Redmond faces when the see "Sorry, your browser doesn't support some of Google's search features - would you like to download and install our GBrowser instead?"
- Jack
They wouldn't have to be browser in browser... XUL and the Mozilla development framework could be leveraged to create essentially, native looking-ish, web-based applications...
Then you can run your gmail, Goffic, Gcalender, Gcontacts, Gchat, etc. All from what may look like seperate, dedicated programs but are rich client web apps.
they could just be gearing up to release some severely kick ass firefox extentions. That way, if any IE user wants to try them, they need to get Firefox ( double win for google , one away from IE and one into the rebellion ;D )
given googles reputation and popularity i think people might look up and take notice if they were deliberately and publically snubbing microsoft
I've been saying for a while, an inexpensive device with a good display that can access the web, and nothing else, would be pretty compelling to a huge segment of the population.
Lots of people have been saying stuff like this for years. The problem is: nobody's buying it.
Any company willing to blow capital on yet another attempt at this deserves the painful financial death they'll suffer as a result.
Remember WebTV? Neither does anybody else, except those unfortunate enough to have bought one. How many others can YOU name?
Thin client sounds good, until you want to do XYZ and it's not supported. (or impossible)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Why hasn't this entire story been modded "Redundant?"
In other news: Apple has released a compact version of their G4-based Macs called the Mini!
Bill Gate's just made a $750m charitable donation!
OH! and there's rumors of an XM/Sirius Satellite Radio merger.
merger.....ahemm...
I mostly agree with you however, Google has been pretty good about doing ads in a way that people happily accept.
I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to provide some extra value or service to the desktop that made people feel ok about the ads.
I don't think they'll abuse the users like those free internet services of the '90's. People will still have the option to not use them.
The guys at Google are pretty smart. If they do go this route, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Also, with some serious competition, it'll be nice to see Microsoft be more inovative and customer friendly.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
yes thin client has its limitations, but most of them can be engineered around. I've been installing thin client setups for small/medium businesses for 2 years now based on linux, as long as you get a solid idea of what they need to do, you can make 99% of things work. Businesses love this as it restricts the damage employees can do, it lowers costs of management and hardware, almost eliminates client hardware replacements, if google does a thin client app service, they will clean up in the small/medium business sector, everyone will pay $20/mo to have all their apps and not have to worry about anything else.
Has John Dvorak ever been right about anything, ever? Remember, this is the same guy that predicted OS/2 would triumph over Windows... I only wish I had his job, so that I could get paid for making assine predictions all the time! Right now I'm basically making assine predictions for free, but at least they turn out correct much more often than Dvorak's...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Off they go to read e-mail, look at porn, or cause a raucus on Slashdot by posting provocative articles."
I *AM* a raucus on slashdot, you unsensitive clod!!
What's all this yapping about Google?
Google fails on the basic theory of Internet social services: anti-spammers have to be stronger than the spammers.
Currently, this is not the case of Google. They can't compete with all these PageRank hackers. So what happens is I find Google less useful than it was 3 years ago. Before, if you punched in any idea, one of the first three links would be perfect. Now, it's either on the third page, or not even there because it's so clogged with PageRank spammers. Heck, they should get rid of the "I'm Feeling Lucky Button." I don't even use it anymore.
Wikipedia, now there's a site that holds up in the spamming principle. On wikipedia it's the world of spammers v. the world of anti-spammers, with the latter being much greater. I have not discovered a single bit of spam on wikipedia in my three years of using it. Nowadays, when I think about a topic to research, I first go to wikipedia then I go to Google.
So, what's Google left with? Well the place that spammers can't and don't find worth hitting is the very long tail of obscure terms. If you are searching for methylthiazolinone, then that's where Google works. sorta. You're better off at the library still.
Froogle sucks. Orkut sucks (except in Brazil). Google Suggest? used it for a day, haven't used it since.
My friends who work at Google say that the company's disorganized and that many employees are elitist. I have three friends who, independent of each other, quit Google because they didn't like the scene.
Now, I'm not a theory or rules person, even my theory on spamming is just speculation. But one thing I think is true about the Internet is that things change faster than people's attention spans. Even if Google becomes No. 3, it will take a while for people to get over the hype-brainwashing that has become the tale of Google. The cost for a consumer to switch most purely Internet services is aproximately 0.
Wither Google.
(Disclaimer: I am applying for a job at Google)
who had to scroll down the page in the article so as to avoid looking at his pasty, flabby complexion... only to become underwhelmed yet again by his bland hack of a column. When will he just give up, retire, and move on to tending to his garden?
--Anonymous bitter Coward
My belief is that they wouldn't use firefox for a browser and they wouldn't use linux for an OS if they were to do either. Google rolls their own. They might or might not do it open source and be cooperative with other projects but they're at the top of their game and I bet they think that they can do it better than everyone else has. Other than the fact that they don't have nearly the man power that any linux major distro does, I bet they could pull off some incredible stuff with the manpower that they do have.
I think it will be difficult to make a better browser than firefox but I don't think it would be impossible. I'm not sure there's a *need* at the moment for a better browser than firefox but that won't stop them from trying.
I could see them teaming up with Opera before firefox because of it's portability to mobile devices.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I'd say Google already have their own server distro of linux... I'm pretty sure they based GWS on Apache... So it seems reasonably sensible to look into making optimised client-side applications. But I'd suspect that these would be Windows based. Google bar is for IE, though it makes sense to intergrate it into Mozilla now. And the google desktop search isn't for linux... Or even Linux friendly apps.
Before the google search engine, the best we had was keyword index based lookups. Google blew the rest of the search engines out of the water with pagerank and the sheer genius of indexing by linked popularity.
Perhaps not a new idea in the world of scientific papers (where the number of papers referencing yours is the primary success indicator) but certainly a new idea when applied to the web.
If you don't think that counts as "new", then I challenge you to come up with a single example of something new.
It seems reasonable to me that, by hiring these guys, Google is going to build a competitor to MS Office that runs within a (Mozilla-based) browser.
Consider that XUL has a lot of the capabilities that let users get a good UI in browsers. Consider also that Google already has zillions of hefty servers dotted around. If they extended XUL as required and created e.g. GoogleWord, GoogleExcel and GooglePoint, users could create and store their docs in a secured, always-there backend similar to that used by Gmail. Imagine logging into Gmail and having all your documents stored with your email, labelled (as for Gmail messages) into one or more categories and searchable - I can see that being very attractive for many people.
Yep, there's obviously a few bits missing:
- MS Office document compatibility (but is that such an issue if Google can change user's work habits such that people exchange pointers to GoogleOffice docs rather than the docs themselves? Maybe all they need is an MS Office import/export facility, which reads/writes docs in MS' published XML format from a server located in a country that is suitably patent-free...)
- something to allow documents to be embedded within other documents (wonder what percentage of MS Office users actually use this)
- XUL would need beefing up in terms of capability
- 100 others...
Still, given Google's deep pockets, I don't see these issues as insurmountable. Given that (IMHO) 90% of MS Office users only ever use 10% of MS Office's functionality, a sort-of WordPad on steroids may be enough to get a critical mass of people to switch to using GoogleWord provided they solve other MS-Office-centric issues such as document management on PCs, viruses/spyware and so on.
Hey look, it's a dupe!
Oh wait- my posting that it's a dupe is a dupe...
Oh wait- my realization that my posting is a dupe is a dupe...
Oh wait...
My bad
Your good. Or better yet, you're good.
Teamwork!
Infuriate left and right
Just curious, does anyone have a list of predictions made by John Dvorak which turned out to be true?
[o]_O
So...you're basically saying thin client is a great idea that has been hampered by poor implementations. Given a good implementation, backed by the Google name, I think its quite likely something like this could take off. It wouldn't be easy, but its possible. Its just as likely the Google implementation would suck too, and the idea would go away again for a few years.
fantasic? it sounds like a horrible messy UI that no sane person would want to use. XUL is still slower than a pregnant sloth compared to proper UI toolkits, don't go saying it is just as fast as we know that is bullshit, we don't all have the disposable income, or income at all to afford the latest quad Athlon 64 6000+.
Also you want all your files / data stored on the system of a company? No thanks.
If Google does release an OS, it'll have succeeded in doing what Netscape probably should have done.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
ever see that folder?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
rich? I think the term poor client web apps is better as I pity the client that has to use them.
I could see them teaming up with Opera
Google for 'french military victories' and click the next page button a few times. That was the only place I could find it.
Google Condoms - Stopping 8,058,044,651 sperm
What is this "dumb" of which you speak and why would he want to fuck it?
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
I think this guy just heard the phrase "Internet OS" and didn't bother to look up what it means. The concept is valid, but it isn't an operating system in the traditional sense... his jump from Internet OS to running the entire desktop is puzzling at best.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Come on, this is Slashdot, where are all the open source loving, hippy freaks? Come on Slashdot, I know you've got it in you. Just think about this:
To my knowledge, Google has done their best to obfuscate every bit of code they've ever developed. So why the excitement over a Google browser or Google OS? Do you expect Google to all of a sudden start using open technologies that everyone can use for themselves? I mean come on, they don't hire "the best in the biz" so they can go and throw all that great proprietary goodness to the masses?
Don't get me wrong, I love open source technology as much as the rest. But has Google ever given us anything of that nature to really give them this much Slashdot lovage?
Stated a fact related to this story.
Idiot mods (again)
return -EDVORAKSUCKS;
That would shed a different light on the hiring of Rob Pike, what with his background in Inferno, an open source embedded OS. It could also help explain their recent purchases of dark fiber. A lot of thin clients are going to need a lot of bandwidth.
Perhaps Google could produce a device, maybe the size of a PDA, that simply acted as a thin client, with a web browser instead of a desktop. Google already has hardware out there with their rackmount search boxes.
As long as the bandwidth is there. While I can't see this as being a real alternative for home users, corporate environments might be very interested.
Google employees have been awarded end-of-fiscal year watches -- is a Google-branded form of time travel next? Will the watches solve the Twins Paradox? Will they use their watches to purge the streets of evil?
Stay tuned, faithful citizen!
and now back to the fallout shelter...
Hello everyone. I'm in NZ at the moment and read this today: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=10008 349
Ben goodger is a kiwi. The interview with him in the above would seem to be indicative or at least interesting.
make of it what you will!
Apple will abandon Mac OS X in favour of GoogleOS, running on x86.
No. They hired Rob Pike because he's Rob Fucking Pike. He's the Pike in Kernighan & Pike. K&P and K&R are just about as standard as you can get....who cares if they want to create an OS, a Browser, or just ask him "Bob, what do you think?" -- because quite frankly ANY of those are valid.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I for one welcome our theoretical, Google branded firefox based, custom internet browser overlord. I'd like to remind it that as a trusted slashdot poster, I can be helpful in criticizing anyone who dare use any other browser.
none
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Isn't this an old story that we have heard quite a number of times before?!
not a web browser you download.. but one you view through gbrowser.com.. takes care of security, etc.. gonna be a big leap in how you use the web..
:)
have a nice day
On the first part, you probably mean the folks down at Berkeley (if that could count). On the second, Google, known for hiring too many of these kind of uppity folk who pull off stunts such as this make me think that they're not the type that have the mindset to do so. Given their lack of anything that doesnt exclude people deliberately, it is safe to say Stanford, Google and Orkut are just different departments working towards the same goal - to be closed minded and closed to all who arent bluebloods.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Am I going to have to buy a gbrowser invite off ebay to be able to use this stupid thing?
First, MOD PARENT TROLL
Firefox can already handle ActiveX with a plugin.
What's your point about JavaScript?
Acrive-X should just go away. It's inherently insecure, so don't think about trying to secure it. Firefox has XPConnect anyway, which is more powerful than ActiveX, and is an open standard.
"help files"? Do you mean Windows help files? Why should Firefox support Microsoft's help file format? That what Microsoft's help viewer is for.
How doesn't it properly handle DHTML? How does IE?
XML is completely ambiguous. Firefox can view XML files... Learn what XML is, it would take too long to explain here.
IE can't handle zip files (attachments?), Windows Explorer does that. Yes there is a vague difference. The two are intertwined, not one. It does a horrible job of it, at that. The speed of decompression and compression and the compression ratio are horrible, to say the least.
"any other form..." I won't go there.
Thin clients work where the user, the setting and the task are easily defined and limited and the network connection is 99.9% reliable. I signed on to broadband for media play and not an office suite.
Don't you know? The next PowerBook (and all other future Macs) will run on Intel chips. Dvorak said so!
So why is there not a JAVA OS? The kernel has to be a native coded with a built-in Java evironment. Which adds a huge overhead in kernel development.
Or they could just do it the Transmeta Code Morphing way and have the very lowest level of the kernel be a virtual machine, with everything on top (including hardware drivers) written in bytecode.
You mean...GOffice? :-O
Actually the concept of Google finally moving on the semantic web has been mentioned a few times. If you look at it, the browser is really the last step in really making that happen. Sure you can surf through a google proxy (like you do everytime you use Google images) and Google can watch what you follow to help rank things, but imagine if you where creating relevance data with every link you followed. It's big brotherish, yes, but would be gold as far as ranking things.
Course there are other nice things you could do like define your own request types for pulling meta-data, etc.
Let's face it. Google is in the position that Micro$oft has been in for a while, only in the web space as opposed to the OS space. (Case in Point) They could finally convince people to get on board the semantic express
If Google just sticks to their motto, they'll be fine.
We Americans consider anything before WWII to be Ancient History and therefore not worth learning. The sole exception is the Civil War, which is taught one way in the South and another way everywhere else.
Seriously. Ask any ten Americans when the Revolutionar War ended (1783), who fought in the War of 1812, or what caused WWI, and see how many correct answers you get.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Adam Bosworth? Surely he's key to whatever client-side initiatives the Mountain View Monster is developing and yet no mention of him by Dvorak (not too surprising) or here (AFAICS).
You know, because we've discussed this news before? Four months ago? Some would say it's basically a dupe.
A dupe??? On Slashdot???
Seriously though...A dupe??? On Slashdot???
( it was two months ago...and three months ago...yes we all think that it would be great if google made a browser...since they are magical...aparently )
Yes, I DO love ellipses...
You'll have that sometimes...
Who asked you to read a post then, genius?
It is important for new discussions to take place whenever the editors feel like it.
Yes, most people's primary blog is rapidly becoming their only source of news, which is a good^H^H^H^Hbad thing.
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
Before you all get all frothy about Dvorak's predictions, look back at his recent posts and ask yourself the question "does this guy know what the hell he's talking about?" You'll see that he's frequently wrong. He's also got some very odd and misguided opinions. I used to read (and enjoy) his column years ago. But those days are long gone. I clump him right up there with other frequently wrong columnists such as Rob Enderle and Paul Thurrott.
MS has never improved anything. Buying things to stagnate a market, or enter a market, sure. But they sure don't put any effort into improving the things they buy.
Why don't they just create google "personal" appliances (like the iPOD) w/24/7 ads during inactivity? I'll take mine in neon raspberry.
Imagine, google + iPod == 1 device = bliss.
I actually think it might prove beneficial. It would corrall all the stupid users into Google's ranch. Google is good cowboys and can take car of all the cattle in the world.
The rest of us can roam the wild west as we please without having to worry about the sherriff. I think it will be good times, unless you're a cattle. But even then, better than going to the MS slaughterhouse.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I'm relieved to finally find people here that actually have a critical and suspicious eye on Google. /. houses such a large Google cult, it is scary.
Personally, since the day I realized that Google toolbar updates itself without my consent and without offering any easy mean to disable the auto-update, I am wary of this company.
This seems like they're giving the finger to the Penguin.
Or maybe looking back from the future of the interface.
Whatever.
I'm a Student Ambassador to Microsoft (basically promoting .NET on campus). I have a fellow SA to Microsoft who has recently accepted a job offer to work at Google. Interestingly enough, she's had three internships at Microsoft (C++, MFC, and COM) and one internship at Apple (iChat AV) - if you don't believe me, let me refer you to her resume. I'm sure Google could use her Windows knowledge in future endeavors...
I sense an all-out war developing between Microsoft and Google. Right now, I'd rather not work full-time for either, because I think one of the two could very well crash and burn after the dust settles. At this point, I'm rooting for both...or neither.
Now if Google and Apple joined forces, it could get quite interesting indeed. They both on some flavor of *NIX at their core, right?
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
On the other hand, they may actually want him to develop an operating system. That is one of the things he's done before, and one of the things he's well known for.
Why on earth should Google want to develop a new (or highly modified) operating system? What strengths would Dr Pike bring to that project?
Google have a very large number of servers. They won't reveal how many they have, but admit to more than 10,000 servers, another another estimate suggests between 31 and 158 thousand servers. That's a lot of computing power. Presumably the people at Google are highly interested in getting as much work out of this hardware as they possibly can.
Enter Dr Pike. He's well known for Plan 9 "The Plan 9 system is based on the concept of distributed computing in a networked, client-server environment. The set of resources available to applications is transparently made accessible everywhere in the distributed system, so that it is irrelevant where the applications are actually running."
I have seen passing references that Plan 9 is strong on clustering and load balancing. Unfortunately I can't get google to give me a good citation, so this may be a myth.
Google have a large number of computers, and have hired an expert on writing distributed operating systems. I feel it's likely that they want him to improve the operating environment of their servers, or possibly of the Google appliances they sell.
It doesn't take much thought to realise that Google would be well served by a stripped down operating system that supports the work they do highly efficiently, and supports non-core activities relatively poorly, or even not at all.
OK, let's assume that they are writing an OS for their own internal use. An OS that makes their servers carry out the core business of their company more efficiently. Why should they either sell or give away that operating system?
Spidering, organising, searching, and delivering information is what Google does. Why should they let their competition have access to the tool that lets their 10,000-158,000 computers do their core business better?
Not many facts to back it up in any depth, but my best guess is that whatever it is that Rob Pike does for Google won't be released for a long time, if ever.
Google at it's heart is a great search engine company that made all the right choices to become the best (and greatest) search engine we now use..the problem is that they're now a publicly owned corporate entity working on the behalf of share holders. I think it's really the greed of the company driving it to do these rather nasty things (eg. censoring in china, bowing down to who knows what other governments and corporations). They're in it for the money now and thats going to be the major driving force; specifically advertisment and the control of information presented to us (consumers). If they control the browsers, or otherwise and other *interfaces* of information, they control the advertisment space involved. Seems like a logical progression to me.
Google allready uses it's own filesystem (see http://www.zdnet.co.uk/insight/hardware/0,39020433 ,39175560,00.htm for more info) so the next step to a complete OS for the sole function of running it's clusters is not so far off the mark. However, would it be an OS the normal users would need or could use, i very much doubt it. It will probably be a single purpose OS with little or no configurability for other uses.
Citing the 'unusual' hires of Rob Pike (from Bell labs), Ben Goodger, and Darin Fisher (both from Mozilla) and the acquisition of the gbrowser.com domain, Dvorak speculates that a Firefox based Google browser and Google-OS may soon be coming to a cluster near you.
No, you're wrong. Here is the real reason Google hired those guys. For all of you who intend to apply for a job at Google here's a little hint, expect to be asked where do Daring Fishers Rob Pikes and Good Badgers Fire Bad Foxes.
Also, if your name happens to be Lucius Esox go ahead and apply for a job, they'll hire you on the spot.
> So...you're basically saying thin client is a great idea that has been hampered by poor implementations.
That's not at all what the parent post said.
It's an idea that sounds good until you think about the fact that you're intentionally buying something that's less functional. Then, people who aren't looking for an appliance (cash register, kiosk, etc.) start thinking about all of the things that a personal computer does well, and they buy it. See also: the "Mac OS X and Linux don't have any applications so I must buy Windows" rationale.
I've said it before 'n I'll say it again: the people who are pitching thin clients and network computers are the people who make their money off of large-scale server hardware and software. Just as Intel encouraged modem manufacturers to push processing loads onto the CPU (winmodems) to sell CPUs, NCs and thin clients are largely an invention of Sun and Oracle (and their ilk) who want to encroach on Wintel's revenues.
Oh yes, life will be so very much cheaper when you get rid of all of those silly little x86 servers and desktop PCs, and buy a bunch of proprietary, non-commodity-priced clients that will use gobs of network bandwidth to run apps on proprietary, non-commodity-priced servers that we just happen to sell, using a proprietary, non-commodity-priced app virtualization scheme (and perhaps even a proprietary remote GUI technology!).
Google might try a more modern, open approach to this: some kind of DHTML app suite, with a super cheap subscription, not based on proprietary hardware or (client-side) software. That's the only speculation I've heard about this that is in the least bit plausible, but there are still issues.
1) Yahoo has been in a position to do this for years. Why haven't they? They have a bunch of light-HTML apps, and a bunch of money. They could build heavy-HTML apps too. I don't believe that the idea just hasn't occurred to them yet.
2) Who the hell would use it? People like PCs largely because they're personal. Nobody wants to push their precious secret nekkid vacation pictures and financial data out onto some random server out there in virus land. Try telling folks that not only do they have to get a PC, but also install a new web browser, and that buys them the privilege of paying even more to run shitty apps that aren't Microsoft Office and that are on the far end of a slow, laggy pipe. WHERE DO I SIGN??!!?
Scott McNealy's strategy of "tons of people will buy this, because by doing so they will make us rich" just doesn't work.
BTW, I do think that thin clients make great sense for specific, limited applications. They just aren't the PC-killer for typical office and home users that NC and thin client pitchmen wish they were.
I can hardly imagine that they would be happy about such a thing.
I'm surprised that they haven't offered an API for the adverts to let some content sites serve the adverts from their server (act as proxy) so that content and adverts come from the same domain and CMS (thus making it harder for AdBlock and other blockers to kill them).
Picasa is just a small part of step one in Google's overall plan:
1. Organize the world's information.
2. ???
3. Profit!
The shareholder is always right.
It would be a good thing if google actually created their own webbrowser and/or it's own OS .. my reasoning for this is that they seem to have good programmers .. and perhaps they could create a nice OS to put into competition.
Competition is always a good thing, especially for the buyer.
The Nomad
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-da Vinci
...that the "Network Web Sites" ad revenue already surpasses "Google Web Sites" revenue (I'm presuming that this is AdSense revenue vs. google.com revenue?)
if i were google i'd get my G-Mail out of beta mode before even starting the next project. right now gmail looks more and more like ICQ, which is always in alpha and beta mode. why? cuz they're afraid to support it. so by claiming it's beta, they have every excuse to treat bug-reports are low priority. and look where's ICQ now ? DEAD.
It would be more Google if they used Firefox to create a browser service instead of a browser software. After all, XUL lets you build the user interface as if it was a web page. That means Google could build a browser service that allows the user to set browser preferences as if they were search preferences or Gmail preferences. Firefox would then render the browser interface according to your personal preferences. If you like your back button to be 500x500 pixels large that's just a setting. If you want a blue background for your browser menus that's just another setting. If you want a Gmail interface that's even richer than what's currently available...well then Firefox is the answer and Google probably don't have to alter the code that much since Gmail and XUL both use Javascript.
A browser service would also make more business sense since it gives people incentive to switch browser to Firefox, taking control away from Microsoft, without tying Google's future options in how to serve users.
I don't buy it. Google does not seem to me to be the sort of company that would turn around and just play Microsoft's game simply because it "works". When they adopted "Don't be evil" as one of their company mottos, they effectively announced that they had no intention whatsoever of repeating Microsoft's mistakes. And one of those mistakes is clearly vendor lock-in. Look around, do you see any Google websites that only run in Firefox? I trust corporations only as far as I can throw em, and random Google paranoia can be healthy since it clearly results in Google staying honest. But seriously, some of us take this whole "Google is scary man!!!" thing too far.
Great! As a web developer this will be another browser to have to code for. Hopefully it will render the same as Firefox but have some sort of google adware in it. Er... that is the point right? Do we really need another browser without a target/marketing slant?
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
is great, first of all. And the idea for Google is simple- they need sticky applications that link to their services. As Microsoft tries to co-opt Windows to take over Google search, Google keeps expanding to keep people interested. Picasa searches hard drives- part of the Google's new expertise, and links to Blogs. Plus, it beats the bejeezus out of Windows/Photoshop for organizing Photos. Love it.
Here's Microsoft's problem: Their size. They can't get Longhorn out, they've given up on a new file system, they don't have the personnel to keep up with Google in search. Microsoft won the OS market and won the Office market. Google isn't going to challenge that. Web banners are the best form of advertising, and eventually they will connect through TV- Tivo like stuff or digital TV. Their expansion area is clear and they have the dominant advantage because 'the only real assets in software are people'. And everyone wants to work at Google. Sure people want to work at Microsoft, but even so, they can't get Longhorn out. Either because of inability or lack of competition, Microsoft is lazy. It's OS is popular and increasingly buggy. It's office has hit a wall in innovation- it turns out there are only so many ways to write a document! Everyone goes online for communication, data analysis, budgeting, etc. Excel is used less and less, Access is all but dead. Their new office initiatives sound like a lot of buck for little bang. The only reason I keep Windows at home are my digital cameras and pc games (and those I play less and less as I use the PS2 more). And you never know when you need IE for some idiot's website.
Microsoft when they started weren't an "evil" company, they came and got rid of the evil overlord of the time IBM, (who ironically we now all revere). It is a simple case of absolute power corrupts absolutely. If Google goes down this path and suplants MS, guess what, they will be corrupted, and they will become evil. It is gauranteed, a forgone conclusion. Shareholders, profit hungry management, and the need to continually grow so that they can keep good employees happy with their stock options.
...is for Google, if the browser news is true, that they base it on Firefox and INCLUDE all extensions people add to Firefox in the browser's installation script. Of course these should be [installation] options.
And my wish is that people like you would go back to reading business development books or back to college.
I meant the font in the logo.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.