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Google Unveils The Google Pack
7hunderstruck writes "Google yesterday announced the release of Google Pack, a 'free collection of essential software'. Along with Google's own programs, such as Google Toolbar and Google Earth, Google Pack contains Firefox, Adobe Reader, a six month subscription to Norton Antivirus, and Trillian as well as other apps. Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things), but it will be nice to make it all widely available to the general public." Commentary on ZDNet.
You can hardly call it free when part of it expires in six months
Unlike this page. Why did I just get a 404 on /.??
forget it you could get me to install it if it was free forever.... avg for me... http://free.grisoft.com/
I have FireFox... what more do you need?
Oh well.
Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already
;-)
From http://pack.google.com/:
System Requirements
- Windows XP
I think there is a disconnect somewhere...
Are the non-google products identical to the versions issued normally, or are they branded? It says firefox comes with the google toolbar (does it add anything to ff? I can already search google easilly and block popups...), is that the only modification?
I'm not sure why google are doing this, unless they're getting paid (in money or some other way) by the producers of the software...
Where's the fucking source code, Google?!
Wheres the mention that it's XP only in the article text? I personally feel this is rather an important fact in not wasting people's time on stuff they can't use.
I like muppets.
Google hired the main Gaim developer, and they don't ship it as part of the Google Pack?
Despite the article- I don't see Trillian listed in on the article page. If they ship Trillian and not Gaim, that'd be even more strange.
> Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed
> already (excluding a few things)...
I don't have most of those things installed, couldn't if I wanted to because I don't use Microsoft software, and wouldn't want most of it even if I could install it. I guess I'm not a real Slashdotter.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Any respectable Slashdotter will not just download random programs from Internet and install it on his pirated Windows machine overclocked to instability, or?
GooglePack is only for winXP.
I thought most "respectable
Why did Google choose to include Norton? I've found Norton AV to be the most worthless antivirus software I've ever used. It has consistently let me down in terms of protecting my computer. I've even tested it against a known virus. A rival AV was able to catch it. Norton wasn't.
A couple of times I was hit by a trojan by simply going to a web page. Next thing you know, my system gets infected, and Norton shuts down completely and won't start back up again. That's what you call protection? No thanks.
eTrade SUCKS
I myself would sugest Avast, I've never had an issue with it. Though I haven't used AVG for years it could have changed, back then it wasn't looking to good.
Utinam me logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant.
That's an odd statement. Weren't all these software packages widely available to the general public before? I like Google and all but come on. I really don't see what the big deal is. You can download all these programs from Google? Whupty-fword. And it doesn't work with my Mac OS X box which makes sense because I don't need Ad-Aware and Norton Antivirus for safe surfing. Plus PDF viewing is built into the OS through Preview.
Am I missing something here?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
wut, r u still on dat old berkley softwarez? tyme 2 upgradiate 2 XP PROFESSIONAL, dawg! w0rd.
I loved the selection of software included: Norton Antivirus, Ad-aware... I really tend to download them a lot... but you can't download only the programs you want... that sucks! Google now reminds that they are a company that aims to take over the internet...
Norton AV has been crapping out for awhile now and I suspect that Google was able to partner with them on the cheap. OTOH many corporations still use Norton AV so perhaps Google has plans involving the big boys. Just to PO Steve B, hehehe. Watch out for that chair!
It's all history, man. -anon
What about other operating systems? Do you folks at Google only use M$ s...tuff? And why not send CD-ROMs with this software to places that don't have a good internet connection?
Google Earth is more of a "fun" program. Nice to toy around once in a while, but nothing I have always installed.
.doc eat your heart out.
Picasa is nifty. A free image editor is always nice.
Google Pack Screensaver Don't really care about that one. I usually blank my screen.
Google Desktop I don't use since I have "order in my chaos"(tm) and don't really like to things hooked into everything.
Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer will be a godsend for all IE unsers, but I don't need it since I do Firefox.
Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar guess this will make Firefox's markedshare do another jump.
Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition - personally I use AntiVirus Personal Editon, its free and quite good, but if I think about all the PCs without any up-to-date protection out there its a real godsend.
Ad-Aware SE Personal 4236 programs found? If you have used IE, not used a virusscanner and/or have a "shiny, let's click it" PC user this thing will cleanse your system. Otherwise once every 3 months is sufficient.
Adobe Reader 7 A no-brainer, one of the most portable formats around (let's see how Open Document spreads),
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
There's a reason this is XP only and that is because it's designed for people to help out their less computer literate relatives who have just purchased a computer and give them a way to download most of the important 'essentials' and keep them up to date farily easily.
People who use Linux are not their target, Linux distributions come with all the apps you could need and very few newbies would likely have the option to buy a Linux system.
For them it's almost always WinXP forced down their throats unless they notice these Mac things in the store they bought their iPod - and there's no need for this pack on the mac either - the Mac already comes with a modern web browser, a decent desktop search (since Tiger), the iLife apps for photos, etc.
There's two things wrong with the Google offering and that's all I could see - one is the choice of anti-virus (only free for a limited time and not the most trustworthy name around) and the central updater duplicates the roles that the Firefox and Adobe updaters perform. They should have disabled the individual updates if they were going for a central solution.
This is supposed to be a "great" announcement? That's it? A bundle of software that's available anywhere? And none free/libre? and Norton isn't free since you have to pay for updates after 6 months (just like any other OEM installation). Why not choose AVG, which has free updates, on it's personal version, forever?
...and all of it only works on XP? No wonder Bill Gates dismissed them out of hand at CES.
Bet their stock pricer just went down.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Going a bit of topic here but what's peoples opinions of AntiVir? Seems fine myself but everyone else seems to use AVG
This is a bad trend. All of the software (with the possible exception of Norton AV, which I've never used) runs just fine on Win2k. Why the XP restriction? This is twice in one week I've run up against an arbitrary won't-install-on-2000 roadblock. (The first was trying to install Age of Empires III, which actually runs just fine on 2000 if you can manage to trick the installer.) It looks like the days of Win2k are numbered, not because it can't run the software but simply because the software refuses to install. I really hate artificial limitations.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
First of all this pack targets Windows users only, which leaves the rest of the market share totally unaffected. This is not necessarily a bad thing since I don't like the contents of the google pack. Especially the "Google Tools", Google toolbar. In my opinion this is another "shiny", "nicely folded" marketing and data mining attempt targeting once more the most clueless share of the market, Windows users, that will happily download it cause "it's Google, it's nice".
Off topic, I admit, but is there a decent PDF reader for *nix? [X|G|K]PDF doesn't handle some PDFs, and Adobe for Linux is both ugly and slow.
"Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things)" /. user(s)" running linux on my main box. Seriously google, port some of this amazing software to the operating system that gave so much to you on the back end while you were starting up - all for free
well i installed nothing from it as i'm on of the "respectable
I'm very surprised that they have chosen to include Adobe Reader V7, I've given up using it on Win XP as it is so bloated and slow, compared to older versions. I've switched to using the Foxit reader, which is equally closed source but also free, and works much better. Anyone else thing Adobe went badly down hill with their recent versions of Adobe Reader?
how come no gtalk in the pack? it would be a great opportunity for google to attack the im market
If you look under the download button, you'll see "Add or Remove Software". This takes you to a page where you can remove the software you don't want/need and gives you a few additional options not in the default package.
Why the heck did Google select the resource hog Norton? Norton is by far the most annoying and disfunctional AV on the market. I would have prefered NOD 32 or Kaspersky. They do their job very well and are resource efficient.
Everything else is great and I already have, but to install real player. I can't believe google included it. What a shame.
KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
For their XP userbase, they should have included ClamWin instead.
But, ClamWin is unlikely to pay Google for distribution like Symantec.
Ditto with Spybot vis-a-vis LavaSoft.
Et PDFCreator v. Adobe.
Looks like Thunderbird was left out accidentally... NOT!
This is a quote from the official "Google Philosophy" page. Oh well.
Yet another corporate entity telling me what software I should be using...
Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already
/. user I know would run only Open Source Software
Who is that guy writing about ?
Any respectable
and would have nothing to do with anything needing a virus checker.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
Is there a Linux/Unix version of Trillian I haven't heard of?
Any respectable slashot reader does not run Windows.
Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things)
;-).
dpkg-query -S norton
dpkg: *norton* not found.
Guess I am not respectable
I also use avast and have had it filter out many a virus; I chuck it an orange now and then to prevent scurvy and it seems happy. arrrrrr
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
Google Pack is only available for Windows XP
I want norton antivirus on my linux box!
| (ceci n'est pas une pipe)
can I be the first to say ugh, frames are bad mmmkay. there is absolutely no reason to need frames in a modern website and their appearance makes me hiss like a vampire. bad google, bad, down!
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
It would be a lot cooler if you could customize this thing more. Have a bigger list of popular software titles and let me pick and choose maybe? Oh well ... delete
Ready for HD DVDs? http://hd-dvd.buy-on-sale.com
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
Below is a proceedure that will change you life...
Pat
From the eula:
"By installing the Software, you agree to automatically request and receive Updates."
You can keep your Adobe (Acrobat) Reader. Way to heavy.
;)
I've been using Foxit Reader for a while now and it just works and it is fast.
Besides... the name is just great with one of the other tools in the Google pack: Firefox and Foxit
Now we just needs a Foxbar, Deskfox, Fox-aware, Foxasa, Anti-fox (hmm, that doesn't sound good), Planetfox, Foxsaver.
OK, let's see... if I were running XP, I'd install ettlz's Essentials:
Network- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- SSH.com's SSH client
- Gaim
Doing Work- OpenOffice.org
- The GIMP
- Inkscape
Utilities- 7-zip
- jEdit
Multimedia- Winamp
- CDex
- aoTuV Vorbis encoder
- Audacity
SecurityThis is probably just a PR thing to help push google toolbar. Packaging a bunch of already free executables? Anyone could do that. Packaging a bunch of nice desirable executables that most people would download anyway while inserting your toolbar and maybe putting google as your homepage for IE and Moz and FF? (I don't know they do that, but they should try with a prompt)
All it costs them is bandwidth for google. If a few thousand people download google toolbar and clickthrough some high value ads for say "private jet" or "luxury yacht" or "fur coat" google makes tons.
this is just another way to kill IE's marketshare by mass-distributing Firefox? Besides the obvious 'wow, one company that actually cares for people!' karma bonus it'll get automatically, of course.
Almost all the Software is already freely available. Anyone who does some support work for Widows XP users (so anyone here except those that have enough time convincing and installiing free software for their people) should know AdAware, Firefox and Acrobat Reader, where to get them and maybe even have installed them a couple of times.
Some of the Google software products included are usefull to some people, some are not. So anyone should only install the ones that they use (screensaver anyone, or IE-Toolbar for those that installed Firefox?). Some of them even have direct competition that may also be free and sometimes do a better job. I don't use Windows XP so I don't know about desktop search products, but I heard that Google Desktop is just one of many, most of them free.
The only new/newly free software would be Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition. Why did Google choose Norton? Norton is not even one of the better anti virus programs out there. It is one of the worst.
So this is what Google starts with in 2006 which was slated to become the "Year of Google". My, my, what a start!
On a sidenote, for anti virus I recommend Nod32 for people that want/can afford it and Avast (free key for personal use) for the rest. This is from extensive repeated research and personal experience. It only applies to small networks and standalone machines.
There is a "remove" option under each of the software descriptions.
What the hell. Nice advert for the GalleryPlayerHD company but when you go to their page http://www.galleryplayer.com/not-ie.html it doesnt really play nicely with FF or Opera. Maybe a bit more research next time eh google?
Can it run Linux? Most of the cool google apps (picasa, google earth etc.) can't run on Linux yet. : (
So far, I have loved everything Google has released. However, this one is going too far for my taste. The last thing I want to do is download and install a big pack of software...especially all at once. I got the same feeling when I saw "Google Pack" as I do when you run a Dell restore CD and look at all the crap that comes preinstalled.
I notice there's no Mozilla Thunderbird in the Pack.
Google wouldn't want to cut in on their own GMail market, ehh?
Mudge
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're not.
I'll admit I'm old-school (face messaging vs. instant messaging) but how many IM clients am I supposed to be using simultaneously?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
semi-correct on the code,you get binaries but no source, not accurate with service. Google lets you do quite a bit of interesting web stuff for free. As to no linux support, what else is new? Not too many companies provide linux support, and even the ones that do offer some strange hoops to jump through. The open source community is welcome to come up with a transparent and easy to use search appliance scheme, just not seeing it. Delicious and whatnot are not the same as what google or yahoo, etc provide. A real distributed shared search engine would be a major undertaking and would need a lot of people to be involved. sheer raw numbers of boxes and a lot of bandwith. I would think something like an automatic p2p program might work, but people would have to be content with using a lot of their bandwith and disk space to hold URLs and provide links, etc., 24/7. then the code could be open, but man it would be some project. How about web based mail? Who wants to start providing free web based mail to all comers as part of an open source initiative? Who is willing to host chat servers and eat the bandwwith? Image hosting? The companies that do need to have some way to pay for it, and the only alternative is a very dedicated HUGE community of sharers who donate a significant part of their available resources and pay out of pocket, and KEEP doing it past a one week "new shiny" period.
We are getting to the point now that the code in general to do this or that isn't the problem,economically or physically, it's not the largest expense, enough stuff has been written and is out there, it's the expense of running massive server farms and paying for bandwith. And big enough projects need full time management and marketing and administration teams, again, how many open source free/Free "communities" could pull this off reliably, 24/7? It has to be paid for, and the combination of protecting a business model combined with trying to keep your embarassing secrets hidden is why most of these companies keep their stuff closed source and propietary. for msallish p[rojects open source is working, for something like what google does it would take a huge committment by thousands of people who *don't stop working* to pull it off. Look at even a very popular distro or other open source free projects, it has to be subsidised for the most part by a for-profit parent company, and all the serving and bandwith is taken from tax payers and alumni at universitiesetc, again, massive leeching more than sharing to stay up and running. Repeat, the CODE, open source or not, is not where the largest problem lies with huge projects, it's way down the list. When you can crack the dollar problem with hardware and buildings and servers and electric bill and etc, and the full time gotta be paid management/administration problem it might get better and there might be more options, but not until then. People talk a big sharing game but when push comes to shove they quickly abandon stuff once it starts to impact their own bottom line negatively. Exceptions are not the rule here.
http://www.google.com/support/pack/bin/answer.py?a nswer=31725
I have a Mac. Can I use Google Pack?Google Pack isn't currently available for Mac OS. We realize that a lot of our users would like us to offer a Mac version, and we may consider this option in the future.
I've always thought that there needed to be an updater platform with support for non-MS software, like integration into Windows Update. But this isn't bad if it works how I think it does. A bit limited in available software, but it's probably still much less of an annoyance then the HP Updater........
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Google Pack is a good start, but it's just a fraction of what is really out there. They seem to be testing their own web-based replacement for the Windows "Add/Remove programs" section of the control panel.
A very common misconception of Windows users is that the MUST buy MS Office to work with the Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files that they might receive from other people. The average person only uses bare-minimum functionality of these products. When you teach a person about OO, you are probably saving them about $300.
http://code.google.com/
So, so. Respectable /. user. I already thought that a majority of /.ers runs WinXP. Or didn't you already notice that Google primarily produces software for Windows????
what about google summer of code?
Speaking as a Computer Science student with many friends who took part in Summer of Code, I think that they really did give something to Open Source - although admittedly it was, financially, absolute peanuts to google.
Actually, i think this is a huge step forward - google as a company is hugely trusted: if google promotes firefox like this, then it can only be a good thing. Maybe this will be the final push needed to make firefox the de-facto mainstream browser!
e^(i pi)+2 bottles hanging on the wall, one falls off and now its
They forgot one: Vim.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things) Thanks for defining most for us.
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
I have seen this before, and I have NO IDEA where people get that from. Picasa is a photo collection program. It lets you make small edits (crops, reduce red-eye, color balance, etc) but it is not an image editor. It is designed to help your organize your photos and find them easily.
It is the best program I have seen for that purpose on Windows. It really is great. And free too (back when it cost money, Wolf Camera would give it out on photo-cds you got back with your pictures; then Google bought it an made it free for everyone).
The only program I like more for that purpose is iPhoto, but that isn't available for Windows (obviously).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
NAV/NIS does have plenty of problems. I don't know how they can ship this stuff. I would guess that they are oblivious to surveying their actual users. In my consultancy, I see NAV problems all the time.
The most common is someone with an older NAV that's expired, they let it lapse for while, then they buy the upgrade, either from the store or online. They try to install, it doesn't detect the presence of the older copy of itself, and it fails to install. Then it fails to uninstall, and I've made another $100 to fix it. Sometimes even SynNRT (their removal tool) doesn't work, you need to manually clean the registry and remove all folders (including the ones in Common Files).
And then there's the people who can't follow the upgrade procedure, so they've paid their money (and the 365 days start ticking) and they leave the 40 meg installer sitting on their desktop and never install it, thinking it's installed.
Don't you think Symantec would want to make it easy to take people's money and leave them satisfied? But then I remember that the short-term objective is to take their money regardless of the reason.
Then there's NAV's troubles not being able to handle multiple simultaneous email POP3/SMTP fetch/sends. Or the overhead it puts on the processor. Or the way it gets confused by malware in temporary files that disappear after detection (like email attachments written to temporary files) and then reports that as a "failed to delete" (AVG does this, too). Or the way it still needs to download 40 meg of crap after you just installed 40 meg of crap. Or the way that LiveUpdate wants to run, reboot, run, reboot, run, reboot, and requires user intervention to click "OK" and "Next" all along the way. It's downright Microsoft-ian. Or the way that LiveUpdate doesn't properly detect that an instance of itself is already running, and complains.
Or the unnecessary complicated nature of NAV's Corporate editions, with a complexity far beyond the abilities of the average 2-10 user small office that they sell it to. At only a slight discount. So the frustration grows, and the prospect of hands-on install on N workstations looks better than trying to figure out the Corporate Edition.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
But without a firewall you're still screwed.
I wonder why they have not included one.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
How come everything 'GOOGLE' makes it to the frontpage of websites like these. I think Gates was right that every piece of crap Google touches turns into a hype. I mean; common people this is just a package with some random freeware in it. Be realistic, what really innovative and revolutionary product has Google presented to the public since it's search engine came online? Noting. Oh yeah, Gmail is 'nice'.
Your a tool.
Pure stupidity. Everyone knows that MS recycles its code endlessly and that with XP they in fact made a deliberate merging of the NT and 9X code bases. Or put another way. There is no real difference between the current windows desktop OS'es. The current wmf shitfest showed that clearly.
This line just goes to show that you have no idea of the history of Windows 9x and NT.
FYI: Windows NT 3.5.1 used a GUI that was somwewhat similar to Windows 3.1. Windows NT 4.0 used a GUI that was VERY similar to Windows 95. Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) continued to use the same GUI. Now, the differences between Windows NT Professional and Server for both v4 and 2000 were minimal. It was a handful of registry changes. Windows 2000 was also the first version that had decent game support and, I felt, a replacement for Win98SE. Windows XP does NOT reuse code from the Win9x line. What happened was a suggested/forced recommendation to game companies to use the Direct X for everything.
Fisher Price aspects of XP
BTW, you can turn off the candy-ass aspects pretty darn easy if you know how to use prefrences. Think something along the lines of 'Classic'.
"Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already"
I whole heartedly agree. Any respectable slashdot user probably doesn't use Macroshloft winblowz.
We already have all that stuff anyway with beagle, clamav, ect... et al.
More useless crap for a saturated OS.
Why would they bother with building a Google Cube when they could just take over the application layer of the existing almost-ubiquitous operating system - if it doesn't matter what kernel you're running (NT/Linux/Darwin/etc.) then why not use what's already there? Perhaps this is 'GooOS'? The most important component is the Google Updater and it should come as no surprise that this 'will display notifications when there are updates or new software available' (emphasis mine). It's not so much a question of what's in the Google Pack now (most of which is just fluff to get the unwashed masses interested), but what will be slipstreamed in the future - add OpenOffice.org and you've got everything your average user needs.
I've only OS X and Linux at home and I'm told 'Google Pack is only available for Windows XP' where I imagine the download would be, but I'll be sure to check this out at work next week.
Yes, this is redundant, but I just want to help make the chorus louder:
NORTON SUCKS.
January of last year I set up a test platform and installed all of the AV programs recommended by the microsoft link page (you know, the page it sends you to when you install XP without AV software)?
Panda, McAfee, Norton, F-Secure, and two others. They all sucked except F-Secure. It just sits there and quietly does its job -- No bullshit menus or intrusions or dialogs that won't go away. (Hell, Panda even put an icon on my xp LOGIN screen that wouldn't go away after de-install).
I think this is one of those cases when redundancy is essential.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
What surprises me is that OpenOffice.org is not included in the Google Pack
I think the AbiWord WP would fit the 'Essential' requirement - it's fairly small (~13MB last time I checked) and GPL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiword
Does much of the common MS Word stuff - mail merge, equation editing, grammar checking, etc. Also has support for OpenDocument.
It's what will help keep you from getting owned if your machine gets hacked. For example: Last week I got hit by that metafile exploit. The payload turns out to have been a 1+ MB executable zip with about 6 different infections in it. If I hadn't been running "On-Access" scanning with McAfee... well I'd have been screwed. As it is, I'm not entirely sure it caught them all, but I'm in a better spot than I would have been had McAfee not been running.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
It offered no real improvement at the time
Better RAM management was worth it alone. Every windows 9x machine I had would eventually eat all it RAM and force a reboot if it wasn't rebooted regularly. Windows XP I've been able to leave on for weeks and it mangages RAM much better. (Pro version, not Home).
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
All this seems to be missing is your current machine specs and a little l33t5p34k.
Under Networking, how about FileZilla? It's an excellent FTP client. It'd be great if it were ported to Linux, then I could dump gFTP which doesn't do so well with queues and is a bit of a pain to use...
Twinstiq, game news
Read this for a goog laugh and some new thoughts about Google...
www.f___edgoogle.com
(replace ___ with whatever you think is appropriate)
(sorry for posting this as a reply to several Google 'news', wasn't my choice to 'report' about Google at every turn)
And none free/libre?
Firefox was last time I checked.
It's most interesting for what software they'll add in future. The addition of Firefox is quite promising - after all they could've put in Opera or other 'secure' front-ends for IE.
This is pretty useful to suggest to windows users with fastish internet connections - it updates most of the software. Could be the beginning of a proper package management system for windows.
Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things)
Really? I was not aware that a self-respecting slashdot user was a drooling Windoze monkey. Better to reject proprietary gifts that can legally be revoked, and contribute towards free software substutes of the non-free components that run on the GNU system or BSD. 6 months of Norton Anti-Virus? Wow.
an ill wind that blows no good
Apparently Google is a synonym for Fudge.
Why is Google doing this? While I don't know their specific reasons, this is going to save me a lot of time. Whenever I clean up a person's computer (from the latest virus/malware slam) or set up a new computer, I install almost all of the products from this suite with the exception of Norton AV.
Google Pack, downloads and installs all of these products without me sitting there clicking next, next, next and watching progress bars progress. It just does it. It'll also keep them all updated, which is something the average user almost never does, no matter how many times they're told.
My hope is that Google starts to offer more programs and allow me to swap programs out for others... like swapping out Norton for AVG and adding in Quicktime, OpenOffice, and MS Antispyware. Again, it's a time thing. The time I spend manually downloading and installing updated versions of these programs (and making sure the user keeps them updated) is reduced and I can even walk away and just let it do its thing.
2000 is the merger of 9x and NT, and is an incredible gaming platform. Extremely stable, I've only really had trouble overheating(hardware) and with some old games rendering.
I personally like gFTP, but FZ 3 will have native Linux support. See development diary. Or perhaps you want some nightly builds?
Why only Windows XP ? Why, oh Why. I know most of the apps are not needed for Macs like anti-virus and ad-ware but there should be a google pack for mac too.
What does your Credit Report look like?
> OS/2 = Doing actual work with your OS instead of messing around wasting the bosses time
Yeah, right. You surely mean using the installation CD to hammer in nails or something like that...
it will be nice to make it all widely available to the general public
...they already ARE available to the general public... for free, except maybe Norton, but Norton AV is crap - home users could use AVG.
The google pack seems to be distributing old software. The Antivirus software is out of date, as is adaware, and google earth. This is something that should be fixed soon. Maybe this is why the google pack is still in beta.
To Google... Brilliant.
Google Pack needs administrative right to install. Instead of telling protential users, if you don't have administrative rights, please have your system administrator install the pack for you. So Google recommends quote, "If you'd like to have administrator rights on your computer, please contact your system administrator." http://www.google.com/support/pack/bin/answer.py?a nswer=28068&topic=8326
Or does this means you need to be administrator for the pack to run in the background?
Tried it. Looks like Wine can't quite handle it yet,
so I filed a bug report in Wine's bugzilla:
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4258
Hmm, guess I'm not "respectable" then. First and foremost, I don't need a virus scanner (running GNU/Linux), and even if I did, it wouldn't be Norton AntiVirus (ClamAV comes to mind). Second, a lot of Google's own programs are not available for GNU/Linux, and even if they were, they would have to be packaged for Debian (it's a mighty rare piece of software that I am willing to install without a Debian package). Thirdly, Trillian? Is that even available for GNU/Linux? GAIM meets both requirements above (GNU/Linux native, packaged for Debian) and does the same as Trillian. Don't even get me started on Adobe and their hellspawn that is PDF.
Let's see, that leaves Firefox, and thanks to Debian, I already have that. I like what Google has done to improve the search engine marketplace, but any "respectable" slashdot reader would be running GNU/Linux or *BSD and already have better and Freer alternatives to the above installed.
Nathan's blog
Nothing says "doing actual work" more than running some ancient, basterdized version of Lotus SmartSuite.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
July 20004
I hear this is the version that will be required for running Duke Nukem Forever, once it's released.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
everything they put out is proprietary
really
I used it to install Norton Antivirus...and it rebooted my computer without a prompt. I had six tabs on FireFox open! WTF?!?
so google is into this montage software bundle concept now? this is something i would expect from real networks - bundling every useless annoying free program ever made into their distribution, so it takes weeks to get it all off. not to say that everything in their bundle is garbage, but come on! this is soooo unimpressive.
Why Firefox, and not Opera given the recent dealings between the two companies? Especially if this is being targeted at non-high end users, I would think Opera would work better for them since they wouldn't have to install oodles of extensions to get the same features.
XP already has a firewall... how many do you want?
I don't know if this has been mentioned here earlier, but you can install this on win2k pro. All you have to do is get a user agent switcher for firefox (extension) and set it to "Internet Explorer 6.0 (windows xp)". Then goto pack.google.com and download the installer. I installed it last night and its been working just fine. The installer doesn't seem to detect if the computer is win2k or xp, but only the web site. Pretty dumb for google to do this if it works fine on 2k pro.
There's no difference in the memory management between pro and home. They differ only in a few minor features, notably managed-OS issues but also RDP, IIS, ASR. Read all about it here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_ho
Answer: You need a real OS.
Try Mepis and end those ugly reboots.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I suspect that the target user is the home user. Corporate computers already have AV and PDF software, and the bulk of the other stuff is unnecessary.
If one was to only support NT/2K/XP systems (which is pretty reasonable these days) and it was aimed at home users, there's little point in officially supporting (and therefore testing) Windows 2000. Especially since very few home users run Windows 2000 -- and the few that do run W2K probably don't need the Google Pack anyways.
i can see google stock going down very fast after this.
now they will have users suposing they will give firefox suport.
Also this page is ridiculous. You have to click in a hidden link at the bottom to see all of the software. And the "learn more" button for each program gives you frames.
Not to mention installing real player that will make your computer open popups on it's own. realplayer is more intrusive then any spyware you can find.
Linux support verbal or otherwise
Gentlemen, I find the continued lack of support for or *even mention* of Linux to be reaching a crisis point with me and others. For a company that built itself on FOSS software this is insulting in the extreme. Your GooglePack FAQ doesn't even *mention* Linux support much less actually provide it.
Gentlemen I am an IT consultant, and I have always steered friends and customers to your services and software, but GNU/Linux is now the primary platform I recommend and unfortunately you all are, through your unwillingness to see beyond the Windows platform, on the verge of of ending up on my very vocal "vendors to avoid" list.
Gentlemen they say you are known by the company you keep, by existing only the Windows platform you are choosing your company.
My hope is that your company will go beyond it's "don't be evil" slogan and actually strive to do good.
The place to start is returning the favor FOSS gave to you, the software that you built your company upon, port your software to the Linux platform.
What the world is thirsty for is not just companies that don't do evil, but companies that do good.
It's time to do good.
Clifton Hyatt
Symantec seems to have the best virus lab- numerous independent reviews I've seen show that they've got the best record in terms of pushing out more comprehensive virus detection files faster than anyone else. So there is *some* technical justification for google's decision. It's a real shame their client software has started sucking so hard.
But more than that, keep in mind that a big part of the existence of Google Pack is a competitive reaction to Microsoft's upcoming Windows Defender, which will bundle together A/V, Antispyware, and other "system maintenance" utilites. Google needs the Google Pack to be a credible alternative, and Norton has a hell of a lot of positive brand recognition and credibility *among consumers* that will benefit the Google Pack. Norton is trying to avoid having their consumer business wiped out by Windows Defender, which is why they're offering 6 months free rather than the usual OEM 3 months, and probably fought hard to get into Google Pack.
I haven't found Norton A/V by itself to be nearly as evil as Norton Internet Security- the main problem seems to be Outlook SMTP e-mails getting stuck outbound for no reason. However in my consulting practice I would guess 9 out of 10 naive users who try to renew their AV subscription on their own end up getting duped into purchasing and installing the entire NIS suite... it's the default choice if you just click "next" through the renewal wizard. This is when things really go to hell. I hope Google makes them stop this deceptive practice...
-R
Since this seems to include software that only runs on Windows and/or would be entirely pointless on anything else, using this software is neither a pre-requisite for my respect, nor does it add much. In fact, continuing to use MS crapware most likely have a negative impact on once's respectabilty, IMNSHO.
I'm glad I don't run windows, or pay attention to what google does to it's (ignorantly) trusting userbase. =p
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
I used Google Pack to install some programs. When I ran the newly-installed Ad-Aware SE, it informed me my definitions are 120 days old, I had to click its Connect button to get new definitions. And when I ran the newly-installed Google Earth, it displayed "A new version of Google Earth beta is available". Google Pack's Google Updater didn't offer either of these.
So now I have Adobe's Check for updates now, Firefox's Check for Updates, Google Earth's Check for Updates Online, Norton's LiveUpdate, and Ad-Aware's Connect for updates, and Google Updater. This is progress?
=S
Any software package that includes Realplayer should be kept as far away from computers as possible.
Google pushing this would be like pushing a christmas hamper with nice coffee, jams and preserves, belgian chocolates, shortbreads, maybe some nice tea, and dog turds. It doesn't matter how nice the other stuff, if it's got crap in it, it's nasty.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
When I go to the link I get...
"Google Pack is only available for Windows XP"
They exploit all the uses of open source software...but yet they return nothing back to the community. They are just like microsoft.
Here is a link, to a story; http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/13 65279.cms/
This mentions Google founder Larry Page as saying this service may herald a new strategy to pay for services by Google. WOW- A whole new story hits the back of my mind. And yet I must doubt the information.
In the past Google has offered a lot for free, aside from the ads which are to be expected. As a search engine Google has always been # 1 by me. But now I am a little concerned.
These things creep up on you sometimes. Let me tell you a little story (True) about an old friend of mine. He was an Art Bell fan, and years ago he came over to my house and I showed him my computer and all the wonderfull things it could do. Everything to him was better on TV than what I was showing him on the internet. But then I showed him wwwdotArtBelldotcom and he found out he could download the radio shows he missed for free and listen whenever he wanted. He bought a computer and got on the internet, with a little help from me from time to time. Well all was fine till they shut down that site and started charging from another site for the show's streaming. That was it for my neighbor, he was paying for the internet $19.95 a month as I recall, and he wouldn't pay more for the only thing he used the internet for. He quit using computers and hasn't had one since.
That's all it takes sometimes, I've seen people stop computing over virus and worms, Hackers, cost of internet hookup, poor computer service, rebate fraud, changing programing, options, a lower quality product or service, and money. Money seems to be really up there. I pay pay 39.95 a month for cable internet, and 100 miles away the same service is only 19.95. That aggravates.
I'd like to see someone do a more in depth news research story on what appears to be a possible change in one of the internet's mega movers. Google's always been my favorite search engine. That's all I ever expected from them. I hope a big change isn't beginning. Please Google don't change too much, I already have the programs you list that I want. All these extra bars I don't want. I like my system the way I have it. I don't want to end up paying more in the future because there are fewer people that are using the internet.Think.
MYSTERY