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.

Comments

nortan anti-virus

[bobby1234]

forget it you could get me to install it if it was free forever.... avg for me... http://free.grisoft.com/

"Any respectable /. reader"?

[daveschroeder]

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... ;-)

Re:"Any respectable /. reader"?

[jlowery]

Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already.

Are there any respectable /. readers?

Re:"Any respectable /. reader"?

[Moby Cock]

Actually the requirement is:

Windows XP with Administrator privileges

Which I understand is pretty easy to get over the internet.

Re:"Any respectable /. reader"?

[blkros]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, so to speak. Google seems to take without really giving much (except talk). Yeah they have funded some stuff, but really, in relation to their income, it's not even a drop in the bucket. They use open source software, and yet, everything they put out is proprietary. That's not giving back, and it's not doing good (although I guess it's not"evil" either, just kinda shady.).

Re:"Any respectable /. reader"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they could at least provide some free services in return for all the money I give them.

Branded?

[Tango42]

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...

Re:Branded?

[linuxci]

The Google toolbar for firefox only adds a few items that I consider useful, however as this toolbar integrates seamlessly with Firefox toolbar customisation then you can just move the items you need into other areas of the screen and hide the toolbar itself.

e.g. the Google search box on the toolbar incorporates Google suggest, so I've customised the toolbar and removed the Firefox built in search box and replaced it with the Google one.

I also like to see the pagerank of sites that I help develop so I've dragged the pagerank icon to the left of the throbber on the menubar (Linux and Windows) or to the left of the personal toolbar (on Mac) so I can see it at all times. Then I hide the rest of the toolbar.

To customise toolbars simply right click on any area of the toolbars that don't have any other context menu (e.g. reload, stop, home buttons) or select View > Toolbars > Customize.

Google are also offering $1 per download to members of their adsense program who put a link to download Firefox with the Google toolbar on their sites. For Google it is good to encourage use of Firefox as Firefox will not default to MSN search like IE does - and remember what Ballmer wants to do to Google!

Re:Branded?

[wazo2k]

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...

according to the google blog they are not getting paid:

We worked with a number of technology companies to identify products that are the best of their type to create this suite. (We didn't pay them, and they aren't paying us.)

Re:"Free"

[metaomni]

The free piece of cheese I get at the supermarket from the nice little lady expires in about 12-14 hours... doesn't make it any less free.

Not Gaim?

[SWroclawski]

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.

Re:Not Gaim?

[AC-x]

Trillian is included. It's not there by default but they do give you the option here

Re:Not Gaim?

[SWroclawski]

I'm all about being skeptical but:
google a true friend of open source? dont think so. 400 times 4500$ for the summer of code is some money and it has some benefits for the open source development in general. but, first, compare this prize money to the millions that they paid this ms guy. second and more important, google gets to know 400 bright people and can approach/hire them when they are students - not necessary to pay millions to hire them from a competitor at a later stage. this certainly is worth the 400 times 4500.

I don't see the analogy here. They're hiring students to work on Free Software projects for the summer... The students can do what they want afterward. Many large companies have internships for students, but few of them involve Free Software.

they take lead developers (read: directly weaken the os community) from ff and gaim and hire them to work for google.

That's what many companies do, hiring smart developers. While it's not good- I don't see how Google is any worse than any other company for this practice. Google has been relatively skimpy on the Free Software front, but code.google.com does have some useful programs.

Re:Not Gaim?

[zr-rifle]

Most importantly, why Trillian and not GTalk?

Re:Not Gaim?

[chiok]

Both Trillian and Google Talk are there as optional programs.

Norton?

[Jesus IS the Devil]

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.

Re:Norton?

[donovangn]

I run into this same issue on so many of my clients' computers. I end up removing Norton as it was either expired or somehow broken. At least half the time the damn thing doesn't uninstall. This is such a pervasive issue that Norton had to write a removal (SymNRT) to clean up where their uninstaller failed. Eventually they should move that tool to this page.

Re:Norton?

[Frankie70]

Why did Google choose to include Norton?

Norton probably paid Google shitload of money to be included in the
pack.

Let's see...

[CharonX]

Google Earth is more of a "fun" program. Nice to toy around once in a while, but nothing I have always installed.
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), .doc eat your heart out.

What a letdown.

[blkros]

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?

Bet their stock pricer just went down. ...and all of it only works on XP? No wonder Bill Gates dismissed them out of hand at CES.

Free virus checkers

[AC-x]

Going a bit of topic here but what's peoples opinions of AntiVir? Seems fine myself but everyone else seems to use AVG

Re:Free virus checkers

[Nagus]

I've switched a PC in my family from Antivir to AVG, and am now recommending AVG to anyone that asks.

The first reason is that Antivir has a relatively complicated update method for novice users. When it updates the antivirus database (ie. on startup), it sometimes likes to pop up a window with ads for the commercial version or with user surveys. This scares novice users who don't know what to click, and who then promptly call me for support. However that problem gets much worse when an update of Antivir itself is made - because then it just downloads a Setup.exe and starts it. This leaves the confused user (who has never seen an installer before) in front of a (maximized) InstallShield wizard, wondering how to "get back on the Internets". And quite frankly, even I find that installer a bit confusing.

AVG is much better in this regard: on startup, it checks for updates (to either program or antivirus database). If it finds any, it shows a progress bar while downloading and installing them. Then it shows an "Update Complete" dialog, which will vanish automatically after 30 seconds (unless you click it away before that timeout). Not a single click is required, ever.

The second reason I prefer AVG is that AVG's updates are much faster than Antivir's. Either Antivir has really slow servers, or AVG's updates are drastically smaller. I've had Antivir's update downloader timeout on me, but never AVG's.

To conclude: AVG is hasslefree, which is an essential property if you have to support friend's or family member's PCs.

Why "XP Only"?

[Chelloveck]

System Requirements
- Windows XP

I think there is a disconnect somewhere... ;-)

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.

Re:Why "XP Only"?

[lukewarmfusion]

"Mainstream Support" was end-of-lifed on 6/30/2005. Now it's one thing to make software that only works with a newer version of an OS, but it's another to put artificial blocks on compatibility.

As a web developer, I don't support older browsers. I do, however, let them load up my sites in whatever they like. As long as users realize that they may not be seeing the same thing or interacting in the same way, they're free to use Netscape 4 or whatever they like.

So if the Age of Empires developers decided that Win2K was a drastic minority with no mainstream support from MS, I can understand them not testing and support their product on 2000. But if the product works fine and users want to try it (unsupported) then they should let 'em do it.

I made the mistake - once - of forcing visitors to my site to use a specific browser. I did a browser detection and showed them a message requiring that they upgrade their browser in order to use the site. The problem with this is that the site worked fine in a lot of browsers that I was too lazy or ignorant to test or support. Eventually I learned the term "gracefully degrade."

Re:Why "XP Only"?

[westlake]

Why the XP restriction?

XP has 73% of the market. Up about 1% a month. W2K 15%. Down about 1% a month.

Mac and Linux 3%. Up 1% since 2003. Linux remaining pretty much where it was in July 20004.OS Platform Stats This is how the world looks to a developer. I'll leave it to your imagination to consider W2K's place in the home market.

Re:"Free"

[narooze]

Well, it's not far from the product you get when paying: If you pay for NAV the update subscription still expires, only after 12 months instead.

ClamWin

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:ClamWin

[Drakonite]

Et PDFCreator v. Adobe.

They said Adobe Reader, which last I checked was completely free and does a better job rendering than any open source PDF program does. Don't get me wrong, it has enough issues I typically use xpdf or other programs, but I still keep a copy of Acrobat Reader around because certain things just don't render correctly in anything else.

...and I don't know what you are smoking with ClamWin.. I'd recommend AVG over ClamWin any day, since ClamWin doesn't seem capable of automatically scanning files before letting the user run them (which lets face it, is the only way 99% of people will have a chance of knowing there is a virus before running it a dozen times over)

Re:ClamWin

[bamf]

Who says Adobe are paying Google to distribute it?

It's freely available software anyway, I suspect you can even find copies of it bundled with your breakfast cereal.

Google Philosophy

[ignavusincognitus]

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.

This is a quote from the official "Google Philosophy" page. Oh well.

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.

Google does search. With one of the world's largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we've been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service already considered the best on the web at making finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of users. Our dedication to improving search has also allowed us to apply what we've learned to new products, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Maps. As we continue to build new products* while making search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.

Respectable

[MS_is_the_best]

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 ;-).

Re:Avast... arrrrr

[thelost]

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

Foxit

[El_Muerte_TDS]

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.

Anyone can play this game.

[ettlz]

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

Security

• ClamAV ClamWin
• Spybot Search & Destroy
• Lavasoft AdAware
• Stern note about limited privilege accounts

Re:Google Pack is only available for WindowsXP

[Elektroschock]

This is why the original writer is wrong. All respectable users of Slashdot shall fuddle around with Wine to get the tools run.

What surprises me is that OpenOffice.org is not included in the Google Pack despite of the partnership announcement.

huh?

[epicstruggle]

should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things) Thanks for defining most for us.

Picasa = iPhoto

[MBCook]

Picasa IS NOT AN IMAGE EDITOR.

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).

Re:"Free"

[melvin xavier]

Well....the funny thing is, if you set back your calendar in 6 months when Norton gives you a friendly reminder it's about to expire, you can extend the life of its 'trial period' indefinately. I've tried this before with success. If it doesn't bug you to have the calendar off, it can be a handy tool to not have to pay for stuff.

Re:They're considering Mac, not caring about *nix

[TellarHK]

Why -should- they care about *nix? After looking at this crowd and the rather snarky reaction from most of the higher-rated posters, they'd wind up spending a year of manpower creating 20 different packages for 40 different *nix distributions, of the 3 applications in the pack that most *nix people don't get already. And then, they'd get bitched at ad-infinitum by the same snarky bastards here, because the package formats wouldn't include ".formatIcameupwithwhilereallystonedandcompilingGe ntoo".

There are several reasons why it makes sense for Google not to bow to the Open Source movement and users, first and foremost being that people who use *nix don't need this level of ease. Second of which, being that they've tried to appeal to this crowd by offering the least evil solution in most markets they enter into. But thirdly, it's because Open Source zealots are a bunch of backstabbing pricks that don't recognize a good thing when it's handed to them or their loved ones that -don't- run free-as-in-speech everything.

Fortunately, Google -is- working on Mac support where it's relevant. They should get credit for that much, rather than attacked and derided for not supporting an Operating System that can't get its shit together even to agree on a standard way of installing software.

I run Debian on headless servers, but after trying to install various flavors of *nix on my P2-366 Toughbook, determined that none of the distributions will handle such a low-spec system as well as even -XP- does. Quit whining about Google and fix that crap.