Google Updates Chrome's Terms of Service

centuren writes "In response to the reaction to Chrome's terms of service, Google has truncated the offending Section 11, apologizing for the oversight. The new Section 11 contains only the first sentence included in their Universal Terms of Service, now stating: 'You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.'"

Comments

Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Its icon looks like an anal bead.

Re:Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL... I have a dark appreciation for the trolls which are at least kind of funny. Bravo!

Re:Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not even a troll, it's just a funny. I wonder what kind of crack mods are smoking? Probably diet crack because they want the essence of crack plus a little cancer in lab animals.

Re:Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

true... so true...
in fact, it looks like one of your mothers anal beads

Re:Google Chrome

[Fumus]

More like a pokeball to me...

Re:Google Chrome

[kalman5]

It's icon is same as Microsoft Windows Media 9, look at what I have on my Windows Vista Uninstall dialog: http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chromevswindowsmediais8.jpg

Re:Google Chrome

[PapaBoojum]

To me looks like the old pre-PC game "Simon", only with three buttons instead of four.

Yeah I'm an old fart...

Re:Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh that's what it was. I thought your mom was just into shooting marbles. No wonder it smelled like ass.

Re:Google Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Its icon looks like an anal bead.

everything looks like an anal bead to you, AC.

Re:Google Chrome

[sagematt]

Or a beachball.

Re:Google Chrome

[BubFranklin]

You were way off... [/snide Lloyd Christmas voice]

Well that sounds reasonable.

[bigtallmofo]

So far we've gotten an apology and a quick amendment that eliminates the offending clause. Now we just need for the group responsible for the oversight to be fired and one or two sacrificial killings and we'll call it even.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[TheRealMindChild]

Haven't you ever been lazy and just copy-and-pasted some code to somewhere else? Don't lie. That is probably what happened here~

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoooosh

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[prestomation]

"We apologise again for the fault in the
TOS. Those responsible for sacking
the people who have just been sacked,
have been sacked."

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[enoz]

"The directors of the firm hired to amend the TOS after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked."

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[cdrudge]

Sure I've copied/reused code. But when I do I usually make sure I understand what it does and works correctly. I also don't work for a mega corporation that has entire brigades of lawyers to get paid to look at these very things. Google apparently didn't understand what it meant nor had any of the many lawyers who get paid to look at these types of things actually look at it.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[darthdavid]

A moose bit my sister once.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[hahafaha]

Do keep in mind that the thing is barely in beta. They're not really releasing it to the public. Besides, it's basically unenforceable, since the code is under a BSD license.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Konster]

It's available for download on their main page. This seems to me that they really are releasing it to the public.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[siyavash]

Informative for sure... got no mod points though. :(

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[powerspike]

it's right under the search bar on their main page, and it's marked as beta, which means it's a full release for them ? that's more of public release then anything else they have had isn't it ?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[eggnet]

What does the tilde mean? I've seen it a lot lately.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[destiney]

I quite enjoyed reading your comment.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Irish_Samurai]

it's right under the search bar on their main page

I understand that there is a difference between releasing an OS and having a browser set as default and adding a link on your main page to your browser, but at which point can we start discussing that this is in the same ballpark.

Google has a serious hold on the search market, just as Microsoft has a serious hold on the OS market (which its losing). Isn't putting a link to your browser on your main search page just a little bit in that gray "leveraging" area?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[prestomation]

"No realli! She was Karving her initials Ãn the mÃÃse with the sharpened end
    of an interspace tÃÃthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law -an Oslo
    dentist and star of many Norwegian mÃvies: "The HÃt Hands of an Oslo
    Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge MÃlars of Horst Nordfink"... "

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[fishthegeek]

Hmmm.... work for D-Link do you?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are trying to make it a new punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[prestomation]

Ok, Ok, I'll stop

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Gyga]

As long as IE uses MSN by default no one can complain. People actually have to take action to use this product. If Google were to force people to use Chrome in order to search it would be leveraging.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yeah, nothing helps make sarcasm funnier like explicitly stating that it's sarcasm.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Irish_Samurai]

Firefox, Opera and Safari use Google as default search engine and don't include MSN Search as an option.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really love this idea !!!!

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[gschwim]

Really? Reasonable? The only reason they responded was for PR purposes. Corporate lawyers are paid to protect the interests of the company, not copy and paste boilerplate.

They knew exactly what they were doing. The didn't get away with it. End of story.

Just because something is "free" doesn't mean you have to give your rights away. What is this world coming to??

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Nyckname]

Not until the Solstice. Traditions must be upheld.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[retchdog]

Funny, I got the impression that chrome went to almost-ridiculous lengths to suggest I use a search service other than the one which is, quite frankly, the clear industry leader.

Of course I want to use google for search! Have you tried MSN? Duh...

Not that I'm a google fanboy at any rate; I respect their work but retain healthy skepticism; even to the point that I don't use chrome solely because google may be watching. I still think that they are careful about showing the appearance of "leveraging", to the point of silliness.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[retchdog]

That's because MSN search quite frankly sucks. It's a reasonable decision from the perspective of marketing, not to even offer a bottom-barrel service as an option. If MSN were better, it would be an option.

And Microsoft knows it. There's a reason MS tried to buy Yahoo!, and put forth such a serious offer that it caused a small political drama in the Yahoo! board of directors when Yahoo! refused...

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, EVERYTHING Google makes is in beta. For eternity.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[darth dickinson]

*Everything* Google does is in "Beta". That way, if/when it fails horribly, all they have to do is say, "BETA!!" and gloss over the failures.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[debatem1]

I love your sig.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[deadlinegrunt]

"I also don't work for a mega corporation that has entire brigades of lawyers to get paid to look at these very things. Google apparently didn't understand what it meant nor had any of the many lawyers who get paid to look at these types of things actually look at it."

I disagree. In fact, given the original language, I would say lawyers did examine it and did what lawyers do best in the best interest of their client. Think along the lines of "much easier to give something up than take something away" during litigation. Might as well claim the world up front rather than after the fact, no?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[LordEd]

Instead, this thread has been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.

The Producers would like to thank The Forestry Commission Doune Admissions Ltd, Keir and Cowdor Estates, Stirling University, and the people of Doune for their help in the making of this thread.

The Characters and incidents portrayed and the names used are fictitious and any similarity to the names, characters, or history of any person is entirely accidental and unintentional.
    Signed RICHARD M. NIXON

    JOHN GOLDSTONE & "RALPH" The Wonder Llama
    EARL J. LLAMA
    MIKE Q. LLAMA III
    SY LLAMA
    MERLE Z. LLAMA IX
    Directed By
    40 SPECIALLY TRAINED
    ECUADORIAN MOUNTAIN LLAMAS
    6 VENEZUELAN RED LLAMAS
    142 MEXICAN WHOOPING LLAMAS
    14 NORTH CHILEAN GUANACOS
    (CLOSELY RELATED TO THE LLAMA)
    REG LLAMA OF BRIXTON
    76000 BATTERY LLAMAS
    FROM "LLAMA-FRESH" FARMS NEARE PARAGUAY
    and (apologies to)
    TERRY GILLIAM AND TERRY JONES

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[ColdWetDog]

Why did I know this would happen?

Sigh.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[SillyPerson]

Some people are trying to make it a new punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm.

Sarcasm markup? Now, that's useful~

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Repossessed]

No, the *code* is under a BSD license, one of the things about BSD style licenses is that the binaries can have whatever license you want (see OSX).

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anpheus]

gschwim, calm down. It was entirely unenforceable and unintentional.

If they intended to make sure they perpetually owned YOU, they wouldn't have made Google Chrome's source available under a BSD license. Nor would they let you download said entirely free alternative, Chromium (no google trademarks or branding) without an EULA.

That's right, if you download any of the automated builds for Chromium, it comes EULA-free.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[TheP4st]

In written form there is good reason for doing so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm#Highlighting_sarcasm_in_written_form

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[palegray.net]

Funny how their stuff routinely fails to fail...

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you ever been lazy and just copy-and-pasted some code to somewhere else? Don't lie

Quite frankly, I always re-read when I do that. And, if it's important, I run it past another set of eyes.

I doubt any lawyer was doing the copy/paste job, so I'd sure as shit beat up on the lawyer who did the final review. The EULA really is a legal document, is it not?

Frankly I firmly believe it was intentional and they are backing and filling with the "mistake" story.

After all, once you've gotten people to accept a standard reaming, why not try to cover all products with the same crap?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Kineel]

Apparently you don't understand the Engineering/Management process. In most companies firing is the path of least pain. If you really want to punish an engineer for making a mistake, you make them fix it.

Believe me with some software I've worked on that was the worst punishment.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[PReDiToR]

If you don't like the thought of Google watching your every move, you could always try Scroogle.

More information here and here.

Firefox search plugin available too, but some links to it don't work.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind that! Why am I now seeing this thread with a flashing red and green background and hearing Mexican music with lots of whooping?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's because MSN search quite frankly sucks. It's a reasonable decision from the perspective of marketing, not to even offer a bottom-barrel service as an option. If MSN were better, it would be an option."

You fools modded this "5 Insightful"? Good God.

Chrome is a great Firefox replacement, as soon as they fix the scroll wheel bug. My scroll wheel doesn't work with Chrome either up or down, and the scroll area of my laptop's touch bad only works for scrolling down, not up.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Gyga]

Firefox, Opera, and Safari don't have a monopoly, and aren't controlled by Google.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was what the smiley was originally used for, wasn't it?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't touched the consumer versions of windows for a few years, but on all the Windows Server boxes I use, the first thing Internet explorer opens - and apparently forces you to use once even if you cancel and configure about:blank as your homepage - is a configuration page to select a search supplier. Default is MSN/Live, but if you decline that, you can download the parameters to use google, yahoo and about a dozen other engines, or search for "TEST" anywhere you like and use that as your future default search engine.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[nitio]

AFAIK, in a BSD license you can do a lot of things with the code but you still must license it under the same copyright/restrictions conditions you've had the code to start with - someone might point to the right direction here. Apple didn't change the license, they can close it down and sell it. Though, you can download it (google darwin source).

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[kohaku]

Yeah, nothing helps make sarcasm funnier like explicitly stating that it's sarcasm~

Fixed that for you.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[TheRaven64]

One of the key differences between the BSDL and the GPL is that the GPL has a clause saying that you may not impose any conditions on the code not present in the original license. This is what made it incompatible with the Apache license (v3 allows a small list of extra conditions you may impose). The BSDL allows you to take the code and distribute it in source or binary form, with or without extra conditions, as long as you retain the copyright notice. This is one of the reasons why things that are dual-licensed under the BSDL and the GPL are stupid - the conditions imposed by the BSDL are a subset of those imposed by the GPL, so you can trivially include BSDL code in a GPL'd work - no one would ever choose to use the work under the GPL because it grants them no extra rights.

If you take a BSDL work and distribute it under a more restrictive license, then people are unlikely to actually use your code unless you modify it first, of course, since they can get the less-restrictive-licensed version and use that instead. If you make changes, people have to decide whether your improvements are worth giving up some rights in order to use. One example of this is a FreeBSD-derived operating system whose name escapes me at the moment which is used for router platforms. It is provided in binary-only form, and costs a small amount (I think it's free for individual use). If it has features you need that aren't in FreeBSD, then you can either pay someone to add them to FreeBSD, or buy a license for this platform and then be locked in to a single supplier for support.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the first 2 pages of hits on MSN search are guaranteed to have pages that have ads that are virus filled.

We finally had to block users from using MSN search. Too much hassle cleaning up what the AV companies didn't' keep up with.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[repvik]

Yeah, if you're only talking to stupids...
The more intricate and hard-to-discover humor is, the funnier it is for the persons who actually get it. Dumbing it down to reach a wider audience lessens the impact. If you don't get it, accept it.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[koollman]

That's because they are beta. Everyone knows that once you release a 'finalized' version, bugs appear

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Foolicious]

Sure I've copied/reused code. But when I do I usually make sure I understand what it does and works correctly.

Maybe they and their lawyers usually do, too. Just not this time.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

thats because we don't get google's FAT paycheck dumbass

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Ilgaz]

If I was Google guy, I would be very alerted about that recycled joke. People started to make Microsoft jokes about Google, the "Anti Microsoft".

Microsoft has a huge enterprise business, software business, operating systems and even very respected peripheral business. Google has one business: *.google.com . Once that guy doesn't use Google because he believes they are evil, Google is gone for good.

BTW I don't believe a Fortune 500 company cuts/pastes service terms. If they actually do it, it is worse.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

The CustomizeGoogle extension also has an anonymization feature. I hope we will see a fully anonymized Chromium plugin/fork soon!

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[bigstrat2003]

Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons over at the Box network who canceled us were fired for incompetence! Not just fired, but beaten up... and pretty badly, too! In fact, most of them died from their injuries!

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Snaller]

And a redesign of google groups!

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Spatial]

I always read it as if the poster was talking in a stereotypically gay, or Libby-like "What-everrrrr" tone of voice. Since the tilde looks a bit like a rising and falling wave, I assumed it meant the tone was supposed to vary throughout the sentence (which I've seen people do on IRC for years).

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[mdwh2]

How can they expect users to read the EULs, if they can't even be bothered to read them themselves?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

In verbal communications, sarcasm is denoted by inflection or tone of voice. In written communications there is no such thing, so "inflection" must be created. It has nothing to do with whether someone is stupid or smart. Take for example if I type:

Because I hate vodka.

Am I being sarcastic or am I being serious? Are you an idiot if you don't realise which it is? If I were to speak it, you would automatically know my by vocal inflection, but typed here it is impossible to know.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed~

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[shutdown -p now]

What more, Chrome will actually pick your default search provider from IE7+ when installing. If it happens to be Live Search, then that's what you'll get.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure I've copied/reused code. But when I do I usually make sure I understand what it does and works correctly. I also don't work for a mega corporation that has entire brigades of lawyers to get paid to look at these very things.

Your code reviews are done by lawyers? And you work for a mega-corp - is it in Redmond? I ask because having code reviews done by lawyers rather than s/w developers would explain a lot about what comes out of Redmond.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[danieltdp]

Or the lawyers didn't understand what the product meant. "If we can get google to own user stuff in other products, let's do the same on this one".

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google apparently didn't understand what it meant nor had any of the many lawyers who get paid to look at these types of things actually look at it.

If true, that's valuable info for any user caught violating any of their ToS/EULAs:
"Your Honor, look at their very popular "Chrome" product - even their lawyers either didn't know or didn't read what was claimed!"

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarcasm markup? Now, that's useful~

Let me just forward this to the Department of Redundancy Department for double-checking.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[nomadic]

even to the point that I don't use chrome solely because google may be watching.

I guess I'm too trusting, I only don't use chrome because it's the slowest renderer ever.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure I've copied/reused code. But when I do I usually

*snip*

I rest my case.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[unreceivedpacket]

http://xkcd.com/16/ I typically dislike it when people respond with an xkcd comic, but this one seems pretty relevant.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[ErkDemon]

Yeah, just because people who are well-educated realise that a contract is "bad" and legally unenforceable, it doesn't mean that the issuing of the contract to the general public is okay.

Contractual clauses like this are harmful to the internet business environment. They set precedents and help to define the perception of common (bad) industry practice.

If you're working at some little software company, and you want to add an outrageous statement to your user-licence, and you see that Google are already doing stuff like this, you're liable to think, well, Google are one of the largest corporations in the world, with access to as many lawyers as they like, and if they reckon that companies can get away with stuff like this, than my company is going to do the same.

There are plenty of legal "terms and conditions" out there that aren't (or shouldn't be) legally enforceable ... but that doesn't mean that bad companies aren't still sheltering behind them, and that their customers aren't still being intimidated by what they've unwittingly agreed to.

The argument that it doesn't matter because people don't read the legal stuff anyway also doesn't wash, because by including sloppy psuedo-legal "junk" clauses that obviously shouldn't be there, the company is encouraging end-users to think that
(a) online legal contracts are worthless junk that're not worth reading, and
(b) that if a contract appears to say something daft that potentially screws the customer over in an outrageous way, that they, the customer, don't need to worry because the company lawyers will obviously never attempt to use that clause in their favour.

There are "bad" companies out there whose whole business model depends on exploiting contractual clauses that the customer either doesn't read, or thinks that the company won't try to enforce on the grounds of unreasonableness, so these contracts encourage a dangerous sense of complacency in end-users over what they sign up to online.

On the plus side, Google did the right thing by acting immediately and emphatically to fix the problem once it had been brought to their attention.
Good for them for doing that.

But really, there was no excuse for a company as much in the spotlight as Google, whose business depends so much on public goodwill, releasing a contract in that state in the first place. People in large corporations get paid an awful lot of money to make sure that things like this don't happen.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nothing helps make sarcasm funnier like explicitly stating that it's sarcasm.~

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you ever been lazy and just copy-and-pasted some code to somewhere else? Don't lie. That is probably what happened here~

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that's what "Â" is for?

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Woops, forgot Slashdot doesn't support Unicode.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Legal(beta)

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[I.M.O.G.]

How much revenue potential for Mozilla is there in using MSN search as the default?

Google pays big bucks to be the default on Firefox, and its Mozillas primary financial contributor. Maybe there isn't any conspiracy and it just makes the most financial sense for these browsers to use Google as the default because thats where their money comes from.Or is MS offering the same kind of cash that Google is?

The same goes for the other browsers also.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[mattwarden]

I sort of doubt it. Google knows from previous experience that people are suspicious of their motives, and there are plenty of people out there who were going to read the terms of service AND the source code line for line looking for legal or programmatic back doors or silly things like this.

I'm pretty sure people upstairs at Google are not very happy about this slip up.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[edittard]

That's because MSN search quite frankly sucks. [...] And Microsoft knows it. There's a reason MS tried to buy Yahoo!

Sticking two things that suck together in the hope that the result won't suck is like trying to make two left shoes into a pair.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[Serenissima]

But you can still use the emphasis of text to create inflection in the mind of the reader.

Because I HATE vodka!

This certainly has a different emotional quality attached to it. Changing the format of the text can create emphasis similar to what the inflection would be. The context of the conversation as well as the punctuation of the sentence can also help sarcasm to be more understandable.

For example, if you were to read these two conversations:

"Do you want a martini?"
"No"
"Why?"
"Because I hate vodka."
"Ah"

"We're going to make Screwdrivers after our physics exam, but I told the guys you probably wouldn't make it."
"Because I hate vodka?"
"No you dumbass, because you have a chemistry exam tomorrow morning."

You would know that line "Because I hate vodka" - because of a difference of text emphasis, punctuation, and context - can be read as non-sarcastic in the first example and sarcastic in the second example.

Of course, since there are so many ways of being sarcastic, some more obvious than others, this doesn't always hold true. But it's not as difficult to add sarcasm into text as you would think.

Re:Well that sounds reasonable.

[fucket]

There's no vodka in a martini.

TOS

[fhic]

Just when I want to start thinking about them as evil, they have an outbreak of common sense and do the right thing.

Oh well. I still think they're too big and have too much of my data stored away, but I'll let go of the paranoia. Until the next time. :-)

Re:TOS

[denmarkw00t]

they have a sudden outbreak of common sense

Fixed

Re:TOS

[Vectronic]

No, the OP had it right, its just an "outbreak"... saying a sudden outbreak is redundant.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outbreak

Main Entry:
outbreak
Function:
noun
Date:
1602

1 a: a sudden or violent increase in activity or currency
b: a sudden rise in the incidence of a disease
c: a sudden increase in numbers of a harmful organism and especially an insect within a particular area

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+outbreak

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/outbreak

etc, etc...

Re:TOS

[suso]

While I believe that it could be a mistake on their part. The fact that it was "an oversight" doesn't make sense to me. I mean if they just took some boilerplate EULA, then obviously a lot of thought didn't go into it. But if they wrote it from scratch, then I'd think that they were trying to get away with something, or that not everyone at Google agrees on not being evil.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

They took the standard EULA that they use for everything, and slapped it on - it was the easiest thing for the programmers to do at the time, no thought required, just use the standard legal mumbo-jumbo. An understandable mistake, and they've corrected it.

Re:TOS

[hedwards]

Umm, that's what a boilerplate is for. For pretty much any other service they have it would have been fine. Or at least in keeping with the competition.

The only reason why it's a problem is because this is one of like two things they're providing where it's not appropriate. Google has a much larger number of projects for which a clause like that is pretty much mandatory to provide the service.

Re:TOS

[denmarkw00t]

Fixed as in on the /. level - you know how we like to tag things here.

Re:TOS

[owlnation]

While I believe that it could be a mistake on their part. The fact that it was "an oversight" doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, I agree. Google employs many lawyers. One of them MUST have signed off on the TOS before it went live. This was a conscious decision. Corporations just don't copy and past legal stuff -- EVER. Someone in Google liked the original TOS.

Re:TOS

[conlaw]

Corporations just don't copy and past legal stuff -- EVER.

As a past member of three corporate legal departments, I'm ROFL at this quote. Most contracts start as boilerplate and only get changed through negotiation between the parties.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

whoooooosh

Re:TOS

[Merusdraconis]

I have a copy of the PC game Morrowind whose EULA explicitly prevents me from using it.

I'm pretty sure it's down to copy-paste.

Re:TOS

[jrp2]

While I believe that it could be a mistake on their part. The fact that it was "an oversight" doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, I agree. Google employs many lawyers. One of them MUST have signed off on the TOS before it went live. This was a conscious decision. Corporations just don't copy and past legal stuff -- EVER. Someone in Google liked the original TOS.

Kinda doubt it. Lawyers are rarely involved in the quality and release process. Not unless there is a debate or concern and they are called in by someone more involved with the product.

They would have certainly approved a boilerplate at some point, and would usually be called in if someone actually noticed the problem and wanted to modify it. But I have never heard of any tech company including legal in the test and release process as a standard practice.

Also, getting marketing, testers and developers to review doc is usually like pulling teeth. They would almost never more than glance at a EULA, warranty statement or something like that.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

As a past member of the other side, I'm with you brother. Boilerplate and some changes was a hell of a lot cheaper than starting from scratch. As the vendor, there wasn't much choice anyways.

Re:TOS

[rossifer]

Corporations just don't copy and past legal stuff -- EVER.

You haven't worked with too many corporate legal departments. Those guys are masters of grabbing something that's close, giving it a quick scan for the previous parties' names, and presenting it as a beautiful contract that they spent all night getting just perfect for you.

Corporations copy and paste legal stuff all the time. In my experience, that's the normal mode of operation

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations just don't copy and past legal stuff -- EVER.

As a past member of three corporate legal departments, I'm ROFL at this quote. Most contracts start as boilerplate and only get changed through negotiation between the parties.

Yeah. Remember who works in company marketing departments - Business Majors. Copy and paste is what they do.

Re:TOS

[Kinjin]

The original TOS for Chrome is the same as Gmail, and Google Toolbar. Google Earth has a completely different section 11 in the TOS.

Re:TOS

[LurkerXXX]

Really? Any other service they have it would be fine? Google desktop? Their office suite? No, it's not a good license for most of Google's products.

Re:TOS

[houghi]

An understandable mistake,

That is the whole point. They should be aware of what they put in their code. What if they just copied and pasted some code that would delete your files? This didn't delete your files, it deleted the right to your files which could be even worse.

A mistake? Yes. Understandable? No.

Re:TOS

[johny42]

Fixed

There, fixed it for you. You must be new here.

Re:TOS

[Vskye]

They took the standard EULA that they use for everything, and slapped it on - it was the easiest thing for the programmers to do at the time, no thought required, just use the standard legal mumbo-jumbo. An understandable mistake, and they've corrected it.

Been there, done that actually. I took another ISP's EULA, cut and pasted it and ran it though our lawyers a few times before it was approved. (although it wasn't posted prior to approval.. new start up back in the early 90's, reworded and such) I'm sure this isn't that uncommon, even if I hate all the lawyer crap. It's revised at time goes on, so no big deal. (omg, google is evil.. wtf)

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

"all your earth is belong to google" ?? :)

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the OP had it right, its just an "outbreak"... saying a sudden outbreak is redundant.

Are you just being a dipshit pedant here? If you've ever uttered the phrase "ATM machine" or PIN number", the answer is yes.

Also, only tightasses regard dictionary definitions as prescriptive, rather than descriptive.

Quit living in the past.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, that sound's hillarious. What does the part say that prevents you from playing it? (Really enjoyed Morrowind by the way, hope I wasn't breaking the EULA :P )

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not quite sure how you "accidentally" include a clause stating any and all data you submit with chrome becomes Google's property. Care to elaborate?

Re:TOS

[jDeepbeep]

it was the easiest thing for the programmers to do at the time

Programmers?

Re:TOS

[bigstrat2003]

That is the whole point. They should be aware of what they put in their code. What if they just copied and pasted some code that would delete your files?

Those are completely different examples. These people are programmers, they aren't expected to pay attention to the legal terms. They copy-pasted a license in, good enough for them. If there was code that would delete your files, they'd be expected to realize that, because that's, you know, their job. Legal stuff isn't their job.

A mistake? Yes. Understandable? No.

Only if you're completely unreasonable.

Re:TOS

[houghi]

If they don't understand it, then they must ask somebody who does.

Re:TOS

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> But I have never heard of any tech company including legal in the test and release process as a standard practice.

At a company where I previously worked, every single word and punctuation mark, every clause and every image on every one of our public-facing pages had to be approved by Legal to avoid liability.

Even emergency releases were subject to review if they changed any verbiage.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Programmers?
Since when do the programmers control the EULA?

Re:TOS

[Merusdraconis]

It's to do with the editor. The EULA explicitly prohibits me from reverse-engineering or modifying any part of the game, which of course the editor is designed to do.

I think I installed some mods as well, which violate the same section.

So do they...

[Leptok]

relinquish rights to the stuff that may have been created before the update?

Re:So do they...

[JeremyBanks]

No, they said that this change would be applied retroactively.

Re:So do they...

[Twinbee]

Erm, assume yes, otherwise they'd get just a slightly bad image from the public maybe? (ignoring they'd do the moral thing anyway).

Have to remember also, it's just as boring to write these things as it is to read them. Apparently they did a copy/paste of the old ones, hence the initial blunder.

Re:So do they...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this change applies retroactively.

Re:So do they...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes...

The new terms will of course be retroactive, and will cover everyone who has downloaded Google Chrome since it was launched

Re:So do they...

[Evanisincontrol]

[so do they] relinquish rights to the stuff that may have been created before the update?

No, they said that this change would be applied retroactively.

...right, and since "retroactively" means "Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment", that would make the answer yes, not no. How did this get moderated informative?

Re:So do they...

[dscaife]

From TFA (Google's official blog):

The new terms will of course be retroactive, and will cover everyone who has downloaded Google Chrome since it was launched.

Re:So do they...

[i.of.the.storm]

I think GP is confused about who they is, so you're both right.

Re:So do they...

[Evanisincontrol]

I see your point. My assumption was that since JeremyBanks said "they" to mean "Google", that he would also have thought Leptok (the OP) meant "Google".

It was complicated just trying to agree with you. Pronouns are the devil.

Re:So do they...

[darkmeridian]

The change is supposed to be retroactive, according to their blogger. Since Google is the party giving up a contractual right, they are barred from enforcing that right based on estoppel.

Re:So do they...

[j-cloth]

Well... it is informative. It just happens to be incorrect.

Re:So do they...

[i.of.the.storm]

Indeed. Nouns ftw.

Re:So do they...

[bentcd]

[so do they] relinquish rights to the stuff that may have been created before the update?

No, they said that this change would be applied retroactively.

...right, and since "retroactively" means "Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment", that would make the answer yes, not no. How did this get moderated informative?

Well, it /was/ informative. It was also -1 Self-contradictory but I don't think that mod option exists :-)

Re:So do they...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it depends on who the original poster meant by "they", Google or the hapless users using Chrome.

Re:So do they...

[scott_karana]

No, Google states that the change should be considered retroactive.

Re:So do they...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he understands the meaning of "retroactively" just not the meaning of "relinquish"

This is why I wait

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I wait a while to download new software. You never know what might be wrong with it.

Now if only the uninstaller would really uninstall

[GuyverDH]

If you uninstall Chrome, it leaves a few google'isms behind...

Like googleupdate and a few other registry entries... /sigh...

time to reload Winbloze...

That was easy....

[FooGoo]

good thing they can't change their terms of servitude anytime they want.

You must agree to.... [CLICK]

[Nick Driver]

See.... nobody, not even Google themselves ever reads the freakin' legal boilerplate crap you have to click on to install software.

Re:You must agree to.... [CLICK]

[LiquidFire_HK]

I wonder what would happen if you downloaded a random application in a language you don't understand (say, you're not a native english speaker and don't know english) and just click random buttons until you get it installed. You'd have agreed to the EULA, but not only would you have no idea what you just agreed to, you wouldn't even know you agreed to anything. Anyone know how that works legally?

And I can certainly imagine some of my non-English speaking friends/relatives doing that - hell, they've probably done so many times. They just click next until it's installed.

What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spamming every news and discussion board on the Net with fake hysterics over that simple cut and paste mistake was the only thing the Firefox fans could try to do to stop the flood of people dumping Firefox for Chrome?

What they hell are the hardcore Firefox fans going to do now?

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[hedwards]

Umm, nice try troll. It was a genuine concern. The clause had the potential to be a huge land grab. It's hard to say whether it was an accident or they really got the message but it's been fixed. It's not the only time it's happened. I seem to remember both Apple and MS trying that sort of thing in the past, it's a bit easier to believe that Google just made a mistake though.

Firefox users are not going to switch to Chrome. It's just inane to suggest that's the case. It doesn't run on anything other than Windows at this point, and it looks like it's going to be a pain to be ported to anything else.

On the resource side of things, they're going to have to make a significant amount of improvement to be competitive with Firefox on performance. Sure web surfing is apparently faster, but that's against the 3.0 release and neglects the impact of memory hogging and the tweaks coming down the pipe in 3.1.

Or to put it another way, it's premature to suggest that Chrome is going to be stealing Firefox users. More likely they'll be stealing IE users away. Might very well slow adoptin of Firefox, but it's unlikely to make a significant impact.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

SpAMmIng every news and discussion boArd on the Net with Fake hysteRIcs over that simple Cut and paste mistaKe was the only thINg The FiRefox fans cOuLd try to do to stop the fLood of people dumping Firefox fOR Chrome?

WHAT they hell are the hardcore Firefox fans going to do now?

We already know, you just keep telling us..

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, nice try troll. It was a genuine concern. The clause had the potential to be a huge land grab. It's hard to say whether it was an accident or they really got the message but it's been fixed. It's not the only time it's happened. I seem to remember both Apple and MS trying that sort of thing in the past, it's a bit easier to believe that Google just made a mistake though.

The explanation is quite simple, actually - this is, plain and simple, what happens when lawyers do anything. They always try to push it farther than fairness would dictate, and in a lot of cases they push it beyond the boundaries of what the company is really willing to stand behind, just because they always err on the side of screwing-over-the-other-guy.

Of course, that's why you hire lawyers. But in this situation, I'm sure whoever was in charge of that section of the agreement is in some hot water, as it's a pretty embarrassing overstepping of bounds for a company that really wants to not be evil.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry troll, just hug your copy of Firefox and rock back and forth mumbling:

"this is not happening"
"this is not happening"
"this is not happening"
"this is not happening" ...

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[AaronW]

I may switch when they release a stable Linux version since Firefox tends to grab lots of resources and never release them. By making each tab a separate process it makes freeing up memory much cleaner when a tab is closed. It's also a big plus when plug-ins don't take down the whole browser when things go badly.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the only thing that prevents Firefox users from using chrome. The other two big things are the lack of add-ons and Windows exclusivity, both subject to change. As soon as Chrome has a decent enough equivalent to Adblock and Noscript, and maybe better keyboard-only navigation, I'll be all over it.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry troll, just hug your copy of FIrEfox and rock back And forTh mumbling:

"this is not hapPening"
"this is nOt happeNing"
"thIs is not happEning"
"this iS not happening" ...

It's OK now, it's OK...

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Spamming every news and discussion board on the Net with fake hysterics over that simple cut and paste mistake was the only thing the Firefox fans could try to do to stop the flood of people dumping Firefox for Chrome?

I still can't picture Chrome actually causing a 'flood' of people instantaneously dumping any browser. It's neat, but not that exciting.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Al Dimond]

I'm not very optimistic about Chrome for Linux being much more than a careless port. I haven't tried all of Google's Linux offerings but I've used Earth, and it's pretty clunky (and always way behind the Windows version for features; as I recall, like with Chrome, it was Windows-only at first and they took their sweet time porting it). Furthermore, Chrome (according to the gmail blog... I don't have a Windows installation to test on) doesn't even run on Vista or 64-bit Windows. If they cared about making it a cross-platform app that would have been part of the architecture from the beginning and it should have been downright trivial to get it running on different versions of Windows.

I'd be glad to have a browser keep its various tabs and windows separate. I'd be gladder if we hadn't turned the web into an application platform in the first place.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[jonnythan]

I've used nothing but Firefox for years.

I switched to Chrome, and I'm not looking back. It's that much better.

So, it's stolen *one* Firefox user.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Mandelbrot-5]

I'm running xp-64 and run Chrome just fine.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[onlysolution]

Chrome works just fine for me on Vista64 and integrates very slickly with Aero Glass. If you look at the build requirements it lists the Vista SDK, so frankly I'd be pretty amused if it didn't work on on Vista.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[vandit2k6]

What are you smoking. I am running Chrome on Vista fine.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[i.of.the.storm]

Yeah, it doesn't really offer much besides tabs in separate processes and fast JS, neither of which is as important to me as features such as live bookmarks in firefox, and of course extensions. I've gotten to the point where I can't browse without certain extensions such as LiveClick and TabMixPlus. I don't think any browser will be able to match Firefox in its extensibility unless they adopt something similar to XUL, despite what people seem to think Chrome will offer eventually.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you apparently didn't make much use of plugins.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[afidel]

Unless they seriously change things it won't be used in any sane corporate environment, it requires JRE6 U10 which isn't even freaking officially release yet! It's beyond bleeding edge, it's just crazy.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[jonnythan]

I used AdBlock Plus, Pennypacker, and FxIF.

But Chrome is so much better I can live without those for the time being.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[lysergic.acid]

yea, i really couldn't see google using that part of the agreement to "steal the copyright of users" as everyone seemed to be suggesting. it just seemed like they were trying to protect themselves against liability for their online services, many of which deal with the reproduction, manipulation, and public displaying of user-contributed content. facebook has similar clauses in their user agreements as well--as do i'm sure most social networking sites.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[RedWizzard]

Firefox users are not going to switch to Chrome. It's just inane to suggest that's the case. It doesn't run on anything other than Windows at this point, and it looks like it's going to be a pain to be ported to anything else.

The vast majority of Firefox users are running Windows. I don't see the lack of other platforms making much difference here.

Or to put it another way, it's premature to suggest that Chrome is going to be stealing Firefox users. More likely they'll be stealing IE users away. Might very well slow adoptin of Firefox, but it's unlikely to make a significant impact.

The factor you seem to be ignoring is that Firefox users are more likely to be early adopters. So I think they are more likely to at least try Chrome.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Surye]

Vista has no issues. Their response on why there is no native 64-bit: http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/64-bit-support

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[BrokenHalo]

The parent post was referring to the proposed Linux offering. Your comment is irrelevant in this context.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[gmiley]

To be honest, Google Earth is in no way comparable to a browser. Earth is more of a toy, while a Chrome is, as a browser, a daily tool. I feel pretty safe saying that Chrome will be kept fairly up-to-date across various platforms.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs on Vista, I am writing this via chrome on Vista right now.

I am a Firefox fanboy, I even visit the mozilla store from time to time to buy stuff, but chrome is looking very tempting right now.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Kingrames]

I'm a firefox user, and I'll switch to chrome as soon as there's an ad blocker for it.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[cyberzephyr]

I run it on Vista Just Fine. Wake up!

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome runs fine on 64-bit Vista. I'm posting with it in Vista right now.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

it does run on Vista, mine is 32bit. runs well, haven't had a chance to try in properly though.

posting this from Chrome on 32bit XP

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. i'm running chrome on 64 bit windows. seems ok.
2. web as application platform is on the whole a good thing imo. remember when all nearly everything was a windows app? now at least if it's a web app, you got a good chance of it working on your os of choice.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[dennypayne]

If you use Privoxy you can have Chrome with ad blocking as well. Works like a charm for me. Credit to this blog for pointing me in the right direction.

Denny

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

This reply has been written using Chrome on Vista 64.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running xp-64 and run Chrome just fine.

I'm running Vista-64 and run Chrome just fine. Grandparent is clueless even by Slashdot standards.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[houghi]

For now it only works on Windows. The main thing that is not available is plugins. No plugins and this browser is a dead horse. IE users will not jump on it. Those who would already use Firefox.

The rest won't change anything that is not pre-installed by default.

The fact that it is released only for Windows might be seen as a direct attack on IE, because that way they will not steal any Mac or Linux users (unless they run it under wine)

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

come back when your running it with flash on Linux AMD64, thats kinda what the OP was pushing at.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[renoX]

>Firefox users are not going to switch to Chrome. It's just inane to suggest that's the case.

Why wouldn't they? Remember that a huge percentage of FF users use it on Windows, so they could if they wanted, I've already switched from FF2 to Opera because I wasn't happy that in FF2:
1) when one website use 100% of CPU it's hard to find the one who does it, so it's often sluggish
2) a crash takes down the whole browser
this happen also in Opera but far less often that FF2 did, and now with Chrome both of these concern are (finally) solved!

So I'm trying currently Chrome and I like what I see (too bad it cannot: resize page the way Opera does it, spellcheck in several languages and that its bookmark manager isn't very good), sure it doesn't have FF extensions but I don't care about these.

Given that I've already switched from FF, I don't know if this count but I'm definitely thinking about switching to Chrome and users of browsers other than IE are more likely to switch to another browser as they've already switched from the mainstream so they can do it again more easily..

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Killjoy_NL]

Give it some time, the plugins will come eventually.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Killjoy_NL]

Same here, for now I love the speed though :)

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Goaway]

Except, you know, anybody with even an ounce of common sense could see this was just a mistake right from the start.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

yea, i really couldn't see google using that part of the agreement to "steal the copyright of users" as everyone seemed to be suggesting.

It makes no difference what you see. What's in writing and accepted is what counts.

It's far too easy for sleazeballs to say, "Oh, that's just there because some lawyer was being over-cautious -- we'd never enforce that on you."

The only correct answer to this situation is to say, "Then before we go any farther, you'll have someone with sufficient authority come over here, strike it out and sign off with an authoritative signature."

If they won't, that funny feeling below your belt is someone tightening their grasp on your balls.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

It's my understanding that Chrome's one process per tab functionality depends on Windows' ability to have windows from multiple processes exist within the same window hierarchy, an ability that neither OS X nor Linux has. I don't expect Mac or Linux versions of Chrome any time soon (unless they remove the one process per tab feature for those platforms).

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[WDot]

Granted this is anecdotal, but on my home PC I've been using Google Chrome exclusively for a couple of days now and I really like it. It doesn't take several seconds to boot like Firefox has for a while now.

Performancewise, I compared my current Firefox window with ten tabs open (Slashdot, Kotaku, Penny Arcade, Google, Yahoo, CNN, Craigslist, Pokemon.com, Newegg, The Tech Report as test tabs) to Google Chrome with the same ten tabs. Firefox came out to 123MB, Chrome was 179 BUT Firefox was chugging as the 10 pages were loading (this was on an old single-core Athlon 64 with 512MB ram), while there was no slowdown whatsoever on Chrome on the same machine. Sure, don't use it if you only have 128MB of RAM, but at that point I don't think you should be using Firefox or Windows XP anyway.

The Javascript performance in both are pretty good, but Chrome's is slightly better. On Celtic Kane's Javascript speed test, Firefox 3 usually gets around 380ms and Chrome gets around 80-100 less.

http://celtickane.com/webdesign/jsspeed.php

Google Chrome lacks some of the polish and features that Firefox does (no built-in RSS reader is noticeable), but I really like the responsiveness and speed. For now I'll stick with Chrome and see what Firefox 3.1 and the new Chrome has to offer.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[repvik]

Unfortunately, there's nothing "common" about "common sense".

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[repvik]

Yeah, like there is *any other* browser that has working flash on Linux x64. I'm writing this in FF on x64, and flash "works" once or twice before it just dies and I have to restart the browser.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[bigstrat2003]

Firefox users are not going to switch to Chrome. It's just inane to suggest that's the case.

Inane? Hardly. Chrome is quite clearly the superior browser right now, it's not unreasonable to think that people will switch to it. Linux Firefox users won't be switching, but then again, they aren't equal to the set of all Firefox users.

On the resource side of things, they're going to have to make a significant amount of improvement to be competitive with Firefox on performance.

Considering it renders faster than Firefox (which ain't hard)... I fail to see where you're getting this from. Its performance is already better. If you mean resource consumption, well, that may go down (it is beta, after all, which implies they have quite a bit of tweaking to do yet), but quite frankly, even if it doesn't, it's well worth it to have tabs which don't crash your entire browser. Hopefully one day the Firefox developers will pull their heads out of their asses and realize that single-threaded tabs are simply unacceptable, but until then, Chrome's extra resource usage is well worth it.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[bigstrat2003]

Wherever you read is completely wrong. Chrome runs beautifully on Vista.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> Except, you know, anybody with even an ounce of common sense could see this was just a mistake right from the start.

A legally binding ``mistake''. Try that in court.

Contract law is not like code releases. Sometimes bad code gets out to the field because it wasn't reviewed. Legal documents are always reviewed and it takes WEEKS.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big problem of Firefox is that big heap of cruft that impedes innovation. Chrome does some things right: downloads handling, popups handling, multiprocessing (esp plugin isolation). Mozilla can't be bothered to even consider the major rewrites those would involve. And to judge by all those bugs in Firefox that have been around for years without even being assigned, they just don't have the manpower for major rewrites.

But I still don't think many Firefox users will completely switch to Chrome. If they wanted a slim, barebones, non-extensible, non-customizable browser, why would they be using Firefox now and not Safari? Chrome might appeal to Firefox users in UI and basic architecture/design choices, but not in functionality.

For me, Chrome might become a "second browser" to fire up whenever I need to look something up fast, or for Google apps. (Still I think I'll only use it on a regular basis once it has adblocking.) For everything else, it can't replace Firefox.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[jgiam]

The factor you seem to be ignoring is that Firefox users are more likely to be early adopters. So I think they are more likely to at least try Chrome.

And you may be right. While this isn't a scientific survey, according to Statcounter, Chrome gained about 1% of the market share, at the expense of Firefox.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[RaceProUK]

More likely they'll be stealing IE users away.

Wasn't that the intention?

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to waste two lines writing your name in the comment field. We already have your name and contact information in the "by" line.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

This firefox lover and supporter certainly tried and likes Chrome, and will not unlikely switch if Chrome evolves enough.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[joshrulzzatwork]

If adblock plus was a big deal for you, then just use the MVP hosts file (google it) for your own. It's essentially a list of advertising/malware domain names you can plunk into your hosts file to redirect 'em all to 127.0.0.1 . It works for any browser, and essentially filters advertising to just what comes from the site itself. Worst case, your local TV station website may still be ugly, but everything else is quite tolerable.

What's really interesting is reviewing your Apache/IIS logs later to see just how many ads get blocked.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[joshrulzzatwork]

Bah, I forgot to add the rest of the point I wanted to make, even with preview.

I wanted to add that I've switched over to Chrome, and really like it. It's fast, and seems to be slimmer than the FF 3.0.1 I've been using. All I really miss so far (given my method above, I haven't had adblock since 1.0 or so) are IE tab and Firebug. For the next couple of weeks, though, I don't need to inspect any page DOMs, so I'm good.

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[dennypayne]

What exactly am I "wasting"? Are you concerned about the extra 20 or so bytes of bandwidth that you needed to read that? Nice of you to "waste" about 10 times that much in an anonymous reply no less. LOL. Shut up.

Denny

Re:What Will Firefox Fanboys Do Now?

[Al Dimond]

1. OK, I guess the gmail blog was wrong.

2. It's a good thing if you like having no choice of client for what have traditionally been client-server apps. It's a good thing if you like UI decisions made on the basis of what will yield the most ad impressions. It's a good choice if you hate responsiveness. It's a good choice if you don't like having control of your damn data. And if you think it's great security policy to just let websites send you scripts and programs every time you want to read the news.

And have you ever really tried to use the web's variety of applications on many OSes? This isn't even about my weird Plan 9 fixation; tons of web sites rely on Flash or Silverlight, which give you pretty limited options. Those sites won't even work on the JesusPhone yet; think of what the odds are they'll ever work on less hyped devices and platforms. If your email is just IMAP you can get it anywhere anyone has bothered to write a client; ditto IRC, ditto NNTP. Many more OSes have programs to play back video in standard formats than can run Flash player for YouTube or *insert-web-site-with-unnecessary-custom-video-player-here*. In fact, if you write your web site to output simple HTML with Just The Facts, Ma'am, instead of some fancy-pants Web-2.0 shit, even the assholes that do run Plan 9 can probably use it.

The web's killer-app is the hyperlink. The ability to have links between different sites that just work (as long as they're maintained) is cool. I can't, however, think of any reason for full programming ability and full linking ability to be together that's more important than controlling the code that runs on my box, and controlling my own data.

But..

[beaverbrother]

It's open source. Just remove the terms of service and recompile.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent was modded funny but should have been modded informative. You can do this.

Re:But..

[Repton]

Why is this modded "Funny"? The code is under a BSD license. You can do exactly that.

Heck, I'm surprised there's no community project out there to provide an EULA-free Chrome fork.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, but the funny cannot be denied. He'll have to make-do with underrated.

Re:But..

[Darkness404]

Heck, I'm surprised there's no community project out there to provide an EULA-free Chrome fork.

2 main reasons. Right now, Chrome is essentially Windows only, and as we know, most people who use Windows don't care about EULAs. And secondly, Chrome isn't used much, right now people are wondering if it is the future or nothing more then a nice experiment, if Chrome stays around then expect Debian to fork it like they did with Mozilla. If it dies, expect a very small fork to continue development of it.

Re:But..

[Jangchub]

Mod parent up. I played around with Chrome and was impressed at its speed (except for Pandora *vomits*) and was taken in by the minimalistic interface. I have no gripe with the awesome-bar or whatever lame title it has either. Once some extensions materialize for this (noscript/adblock) it's going to be a decent browser. I'm not too concerned about the memory usage as all my main machines are less than five years old. This might be a cake-and-eat-it-too situation if a community project forms to do as parent describes. It makes me wonder if someone at google is not only 'not being evil' but wants to do something benevolent.

Re:But..

[TwistedSymmetry]

I'm sure "Chrome" is trademarked, and Google would certainly enforce its trademark if it chose to. This would be one way to sort of enforce the EULA: Don't allow the recompiled versions to be called Chrome.

Linux distros are undoubtedly going to want to compile their own version, in addition to wanting to be free of the EULA (which is non-free).

I wonder what Google will do about this? They either have to ditch the EULA (at least for linux), or be content with a re-branded version of their browser being bundled with linux distributions.

I wonder how important the EULA is to Google, anyway? I personally don't understand why they feel they need one in the first place.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

The EULA doesn't apply to the open source project chromium, it's only for the binary version of chrome.

You just gotta hate BSD-style licences

Re:But..

[cac619]

http://code.google.com/chromium/ There you go. No TOS.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

chrome seems to work on everything I have tested it with ... even citrix web client ( surprise here ).

I like the downloads attached to the page that invoked the download .. cool.

Haven't opened more than 10 tabs - I have ADD & OCD but if you have more than 10 tabs open at a time ... there's something more wrong with you. :)

Re:But..

[Gavagai80]

I'm sure "Chrome" is trademarked, and Google would certainly enforce its trademark if it chose to.

So, just like Firefox a.k.a. Iceweasel.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

I have ADD and as a result firefox frequently goes up to 20+ tabs. I think I once made it to 72 after a long session.

Re:But..

[martin-boundary]

expect Debian to fork it like they did with Mozilla

Hmm, I wonder what they'll call it ... Rust?

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the open/free project is called Chromium... Maybe Debian can call it Erin Brockovich.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that condition is actually known as FAP FAP FAP.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromium ..... is the open source community project - non EULA version

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even need to fork it, if you skip the online installer there's no EULA.

cache.pack.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe

Re:But..

[Killjoy_NL]

They could call it Krome :)

Re:But..

[Ash-Fox]

chrome seems to work on everything I have tested it with ... even citrix web client ( surprise here ).

In my experience, doesn't work with sites that require HTTP authentication, FTP nor Gopher.

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

Adblock is Luke Skywalker to the Palpatine that is Google.

AP

Re:But..

[TwistedSymmetry]

Doesn't KDE have a trademark on the letter "K", though? ;)

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[QuantumG]

So basically you're saying it doesn't pass Mirosoft application certification procedures?

What a surprise.

HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else see Slashdot go 500 for the last 30 minutes?

Good job Master Pater!

Sane legal system please??

[lcoscare]

Can't we have a legal system that would just dismiss something so rediculous and unreasonable??? You know, something to protect the people?? They could have put "by agreeing, we will assume the deed to your house", and I'm sure the number of downloads wouldn't have changed.

Re:Sane legal system please??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's never been used in court. There's no requirement that the courts approve every legal document before it's made public.

This is already a major concern with EULAs, actually -- there are restrictions on how much you can really sign away, especially if it's a document that you don't sign, that nobody witnesses, that you only sort of have an opportunity to disagree with, and that everyone knows that nobody reads. Many clauses in EULAs are assumed not to be able to hold up in court. The likelihood that this one would be is slim at best (considering they have no way to track what information was posted using Chrome, that it's enormously wide-sweeping, and it's trivially circumvented by downloading the source and compiling).

Re:Sane legal system please??

[maxume]

The legal system never got involved here.

Re:Sane legal system please??

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have put "by agreeing, we will assume the deed to your house", and I'm sure the number of downloads wouldn't have changed.

Do you think that would really stand up in court? Really?

And if you really, honestly do (and don't just say "Yes!" to be reactionary) can you provide an example where someone has pulled that kind of trick and got away with it?

Re:Sane legal system please??

[LauraW]

Can't we have a legal system that would just dismiss something so ridiculous and unreasonable???

This actually happened just the other day. A court in Washington state struck down the AT&T long distance Terms of Service. The court ruled that the TOS was "'unconscionable,' meaning that no reasonable individual would have agreed to them had he or she realized their full scope." (quoting from the Ars Technica story).

A PDF of the decision is here. The interesting bits seem to start around page 23 or so, though my eyes glazed over fairly quickly.

-- Laura

Re:Sane legal system please??

[Anonymous Coward]

I can agree with this.

Using examples,
    You buy a car. The car manufacturer basically says its yours to do what you please. If you touch anything, your warranty is void. You buy a TV. Feel free to take it apart and see whats inside, you'll void your warranty, but your free to do so. You buy any other physical world object, and 99% of the time your free to use it, dismantle it and use it as you please.

    So why do we treat software so different. Why do we let software vendors state exactly how we can use their products? If they were in any other industry they'd be out of business. The only thing users should get if they screw with software, or code, or whatever is a voided support contract but we should be free to play as we see fit.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Darkness404]

Almost any software program does that, why? Because the Windows registry is an absolute pain. Its like saying that apt-get remove still leaves some files behind. Unfortunately there isn't an apt-get purge function for Windows.

Almost too reasonable

[Nymz]

Well that sounds reasonable.

Whenever a company can alter a previous agreement, declare all changes retroactive, and require me visit a webpage constantly as the method of notification, then reasonable is the first word that springs to my mind too.

Don't be silly

[David Gerard]

All this is scaremongering. Your confidential business data, bank account details, personal preferences in pornography, medical records and DNA sequence are strictly a matter between you and Google's marketing department, and no-one else. Remember, they're not evil!

Re:Don't be silly

[CorporateSuit]

Don't forget their HR department. When I applied at Google, things were going pretty well until I started searching for things like: Farting on Coworkers. Forging a Resume. Stealing Company Secrets. Where can I get a plague rat in Santa Monica? AIDS tests in Santa Monica. California Law and 'giving AIDS to coworkers'. Can I get arrested for giving AIDS to my coworkers? Can Google be brought down from the inside? How to bring down a company from the inside. Define: Arson.

Re:Don't be silly

[Spatial]

Bravo! I laughed so hard, I had to take a walk outside my department for a while so as not to disturb my coworkers anymore. :)

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Fastolfe]

Did you file a bug?

fire them indeed

[seanadams.com]

The thing is, the language itself was not the most offensive part of this.

What is most offensive is the way these bastards write these absurdly one-sided "agreements", assuming the benefit that if anything is unenforceable it will only selectively be struck, and just pass off their standard shit with every single product assuming nobody will ever read it.

Good thing we have the internets to call them on it this time, but shame on them for doing it in the first place. And not just google, but damn near every tech company. The only reason they fixed it was because the high profile of the product. It's still evil.

Re:fire them indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the language itself was not the most offensive part of this.

What is most offensive is the way these bastards write these absurdly one-sided "agreements", assuming the benefit that if anything is unenforceable it will only selectively be struck, and just pass off their standard shit with every single product assuming nobody will ever read it.

Good thing we have the internets to call them on it this time, but shame on them for doing it in the first place. And not just google, but damn near every tech company. The only reason they fixed it was because the high profile of the product. It's still evil.

This is pretty amazing though, ANYONE can see that NOONE would get away with claiming ownership on everything created/posted/whathaveyou with a browser that's open sourced and they having explicitly said that you can do whatever you want with it. Yet people really put in an effort to bash the hell out for quite obviously messing up. Even after admitting this fact and amending it.

I know this is slashdot, and Google-bashing is getting as good as MS-bashing, but christ people. Just use a bit of common sense.

Re:fire them indeed

[Yvanhoe]

This is a EULA. They thought that nobody cared anymore...

Legality

[RockMFR]

The uproar and resulting change by Google has me thinking - what is the legality of all of this?

• Would the Chrome TOS hold any weight at all in a court?
• Would the former section 11 hold any weight? Could Google really have claimed a license to anything sent via the browser? (or whatever)
• Under the current section 11, is there any way Google could still claim a license on future submissions via the browser?
• The blog posting says this is retroactive. Would this statement hold any weight if Google went on to claim a license to anything sent via the browser?

Re:Legality

[Anonymous Coward]

• Yes, Goog gives the gov't all the info they need. It's only fair they would turn around and scratch G's back.
• Yes, because they already have the system in place to record every submission you make on any site on the internet. Unless you can find the super duper secret checkbox to opt out. Hurry, their dossier on you is growing.
• Yes, they keep the system in place, and take away the checkbox. And get the gov't to force you to use the browser.
• No, it's their's. You no longer have the rights to all the meaningful things you posted in the last two days.

Secret Sauce

[TheModelEskimo]

Hmmm, let's see...

1. Loudly complain about annoying features in the beta stage
2. Watch as company removes said features because they're in vulnerable position
3. Rinse and repeat on other products
4. Realize why so many corporations fight for control of the media
5. Start your own local newspaper
6. ?
7. Go out of business because nobody reads newspapers anymore, you moron

A victory for common sense

[Draek]

The cynics may say that they only backed down from their powergrab due to the media attention, the optimists may say that they did it because Google always listen to their customers, and the rest of us may not care *why* they did it, either way we finally get a cool new browser to play with, without risking our privacy in the process, and there's one less stupid EULA in this world.

Now, if only Apple would let me use iTunes to develop biological WMDs...

Assuming that it was stupid rather than evil

[ClosedSource]

Being able to solve toy problems and answer trick questions during an interview doesn't mean you'll make a competent employee.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[GuyverDH]

while yes, that was implied, I was actually stating that google left major chunks behind, running and collecting information to send to the mothership...

most applications may end up leaving an abandoned entry in the registry - not full paths in your local applications area, with entries in the startup....

ie - and to a poster further down... yes - I submitted a bug report regarding the uninstall that didn't actually uninstall....

IP

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom's so ugly, if you gave each one of her hairs an IP address, you would exhaust the IP address space. THE IPV6 ADDRESS SPACE. ------ What were we talking about?

Re:IP

[Anonymous Coward]

I lol'd

Google's TOS are still invasive

[networkzombie]

Sure, you get to keep the copyright, but after we use your material for our own purposes you will have to take us to court to prove you own the copyright. This is what happens when you use an over the wire service, be it an ASP model EMR or your cable provider reading your email. It is not private and this TOS proves it.

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

I like having my data on my hard drives on my backup discs. You can keep you Web 3.0 crap.

PR stunt

[siyavash]

Come'on, I don't believe this hype. I think it was perhaps a nice PR stunt to keep the browser name comming up on news sites. Keeping the buzz alive, Apple does it all the time! :) ...Surely as a big corp. like Google, you don't just copy/paste TOS! Specially since they been working on it for a while and obviously pushing it real hard ( the front page of Google ).

Some marketing person is probably laughing all the way to the bank right now. Although I never ever actually seen ANYONE laughing going to or comming from the bank.

Re:PR stunt

[siyavash]

"coming from" ...sorry.

Endangered species

[Anonymous Coward]

i tried Google chrome for 4 hrs, then i saw that everything was logged !!
uninstalled & they asked why ?!
I typed STOP COLLECTING MY DATA,,
back Firefox. at least i can reduce the amount of data that are being used via gmail or other g services.

ex of Google analytic options:

*** Share my Google Analytics data...

With other Google products only
Enable enhanced ad features and an improved experience with AdWords, AdSense and other Google products
by sharing your website's Google Analytcs data with other Google services.
only Google services (no third parties) will be able to access your data.

*** Anonymously with Google and others

Enable benchmarking by sharing your website data in an anonymous form. Google will remove all identifiable information about your website,
combine the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and report aggregate trends in the benchmarking service.

Re:Endangered species

[mrvan]

From their privacy page:

[...]
* When you type URLs or queries in the address bar, the letters you type are sent to Google [...]
* If you navigate to a URL that does not exist, Google Chrome may send the URL to Google [...]
[...]

In short, they get a list of (almost) every site you visit. Since they need to send suggestions back, they also use your IP address.

If this were really done for your convenience ("so the Suggest feature can automatically recommend terms or URLs you may be looking for") they would delete your data or at least guarantee to anonymize it (ie drop the IP info).

[Words such as retain, delete or remove only occurr once in the privacy declaration, on stating that you can delete the history in your browser at any time. Thanks, goog!]

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? If you're going to be anal over left behind registry entries, then you have other, non-computer related issues that require some serious attention.

What I don't get...

[rnturn]

... is why there are legal types out there that continue to slip these clauses or sections into legal agreements in the first place. Are they really that stupid that they think that as many times as these terms have been ferreted out and publicized that anyone is going to think "well, okay, I guess it's all right this time"? They don't understand that there enough people on the Internet that there will never be a time when there's no one looking for and exposing these sort of legal shenanigans.

Re:What I don't get...

[Tangent128]

They copy and paste the agreement from another product- it's easier than having to rewrite the legalese, and if any embarrassing mistakes like this are made? Like you said, the Internet(tm) will find them for you.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

You think it was a mistake? Unknown to the company? Silly child.

Re:What I don't get...

[RegularFry]

Uh... yes. The fact that the TOS refers to Additional Terms that don't exist, and which are used in Google Docs specifically to override section 11, tells me that yes, this was a mistake.

Explained

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because Google's CEO is the Goatse guy!
http://goatse.cz/

Re:Explained

[seededfury]

do you still get this kind of traffic when you post those links?

Re:Explained

[Anonymous Coward]

thats marked troll?!? and the actual link to goatse is ok?!?!?!. slashdot and it moderating assholes can suck my fucking nuts.

This is pretty crazy...

[emptycorp]

I uninstalled chrome for this exact reason and posted it in the "more info" box and said "retaining rights to everything created in the browser violates the 'Do No Evil' policy"

I'm still not interested in installing it because they didn't change the bit about how they can send all usage data to them for monitoring, and that's just a bit too scary when you realize Eric Schmidt regularly meets with the head of the NSA.

Suckers for Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, only because this is Google would such a response satisfy. This was done with purpose and the hope that nothing would be noticed.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to and they won't. How can they?

The RIGHT TO THE CONTENT WAS GIVEN AWAY! They own it!

Sorry folks you fell victim to one of the classic blunders!!!

What legal recourse do you have? How could you even find out? Do you have a contact at Google that will respond?

How many people uninstalled and re installed to get the NEW EULA?!?!? If you did not - you are STILL under the old EULA.

D~y

Picasa3 suffers from the same disease.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the EULA for Picasa 3.

It contains the very same license.

It also needs to be corrected.

Otherwise Google gains rights to *all* of the pictures you look at it with on your computer, not just the ones you upload to picasa. And what does Picasa3 try to do? Install itself as the default viewer or JPEGs, etc, on your PC.

The question is...

[revealingheart]

Why is there an EULA in the first place? The only difference between Google Chrome and Chromium is a build switch, so anyone can reject the EULA and compile their own versions, even if they can't redistribute the Chrome builds due to trademarks.

The BSD licence includes a disclaimer from liability when using the software, so no EULA is required for this. Google's online services have an EULA when you use them, but this isn't necessary for an open source browser.

Maybe, Google are concerned about their privacy policy, when consent is required for data to be collected on users. And Section 10.2 of the EULA isn't required for an open source browser, so it's possible for Chrome to include closed source code in the future, which the BSD licence permits.

This makes me feel uneasy about using Chrome. I hope that Google don't get so caught up in collecting information on users, that they miss focusing on building a good browser.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[maxume]

Why does Google software send data to General Electric?

Strange...

I don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

And how can we audit Google?

Being the Google skeptic that I am, the first thing I did was read Google's EULA/TOS, in that convenient 100x100px box, saw the "offensive" clause, and didn't download the product.

The thing is, who knows if the browser is actually "phoning home", or what other similar black magic is baked into there?

Why's isn't Chrome's source readily available? Instead, "Chromium", the OSS project that Chrome is "based off of", is open. That's a distinct difference to me. Is no one else skeptical?

Worse yet, if Google does indeed have some "Evil" in their product, what's stopping them?

Best of all, my captcha was "utopians". How ironic.

Re:I don't buy it

[bigstrat2003]

Why's isn't Chrome's source readily available? Instead, "Chromium", the OSS project that Chrome is "based off of", is open. That's a distinct difference to me. Is no one else skeptical?

Oh, for the love of God. Either you believe that they're actually providing the source or you don't. If Google was explicitly saying that this was the Chrome source code, you'd be crying, "But how do we know that's the source they really built it from????". Ridiculous.

Re:I don't buy it

[voltheir]

Not exactly. I believe they are providing the source of a separate project. They are not claiming it is the exact Google Chrome source. Why would anyone expect it to be? And for the record, if Google said it was explicitly the source, one could build from source. I doubt anyone is going to scour the source in either case. Just because something is open-source doesn't mean there aren't back-doors or exploits. I simply don't trust Google. Apparently that makes me "ridiculous". So be it.

Re: I don't buy it.

[voltheir]

The OP was me. I thought I was signed in. Can a mod kindly associate that post w/me?

Oh Bugger

[EEPROMS]

And I just gift wrapped my first born child to send to Google after using Chrome, never mind Im testing Silverlight tomorrow so I don't have to unwrap him again.

(OT)

[BrokenHalo]

its just an "outbreak"... saying a sudden outbreak is redundant.

...as, of course, are all of these "fixed that for ya" posts.

There seems to have been a rash of these lately, to the extent that when I have the points, I have found myself automatically modding them -1 redundant. They are rarely funny any more.

Re:(OT)

[Raenex]

They never were funny, just obnoxious.

don't be an ass wipe

[Anonymous Coward]

google is evil now

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[BrokenHalo]

I was actually stating that google left major chunks behind, running and collecting information to send to the mothership...

This is the main thing that bothers me about Chrome. Nobody has yet (to my knowledge) supplied any details of what the program sends back to Google. I really don't want to participate in marketing exercises, and Adblock and Flashblock are the only extensions I insist on using with FF3, and by now they have become pretty much essential to how I like to work.

I know Chrome is meant to be open-source, but I wonder how practicable it is do disable its less welcome aspects without interfering with the usefulness of the software.

Although, as yet, it is not yet available on any of the platforms that I run, I find myself wondering if most of the attraction of it is the fact that it is new.

Ef U Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Google - You just joined the cyborgs at M$.

Google - all those PhDs and then "Oops".

Fuck You Google.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Anonymous Coward]

windows has dare I say it an "EXCELLENT" installer system. Where if app devs just follow the well documented standards for installing there app then the cleanup of the app is incredibly easy on uninstalling. Unfortunately google is one of the companies that thinks everything must be always done there way and hence the inevitable mess they left behind.

Maybe Some Can Explain Things Tactfully

[LifesABeach]

Why is it that Chrome is close sourced?

Why is it on Windows, and NOT Linux, and Mac's?

What was on the minds of the people that said, "OK", about this Copy Write nonsense?

What was on the minds of the people that said, lets rip off some person of their digital image?

I'm just not getting this logic; Can anyone explain?

Re:Maybe Some Can Explain Things Tactfully

[RegularFry]

Why is it that Chrome is close sourced?

It's not.

Why is it on Windows, and NOT Linux, and Mac's?

They haven't got round to it yet.

What was on the minds of the people that said, "OK", about this Copy Write nonsense?

Nothing. They goofed.

What was on the minds of the people that said, lets rip off some person of their digital image?

Nothing. There are no such people.

They probably want Google employees to use it

[Anonymous Coward]

They just want Google employees to use Chrome at work (instead of firefox, or whatever). That way the employees have agreed on that clause, and whatever they post or send through email (port 25 closed) will most likely be sent through Chrome and belongs to Google (which most likely already did anyway).

Chrome code not public!

[nephridium]

The Chrome browser binary you can download is *based* on the Chromium source code, which is free (see http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-windows on instructions how to compile). The Chrome browser itself is NOT under the BSD license. I was quite disappointed when I realized that. - Just because they say "open source" somewhere doesn't make the Chrome browser itself open source.

And what's this "installer" program to download the browser for you, why not just give us a download link to the browser itself? Furthermore, the browser will also *update* anytime it feels like it. Afaik there's no way to deactivate this *feature*.

I'd love to see a site dedicated to compiling daily builds of the Chromium source code, maybe through in some forks by private fiddlers, because right now following the instructions from the link requires you to use a non open source tool "gclient" to download about 500MB of source and then compile it using M$ Visual Studio - and then hope it produces a working binary (oh, and have the time for this). So far I couldn't find anyone doing this and putting the binaries online yet - not even using google ;)

Re:Chrome code not public!

[mr3038]

[...] right now following the instructions from the link [http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-windows] requires you to use a non open source tool "gclient" to download about 500MB of source and then compile it using M$ Visual Studio [...]

Actually, it seems that gclient is open source (python source with Apache License 2.0) and you can get source for it with a simple
svn co http://gclient.googlecode.com/svn/trunk gclient-dev
For more information, see http://code.google.com/p/gclient/wiki/StartingDevelopment

Re:Chrome code not public!

[Orphis]

I'd love to see a site dedicated to compiling daily builds of the Chromium source code

You can download snapshot of the latest version of Chromium for XP from the buildbot here : http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/

Re:Chrome code not public!

[atomice]

I'd love to see a site dedicated to compiling daily builds of the Chromium source code, maybe through in some forks by private fiddlers, because right now following the instructions from the link requires you to use a non open source tool "gclient" to download about 500MB of source and then compile it using M$ Visual Studio - and then hope it produces a working binary (oh, and have the time for this). So far I couldn't find anyone doing this and putting the binaries online yet - not even using google ;)

As already mentioned the gclient tool is open source. Since its written in Python its distributed as source code anyway and the code is under the Apache 2.0 licence.
As for 'hope it produced a working binary', I compile Chromium for the first time from SVN yesterday without any hitch whatsoever. And yes, my binaries are online.

Re:Chrome code not public!

[nephridium]

As already mentioned the gclient tool is open source. Since its written in Python its distributed as source code anyway and the code is under the Apache 2.0 licence.
As for 'hope it produced a working binary', I compile Chromium for the first time from SVN yesterday without any hitch whatsoever. And yes, my binaries are online.

Might I ask where? Though you might get flooded by slashdotters who read this.. On the other hand your build should produce the same binaries one of the versions at this link posted by Orbis above, so they could just hop over to there.

Just out of curiosity how long did it take to compile?

Re:Chrome code not public!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link to the chromium build-bot where you can find some nightly builds:

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/

I tested on an XP machine and it works, only the program name and the logo colour seems to be different.

Re:Chrome code not public!

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone found out yet what exactly is the difference between Chromium and Chrome? Is Chrome just a blessed build of Chromium or has it some evil extras (apart from GoogleUpdate)? The only difference I found was that the kaboom:% bug seems fixed in Chromium.

Re:Chrome code not public!

[Snaller]

"And what's this "installer" program to download the browser for you, why not just give us a download link to the browser itself? Furthermore, the browser will also *update* anytime it feels like it. Afaik there's no way to deactivate this *feature*."

Indeed. Every time i post this i get modded troll.

But even worse and annoying, if you start the install (right after you have downloaded it) and click cancel it STILL installs the update service on the machine!

Re:Chrome code not public!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chrome browser binary you can download is *based* on the Chromium source code, which is free (see http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-windows on instructions how to compile). The Chrome browser itself is NOT under the BSD license. I was quite disappointed when I realized that. - Just because they say "open source" somewhere doesn't make the Chrome browser itself open source.

And what's this "installer" program to download the browser for you, why not just give us a download link to the browser itself? Furthermore, the browser will also *update* anytime it feels like it. Afaik there's no way to deactivate this *feature*.

I'd love to see a site dedicated to compiling daily builds of the Chromium source code, maybe through in some forks by private fiddlers, because right now following the instructions from the link requires you to use a non open source tool "gclient" to download about 500MB of source and then compile it using M$ Visual Studio - and then hope it produces a working binary (oh, and have the time for this). So far I couldn't find anyone doing this and putting the binaries online yet - not even using google ;)

Actually, the code for Chrome is 1.3GB if you check it out from svn.

Proof: http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/7396/googlechromesvnisfuckinzx6.png

According to the people in #chromium on freenode Chrome is the browser, Chromium is the community.

Re:Chrome code not public!

[umeboshi]

svn co http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome

So retroactive that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just reinstalling Chrome and noticed that although section 11 has been updated, the revision date hasn't been updated, and the EULA is dated August 15th 2008. So the the update seems to apply to before the ELUA was actually written.

Any /. IANALawyers want to have a think about that one?

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Jugalator]

Because the Windows registry is an absolute pain.

Huh, what? It's no harder for an installer to remove registry entries than it is for either an installer or application to add them.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[RegularFry]

Urgh. You may be using a different Windows to me. Let me describe my last 24 hours in 5 sentences:
  - Uninstalled Visual Studio 2005.
  - Installed Visual Studio 2008 overnight.
  - Launch VS2008 to start a C# project; this fails, and VS2008 tells me I need to install it *again*.
  - Open the add/remove programs control panel, and click "Uninstall/change" on VS2008.
  - VS2008's update program crashes before giving me any options.

I'm now wedged without a development environment, losing time and money, because of this "EXCELLENT" installer system. If I have to reinstall Vista to get past this, I'll be *most* displeased.

Unfortunately google is one of the companies that thinks everything must be always done there way and hence the inevitable mess they left behind.

Using this statement to defend Microsoft is unbelievably ironic.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[tomtomtom777]

Huh, what? It's no harder for an installer to remove registry entries than it is for either an installer or application to add them.

It most certainly is. When you have multiple applications sharing a single registry key, you can easily add-if-not-exist, but on removal, you will have to check somehow if any other application might still be using it

That is what the GP and I would call an absolute pain

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Dude McDude]

This is the main thing that bothers me about Chrome. Nobody has yet (to my knowledge) supplied any details of what the program sends back to Google.

Check the privacy policy for details: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en-GB/privacy.html

Terms of Service; not software license

[AtomicJake]

Google Chrome Terms of Service are still an EULA for a service and not a software license. Why has a browser software an EULA about the services by Google? I understand that you may want a service EULA for Google Suggests -- the address bar -- but this is opt out.

Needless to say that the service conditions still are scary especially for privacy reasons. And all of this just for using a browser? No thanks.

Where the hell is the menu bar???

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot doctrine is that Microsoft did a HORRIBLE thing by removing the menu bar from IE7. So Google, in copying Microsoft's move, did a horrible thing too, right slashdotters? Or is it "brilliant" now to do without the menu bar? Which is it? I get confused by the shifting slashdot doctrine.

BTW, not only did Google copy MS by removing the menu bar, they also copied Microsoft by adding to the right of the tabs, a Tools dropdown menu, a Page dropdown menu, and a "New Tab" button. Why have slashdotters not condemned Google for copying?

Slashdotters = the most hypocritical bunch on the web.

Re:Where the hell is the menu bar???

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"BTW, not only did Google copy MS by removing the menu bar, they also copied Microsoft by adding to the right of the tabs, a Tools dropdown menu, a Page dropdown menu, and a "New Tab" button. Why have slashdotters not condemned Google for copying?"

I just noticed that Chrome copies IE8's feature of highlighting the domain portion of the URL in the address bar too! ;)

MOD PARENT UP

[nephridium]

Cool, I'd mod you up if i could! - Now we need just somebody to whip up a patch for chrome that blocks all superfluous ads and submit it to that site :D

Thanks for the info.

What's up w/ the tag?

[mapkinase]

suddenoutbreakofcommonsense?

I know that it is cliche tag slapped on every "common sense" act of a big corporation or government or some other thing we love to hate, but Google so far mostly has been commonsensical enough to rubber stamp it's actions "sudden".

/YAWN...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares ... they don't even have a mac version anyway.

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Vitani]

I find myself wondering if most of the attraction of it is the fact that it is new.

Nail. Head. That and it's Google. People love to love Google.

/YAWN...

[ylikone]

Who cares ... they don't even have a linux version anyway.

Vista Noob

[Anonymous Coward]

How's that Aero skin treating ya?

Re:Vista Noob

[onlysolution]

Quite nice, it actually tends to be a bit easier on the system than the Compiz(or whatever the hell it's called now) effects on my Linux installation, but it is arguably doing less work.

Also nice troll.

Good Job...

[Jaysyn]

Good job Google, now I will actually give your browser a whirl.

"hard to say"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "hard to say" if Google really intended to swipe a licence for everything that passed through their *web browser*?

Seriously, Slashdot should try to get a bulk discount deal for Clozaril (or any other drugs that help against serious paranoia).

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[bigstrat2003]

Not really. I haven't used a great many browsers out there, just IE and Firefox, but Chrome easily bests both of those. I think it's significant if Google puts out a browser that beats both of the major browsers by a large margin, but that's just me.

Re: I don't buy it.

[bigstrat2003]

Mods don't have the power it sounds like you think they have. I would read the FAQ section on moderation for more information on how the moderation system here works.

Oh, and, you must be new here. ;)

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Chromium, it doesn't need an installer. And you can unpack it in %programfiles% where it belongs, not that userspace abomination.

Chrome

[ESPESP]

Is it just me, or does Chrome slip past anti-virus software? If I surf using IE or FF, my anti-virus (AVAST) can see what is going on. In Chrome, nothing :( Robin

Google realizes our gov't is corrupt

[harrie_o]

Google wants to keep its advertising model healthy since its the core of its business and our gov't here in US is full of one-party republi-Crats who are happy to embrace opt-out Phorm/NebuAD type session meddling -- I predict just after the election an un-fettered connection to any web site will become a thing of the past.

Microsoft has illustrated a complete failure to break into this market (advertising) it needs to survive and other companies will use our gov't to force open the HTTP stream between web-sites and you to display ads on the page just like Google does based on the nifty databases about you and I they are now building thanks to the ILLEGAL SPYING ON AMERICANS which the republi-Crats led by Pelosi enshrined into law on ... Senate vote on July 9 sealed it (sans McCain who did not vote for this, and Hillary who voted NO).

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[GuyverDH]

Interesting..

I tried several big name applications under chrome... failed... miserably...

One in particular, CA Unicenter, blew chunks -

A bit off topic but..

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO this is evidence that Google has not developed any kind of interesting OS, otherwise the Linux version would have been out first. WHY?

Any OS developed by Google would surely be non-windows based and likely linux-based with their intimate development expertise on that platform.

With independent processes running each tab, and a lightning fast JS execution engine, the logical approach for OS development would be an active-desktopesque interface for KDE or Enlightenment or Gnome etc.

Instead of having multiple desktops (which hardly anyone uses these days when u factor in mainstream use) you could have a multiple tabbed interface as default. Eg. user logs into OS and default is online javascript enriched interface on the default tab (which could be a static tab)
Instead of other desktops - other tabs - all this WOULD be the desktop in JavaScript form, and it could access all OS features, eg. xterm, etc. but it wouldn't need to access the browser as this desktop would effectively be the browser - some form of Chrome.

Moreover, the initial desktop would be highly customizable. A user could log in and immediately have a JavaScript enriched desktop tab with a google earth FRAME ebbedded in it, a google map FRAME embedded in it and a conventional HTTP FRAME embedded in it.

The HTTP frame would be smaller than a conventional window and could be zoomed in and dragged around like in the ipod. This together with a Chrome version of Mozilla labs' Ubiquity (Ubiquity allows for streamlined net use -ie easily embedding a google map in a email and having it sent to your address book etc.) would provide a really excellent OS experience.

But, if I thought of this then I'd say google labs did too, and there IS NO Linux version of Chrome yet so I must assume they are not far along in their desire to develop and OS, or at least an OS interface like KDE etc.

IF, Chrome had been delivered first as an alternative to KDE, Gnome etc, I'd be excited but I don't think their utilizing / want to utilize it in this manner as yet.

Paul

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[danieltdp]

You can always develop on a Linux worstation. Oh, wait! Sorry ;-)

Illegal for minors to use Chrome!

[GaSplat]

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

Sorry kids, no Chrome for you! ;)

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[BrokenHalo]

One in particular, CA Unicenter, blew chunks

Who is Chunks? ;-)

Re:Now if only the uninstaller would really uninst

[GuyverDH]

OMG - never watched the Goonies????

Sorry - Baited, struck, set....

was never going to last

[KernelMuncher]

Section 11 was unworkable if not even embarrassing for Google. There's no way it was going to stay for long.

Nice call Google

[Toddwolfe_mba]

It's nice to see Google can make changes based on user feedback. So many companies today ignore their consumers feedback and do what they feel is right. By Google making this change it shows they remember why they are so massive because of us. I wrote about this as one of the negatives to the new browser on my blog review of Chrome at http://www.toddwolfe.info/ , I can go update that now.

Nice propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap way to retain the media's attention and grab share really quick. Bravo google, at least they're the gogli, they'll stick around...

Little Horn

Chrome's security problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Chrome and IE compare site chromevsie.com's vote result,the Security is chrome's Biggest problem!just 40.87% people think IE is more security than throme.