Sergey Brin: Windows Is "Torturing Users"

jbrodkin writes "Google created Chrome OS because Windows is 'torturing users,' Google co-founder Sergey Brin says. Only about 20% of Google employees use Windows, with the rest on Mac and Linux, and Brin hopes that by next year nearly all Googlers will be using Chromebooks. 'With Microsoft, and other operating system vendors, I think the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users,' Brin told reporters at Google I/O. 'It's torturing everyone in this room. It's a flawed model fundamentally. Chromebooks are a new model that doesn't put the burden of managing the computer on yourself.' Google claims 75% of business users could be moved from Windows computers to Chrome laptops."

Comments

Isn't leaving things out fun?

[Rhywden]

I love how "With Microsoft, and other operating system vendors, I think the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users" becomes "With Microsoft, I think the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users"

Re:Isn't leaving things out fun?

[Rary]

A more accurate headline would've been "Sergey Brin thinks managing your own computer is 'torture'."

More interesting is the implication that, with the exception of about 20% of their employees, the brilliant engineers at Google can't handle managing their own computer. I use Windows at work. I can't say that I spend a whole lot of time "managing" my computer. I'm too busy getting work done— and hanging out on Slashdot, of course ;).

Re:Isn't leaving things out fun?

[whoever57]

. Every year or so I wipe the drive with a fresh XP-CD install, and need to reinstall my favorite programs, but that would be true of any OS, whether it's Mac, Lubuntu, or Chrome. Otherwise WinXP just works

You have the strangest idea of "just works". Needs a re-install every year is part of "just works"? And, unless you are moving to a newer distro, Linux distributions don't need a re-install every year.

Re:Isn't leaving things out fun?

[tuffy]

If you've been using Windows for 20 years, naturally it's not going to seem very hard to manage. But for computer illiterates, stuff like files and folders are baffling - not to mention what happens when they're faced with the control panel.

A lot of people just want some appliance that lets them read email and browse the web with a minimum amount of maintenance. That's why they're out buying iPads and that's where this CromeOS thing is aiming for also.

Re:Isn't leaving things out fun?

[Eric Green]

So, Rary, what is your backup policy? Do you do daily full backups rotated off-site, or do you rely on a single backup that is overwritten every day? Have you tested your restore mechanism to make sure that your backups can get you back to where you were the previous evening? If you lose a file, do you have a mechanism in place for retrieving it from backups? What if the file isn't on your most recent backup, do you have some way to retrieve it from a past backup? What mechanism do you have in place for validating that Windows updates do not break critical software on your system? Are you using a user ID that has install permissions in system folders? Do you have Javascript enabled or disabled in your browser? Which antivirus are you using? Which firewall program are you using, and what firewall exceptions are needed in that firewall for the software you require for your work to run? What anti-spyware program are you using, and are you *sure* you don't have spyware installed on your Windows system?

If you're using Windows at work at even small companies, you're using AD, where all these configuration decisions are made by the network administrator team and your desktop is pretty much locked down, with the exact validated set of software and OS patches needed to run, and you don't have administrative access to fubar the system. The usual exception is if you're a developer, where you need to regularly blow things away to test your software. Even there, you're better off using VMware or KVM rather than doing it on actual physical hardware.

BTW, Linux isn't much better here, other than that it usually comes pre-configured with defaults that work for most folks for everything except backups. I have glumly come to the conclusion that if I want something equivalent to or better than MacOS's Time Machine on Linux for doing time-based incremental backups, I'm going to have to write it myself, and it's going to have to rely on LVM's snapshotting mechanism to do a consistent backup until BTRFS is ready. Yay team. At least we have SQLite nowadays, not like when I designed BRU Server back in the late 90's...

That said, ChromeOS isn't useful for me. It might be useful for my mother, though. All she does is read email and browse the Internet. The only reason her machine, an HP laptop, isn't a reeking virus-infested spyware-riddled useless pile of plastic is because my brother does all the administrative stuff for her. Otherwise it'd be useless.

Google thinks people shoud use their os, shocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? This passes for a story, this is a blatant ad.

I feel no torture as I write this from my Windows box.

Another shocker

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Company bringing out product says competition bad. News at 11.

Negative quote about "Microsoft and others" summarised on Slashdot as negative quote about Microsoft. News at 11.

Is anyone else as bored of this shit as me?

Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They use Linux (amongst others) because managing Windows is too complex. Seriously?

Echo of Marc Andreesen.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

At the height of hubris on the IPO of Netscape, Marc Andressen was confidently predicting that the browser could become the standard interface for all applications and the underlying operating system would be reduced to some kind of commodity like the beige boxes. We all know what happened after.

This time around, the big difference is, Google has a revenue stream, some independence from Windows and management has some proven track record. But they are not competing against Windows95 either. Every niche from phone size all the way to 35 inch cine screen, from sub Gig memory machines all the way up to 128 GB monsters, are fully populated and variety of processors and OSes and business models proliferate. May be Chromachines will cut through the clutter and succeed. Or not. Only time will tell.

Windows tortures users... what's new?

[erroneus]

The things [exclusively] Windows users experience passes for "normal" most of the time and they never realize the abuses they deal with on a regular basis.

These things simply don't exist in other OSes. Things like shutting down taking almost as much time as starting up? What could be going on in the background in the shut-down process that could or should take so long?

But to be fair, it's not just Microsoft Windows that is the cause -- it's all those damned vendors who feel like they need to install a "quick load widget" with every program. And guess what happens when EVERYTHING installs one of those? Yup! (Damn you HP and all the rest! We don't want you quick-launchers and your damned ink/toner monitors!! We don't want your convenient drag and drop DVD burner tray applet!!)

This is what really tortures users. Any one of these things by themselves are not so bad. But any combination of them will cause torture.

Read between the lines

[Manip]

If you read between the lines, this is a play to take away a user's ability to change the system rather than hiding that complexity to make the system easier to use. The difference is, in principle, about who ultimately controls the system. Google are going to roll out an Apple-like OS that locks the users in and make the same claim Apple makes about a better user experience to justify their choices.

Also, as a random aside, any company which moves their staff to Linux has lost a lot of legitimacy when they claim they have interests in bringing up the standard of usability or the user experience. Linux is far worse than Windows in terms of user experience (& complexity). I wouldn't even compare Linux to Windows 7, I would compare Windows 95 to Ubuntu 11, and honestly feel Windows 95 would win that battle.

Last point, I bet 70% non-Windows, means at least 60% on OS X, and approximately 10% on Linux.

Well I must be in that other 25%, then

[davidbrit2]

I'd like to see a DBA, or anybody in IT for that matter, run Chrome OS nearly exclusively. That would be torture.

And I don't have to spend any undue amounts of time "managing" my computer. Maybe a new software package here and there, an occasional security update, driver update, etc. It's less effort than the real work I do, that's for sure.

VortexCortex: ChromeOS is "Torturing Developers"

[VortexCortex]

Hi all. Where's my Compiler & distributed revision control? (GCC, GIT), Why can't I rewind a Google Doc? Where's my local LAMP stack? Postgresql? SQLite? Code folding and syntax highlighting in Google docs? Not there? B-But, it's running on top of GNU/Linux. I know it's using some of this underneath, why can't I access it within ChromeOS? This hurts, it's the most limited OS I've ever seen short of on a dumb "smart phone".

No thanks, I've already got all of the benefits of Google's model of cloud storage... I'll keep using my traditional model of robust "cloud" storage: An editor with auto-save enabled, editing files in a local GIT repo, with a cron job doing git commit & git push every 5 minutes or so. Note: that remote repo -- it's part of my private cloud; I also have a cron job that creates a daily private bittorrent of my media collection -- my other PCs rsync the torrent & use BT to distributively sync the media folders I've selected them to store. Bonus, when I'm offline I still have access to all the important data, and some of whatever entertainment data I'm liking right now.

You may be doing that more often than needed

[name_already_taken]

I've had Windows XP for almost ten years now, and I don't have to "manage" anything. Every year or so I wipe the drive with a fresh XP-CD install, and need to reinstall my favorite programs, but that would be true of any OS, whether it's Mac, Lubuntu, or Chrome.

Seriously? Do you really need to?

I've got a Windows 2000 install that's still going strong at 10 years old, and a couple of XP installs well over 5 years old. We even have a couple of Linux systems that have been running continuously longer than you keep Windows XP around - we only had to restart them during a UPS replacement. The Mac OSes only get upgrades (which counts as an install, I guess) when The Steve unveils a new version, so the system OS install I'm using right now is however old 10.6 is (about a year and a half). I have an install of OS X 10.5 on a PPC Mac at home that is still working just fine after 5 years.

So, this begs the question, what are you doing to screw up your XP installs in a year?

Even my boss, the resident malware catcher (seriously, I think he actively tries to get malware on his system) is using a three year old install of XP.

I think you'd be safe to extend your reinstall interval.

If managing windows is "torture"...

[wjousts]

...I'm pretty sure Linux ain't the cure.

Re:Home users don't want to do even that much work

[toastar]

Dude, Just because you fix her PC, It doesn't make her your girlfriend.