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Shuttleworth: Chrome Nearly Replaced FF In Ubuntu
jbrodkin writes "Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is a big fan of Google Chrome, and says the browser could replace the standard Firefox in future versions of Ubuntu Linux. 'We looked at it closely in the last cycle and the decision was to stick with Firefox,' he says. But the work that Google is doing with Chrome OS — essentially the Chrome browser on top of Linux — is potentially leading to a future in which 'Chrome on Ubuntu and Chrome on Linux is a better experience than Chrome on any other platform [i.e. Windows and Mac].' In a wide-ranging interview, Shuttleworth also discussed why he spent $20 million to become a space tourist but doesn't own a smartphone, controversies over Linux and Unity, the future of Ubuntu tablets, and says the move toward putting personal data in the cloud is 'a little scary.'"
Does Chrome have a flexible JavaScript blocker like NoScript yet?
If he likes Chrome so much, why not invest in developing FOSS browser based on Chromium?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Is it wise to run a browser (and when Chrome OS comes out, a full fledged operating system) pushed by the biggest advertising, tracking, and marketing company on the web? Wouldn't it be better to use something that does not have a vested interest in tracking everything you do online? Or is the source for this browser fully open so any nasty evil bits would be spotted by vigilant hackers and purged immediately?
This space unintentionally left blank.
Epiphany. The world's most useless browser. Basically, it was Galeon with all its features removed, and then replaced with a silly tag-based bookmarking system that is so unintuitive to use that no-one would ever bother with it.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
The Cloud is closed. Even more closed than all IBM's, Microsoft and Apples of this world ever have been. Does Mark realise that he makes his entire Ubuntu project obsolete by trusting The Cloud? We can just stick with the pre-installed Windows or OSX, if all our stuff is in that fucking Cloud. Actually would be more secure than using Googlezillas Spyware...
The choice of a default browser for a distro that caters toward less-experienced users (like Ubuntu) is very important. Frankly, most users probably won't change away from whatever the OS came with.
It's a similar situation for the other Window Managers. Why require a user to install and configure major interface-changing software like that, when you're marketing your OS as dead-simple to use?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
While I appreciate the enormous strides Google and their Chrome team have achieved, the Chrome browser does not cut it in my case because: -
1: It still *is* an unfinished product...(read, "lacks print preview"). I understand this issue is now being addressed as of Chrome 13.0.782.1 Beta.
2: I find its interface weird...(consider what happens to the interface once extensions are installed).
Question: Is it just me?
Shuttleworth should much more rely on what users want, instead of making decisions for users.
Canonical can tell what users want based on usage statistics. Once close to 30-50% of users post-install Chrome or Unity, with a growing trend, then consider making these things the default. Until then, keep the old, tried and true the default.
Why is Ubuntu so prone to horrible choices like this?
The answer's pretty simple: They've stopped listening.
Ubuntu is slipping out of control. Canonical have stopped listening and – more importantly – working with the community. The number of defects is growing, but Canonical’s response is to make it harder for mere mortals to submit bugs. They seem to think that strong guidance is needed for their product to grow in new and interesting ways. Fair enough, but they’re confusing leadership with control. They’re simply imposing their views because they don’t value the discussion. They’re treating criticism as opposition and shutting themselves off from valid feedback.
Worse, they simply don’t have the number of skilled developers they need to achieve their goals. When I look at the bug queues on some packages, I shudder in sympathy with the poor souls who are expected to wrangle them. Canonical is clearly embarked on an impossible task, but nobody’s either got the guts or the vision to spell this out to Shuttleworth and co.
(This is excerpted from a slightly longer piece I wrote after 11.04 was released.)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
If I skip your derp comment, I've always said I've gotta be the central midline Linux target. I need a little help, but I'm no turbo-newbie either.
Firefox was my learning gateway to ditch IE. Cue the extensions. So I don't have mutch patience for the new fad of "OMG Chrome is 6% faster". Anyone that fickle is in trouble in other areas.
To get a Linux distro going, SOMETHING has to be stable. I'm already wrestling over the desktop environment question. KDE isn't perfect. I'm just about to try XKCE or LX-something etc. I need the browser to stay put in all of this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Actually, Ubuntu has a very easy little store interface that anyone can install browsers from.
But the point is that you're trying to bring in users who are barely aware that there are keys to the left and right of the spacebar. "Oh look, would you like KDE or Gnome or XFCE or Afterstep or Sawfish or Blackbox or CDE or..." Most of those the average person can't pronounce, let alone remember the name of or have any clue about. And quite frankly, the only difference I can tell between KDE and Gnome is that they massively screw up the simplest of tasks in slightly different ways.
I couldn't tell you if my car had electronic or mechanical fuel injection. I bet my mechanic couldn't off the top of his head tell the difference between Firefox and Chrome. While I'm mildly curious about fuel injection, I haven't looked it up. And my mechanic hasn't been bothered to find out about the different browsers. And you know what? He shouldn't have to. It's a browser. It's a piece of software fundamentally there to get out of the damned way so that browsing can happen. Anyone who *really* needs the particular type of ad-block available on Firefox above the ad-block available on Chrome can install firefox. They didn't ask me when I bought my car to set my suspension stiffness, tune the relative braking force, adjust shift timings, and configure an optional NOX system.
It's just a means to an end. Ubuntu gets that. That's why they're currently #1. That's why people are buying iPads. It's not that they're dumb. It's that what matters to us doesn't matter to them. And when it does start mattering to them, they can figure out how to do it.
The ______ Agenda
What do you mean by the distro? When I install *BSD, I usually use the boot-only ISO, which is typically about 5MB. The base system is usually about 300MB, maybe less depending on the particular configuration (OpenBSD on CF in my firewall is a lot smaller), and then there are packages. The available packages are several GBs (not sure how many), but I don't want them on the install media, because there are probably new versions available fixing security holes since the ISO was made (last Chromium vulnerability: two published on June 7), so I want to grab packages over the network anyway. If anything, I'd rather have a version-independent boot CD that would always grab and install the latest version. It just needs to ship with enough drivers to be able to control the network, display and input devices.
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