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Google Chrome: the New Web Platform?
snydeq writes "The Chrome dev team is working toward a vision of Web apps that offers a clean break from traditional websites, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister, in response to Google's new Field Guide for Web Applications. 'When you add it up, it starts to look as though, for all the noise Google makes about Web standards, Chrome is moving further and further apart from competing browsers, just by virtue of its technological advantages. In that sense, maybe Chrome isn't just a Web browser; maybe Chrome itself is the platform — or is becoming one.'"
First of all, this was submitted by someone from Infoworld, and the article is on Infoworld, so nice spam.
Second, web platforms are dead, and native apps that call web services are the new rage. It's just a better experience. Web platforms have been tried before since the 90s--see Java applets and ActiveX--and the experience is always poor. Nobody wants ChromeOS over iOS, Android, etc. Google has offered Native Client and Dart to compete performance-wise, but those are non-standard, Google-specific technologies (Dart as a language has been criticized pretty heavily on its own), and there's just something weird about shoving the web browser into the stack as a middle-man for no reason.
Third, and this will sound flamebait-ey so take it as personal opinion, but forgive me if I'm a little uncomfortable with a multi-billion dollar web advertising company with a history of privacy violations tracking everything I do at an OS level. It'd be like installing an operating system written by DoubleClick. I'd rather limit my data exposure to the occasional web search or Gmail message, thanks.
I don't think Google has the same kind of motivations that Microsoft did, though the final effects may be the same. Microsoft was about forcefully expanding their market presence to ensure success, while Google's is to provide free services in order to track more and more personal data and deliver more ads. For what it's worth, I doubt this initiative from Google to create their own web platform will be successful.
Nothing that I can see. Lean and serves the purpose very well. Just as useful as paper and as easy to handle.
Of course there are always those that want to blink and animate and visually scream at you in order to capture your attention. That is something traditional webpages do not do or do not do well, and that is actually one of their advantages, as really the only purpose this serves is advertising. Personally, I have blocked any animated add for years now, and the web has a cleaner, calmer and far more pleasant look to me because of it. (Blocking is via Opera integrated content-blocker.) For me, the web is a library, and the clean look of wikipedia the ideal. I do not want another wannabe television surrogate. I have dropped TV more than 10 years ago, because it became intolerable.
This angle would also explain why Google wants to break away from it: Their main business is wasting peoples time, i.e. serving them ads. (Which is, in itself pretty evil, all things considered. But hey, nobody believes the "don't be evil" mantra anyways today.) This also includes getting as much statistical data as they can. Both the serving and the snooping works far better when you leave traditional webpages behind.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
People who worship Google as a paragon of virtue are no smarter than people who worship any other company, whether it's Apple of Microsoft or Red Hat or whoever. Every company's agenda is to compete and win, gaining power and making money. I have no problem with that. That's just the way the market works. The problem comes when gullible people believe a company's PR rhetoric about peace, love and freedom -- or whatever they're selling that day. Google isn't your friend. Google is a huge corporation that provides services in its effort to win more dollars in the long run. Those who think that Google is doing "open" things out of the goodness of their hearts in order to make the world a better place are either stupid or naive. They're a huge company that's competing to own as much as it can. If you like its services, use them. But understand this. When you are using "free" services, the company is making money some other way -- and it's almost always the case that YOU have become the product that they're selling to someone else. If that's OK with you, fine. But you need to understand reality instead of thinking you're getting something free. You pay in one way or another. With Google, you pay by giving up your information and privacy. But that's your choice.
Last I checked, Google didn't really control the development of WebKit, and JavaScript is based on standards - so unless there's evidence Chrome intends to start down the old proprietay-extensions path Microsoft blazed 10-15 years ago with Internet Explorer, I'm not sure how "web apps" became synonymous with "Chrome as an exclusive platform".
Now - as the article points out - Google has proposed some ideas (e.g. Dart) that break from the past; but 1) as far as I can tell, they haven't tried to lock others out, and 2) there's currently no evidence these new ideas will ever gain any real-world traction (actually, #2 is probably the more important point by far). Many of us are old enough to remember the pain Microsoft's proprietary browser caused - and most of us will steer clear of anything that looks like an attempt to bring back that model.
#DeleteChrome
Mod parent up (even tough I disagree with his point of view)
They are both companies. Their natural goal is to make as much money as possible. This will mean that they will be wanting to expand their market share. At some point this will happen with force.
Also: Google's thing is not to provide free service. Their goal is to sell ad space. The free service is just to lure the product they sell (the people using it) so they can sell more of it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It was easy. I just took the 1995 hype about Netscape Navigator as an application platform, and changed the names.
I got the idea after watching the Java guys do this, in 1996.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The reason apps made a comeback is because you can charge for apps.
I don't think that's it. I think apps made a comeback because there were fancy new devices which were a different form factor which didn't match the paradigm used by most websites. Company's wanted a good experience and found it easier to provide that experience by creating an app, having access to OS api's, than by creating a version of the website that worked well with the hand held, touch, form factor. Plus, many consumers only look for a companies app, they don't consider there might be a decent handheld website experience.
They said that 10 years ago. The browser was to break the MS monopoly, obsolete the OS, really soon now everything would be running in the browser, yada, yada, yada.
Every few years, someone digs up a dead horse and runs it through town again.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Webpages had to evolve to small form factor and become "richer", which is what's happening now with HTML5 and better CSS definitions. Unfortunately, that didn't happen fast enough, so obviously the native approach gained traction. It's the low-hanging-fruit coupled with greed. Now, I'm not saying native apps were a mistake. I'm saying it's not something to strive for in the future.
Actually, Google's business is to organize, index and provide access to information. Selling ad-space is just how they profit off their core business, for now. This can change anytime in the future when a better business model appears.
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