Google Is Bringing Chrome Remote Desktop App To Android

An anonymous reader writes "Google is building a Chrome remote desktop app, which lets you access other computers or another user access your computer over the Internet, for Android. The new addition, called Chromoting, will likely be pushed as a mobile version of the existing Chrome Remote Desktop offering. For those who don't know, the original Chrome Remote Desktop is an extension for Google's browser. It was first released as a beta in October 2011 and could be used to control another one of your own computers as well as a friend's or family member's (usually to help with IT issues)."

Comments

No Chrome for me thanks

[NobleSavage]

I feel dirty using Chrome. It's made by Google and I just assume they are snooping on me. For this reason I stick to Firefox even though Chrome is probably faster.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[Jane Q. Public]

"I feel dirty using Chrome. It's made by Google and I just assume they are snooping on me."

Join the club.

"For this reason I stick to Firefox even though Chrome is probably faster."

Not necessarily. In a recent benchmark, Firefox beat Chrome. But that isn't necessarily also true for the Android versions. Hard to know.

In any case, there is already TeamViewer for Android, which works nicely with Macs (and presumably Windows as well). I would really prefer one that doesn't use a 3rd party at all; if anybody knows of one I would appreciate hearing about it.

As for remote file transfer, I highly recommend Total Commander because it works in the classic 2-pane file manager style. Put the remote machine in one pane and your Android in the other, and just copy files back and forth. It's great. Other file managers work remotely too, but that's the only 2-pane solution of which I am aware.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[FPhlyer]

Google owns my digital existence. They read my mail, know every website I visit, record all my voice mails, track who I call and can use GPS to track me to within just a few meters of my location on the planet at any given moment.
Yet somehow Google's services make me feel like they've actually added value to my life. If Google were a government, I'd feel like Winston Smith. ...I try not to think about it.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[Lennie]

TeamViewer traffic gets routed through their servers too (unless you are using it on the same network, but you don't control that).

Keep an eye on WebRTC protocol, they will add screen sharing (not just for your browser, there are libraries for mobile and desktop apps too). Then you are in control.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[Seumas]

Yeah, the idea of letting them access my desktop (or even just potentially capture video of my desktop interactions) is fucking gross. It's sad that we're now in a world where this fear is entirely substantiated and not simple paranoia.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[thegarbz]

This! You're not going to get modded up here because of the typical group think on Slashdot. But the everything Google must be bad view has gone insane. Given all the services they provide I'll happily part with information so they can feed me ads that I don't click on, or datamine my information to produce better products (traffic in google maps).

If I'm the product that Google is selling, why the hell do I feel so much like a really grateful customer?

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[Seumas]

I think you are missing the point. This is 2013 and the concern for Google serving you with targeted ads in return for a service has been superseded by the reality that they are essentially a massive data collection service (directly and systematically or indirectly and by coercion -- but let's not act like there aren't nefarious ties to the government, here) for state.

It is 2013 and people *long* for the more carefree days of the past when the biggest security/privacy concern was targeted ads.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything, for some time, Slashdot has had a everything-Google-must-be-good bias.

I'm glad that their good-boy image is finally being revised.
Recent events have shown that while Google may not be worse than other companies in the industry, they're certainly not better.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[thegarbz]

Except that isn't Google's primary business but rather a side effect. Again I struggle to get upset at the data Google collects when every ISP is hording my emails and passing my phone conversations to the government too. At least I get something out of the massive amount of data Google collects. With most other companies I pay for the services, don't get any where near a polished product(s) in return, and yet the government still gets all my details.

Sure privacy is a problem but lets not be cute and pretend that not using Chrome will actually change anything (although Tor browser may be your best bet).

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[thegarbz]

Which recent events?

Recording unencrypted data on public Wifi? Discontinuing some free services? Complying with DCMA takedown requests? I'm still struggling to see how this puts them on par with anyone else in the industry. I mean there are companies out there who are actively at war against open access, others who will pull the plug on customers at the drop of a dime and NOT offer any opportunity to get at your own data. Some companies buy up and destroy competitors for no reason other than less competition, and I can think of a handful of companies who are far worse than Google in regards to privacy and the products they offer consumers while at the same time charging for the privilege of screwing us over.

So please tell me, just what has Google done that puts them on par with the rest of the industry, because despite everyone being happy that Google supposedly is getting a bad image I have yet to see anything that makes me think that they aren't still the best on the block.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[drinkypoo]

Not necessarily. In a recent benchmark, Firefox beat Chrome. But that isn't necessarily also true for the Android versions. Hard to know.

It doesn't actually matter because Chrome for Android is not very good. If it were, then chromebooks wouldn't exist; they'd be Android devices which run Chrome for Android. The poor quality of Chrome for Android is literally the only reason why ChromeOS exists. Unless you think Google wants to maintain two Linux-based operating systems with substantial overlap?

As for remote file transfer, I highly recommend Total Commander because it works in the classic 2-pane file manager style. Put the remote machine in one pane and your Android in the other, and just copy files back and forth. It's great. Other file managers work remotely too, but that's the only 2-pane solution of which I am aware.

Why would I care? Run samba server (it's an app) on your device, and copy files to/from it using your PC, or run any file manager on your device, and copy files to/from your PC using it. My phone's kernel has cifs support and I can use cifsmanager to mount shares on my phone directly, then copy data to them, or whatever. Although, I commonly actually use rsync to move data to and from my phone, because it's fucking rsync.

Re:No Chrome for me thanks

[farble1670]

If it were, then chromebooks wouldn't exist; they'd be Android devices which run Chrome for Android.

you don't understand chromebooks. they exist to provide a zero-maintenance cloud-only (mostly) device. android isn't that since it has local installs and "native" applications.

Bad name

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have gone with Chroaming personally.

Google's hatred of security and privacy

[Morgaine]

Client-side Javascript is already a security disaster because the unvetted JS code bypasses your perimeter defenses (firewall and proxies) and executes deep inside your privacy domain. And it's not only unvetted code but also unvettable, because it changes with every page.

15 years ago, everyone knew that only the clueless download untrusted 3rd party executable code and run it. Now with JS, all that sensible security advice has been forgotten, and everyone is required to behave clueless with their security. (Software sandboxes are no solution, because all non-trivial software like JS and the browser is riddled with bugs, this is inescapable with large software systems.) Add-ons like NoScript and Ghostery help control it a little, but technically unaware people can't be expected to use them, and more and more websites don't work at all without JS.

And now, Google wants to make it especially easy for remote 3rd parties to access other people's desktops, as if JS didn't make it easy enough already (just ask any security pen-tester). It adds to the already hopeless security in Android, where users are disallowed from blocking the wide access typically demanded by an app on installation. Google doesn't want you to be in control.

The whole Google scene is a security disaster by design. It beats me how a company with so many PhDs can be so cavalier with people's security and hostile to their privacy.

Re:Google's hatred of security and privacy

[fpoling]

It is not the external code that is harmful, it is what external untrusted data could do to your system when you access them is important. Bug in HTML or CSS parser or a layout engine can just as well lead to arbitrary code execution as a bug in JS implementation. As the complexity of HTML/CSS/layout is comparable if not bigger than that of JS engines switching off JS brings you just a false sense of security.

Re:Google's hatred of security and privacy

[Lennie]

When was the last time you've seen an exploit only written in Javascript only (not abuse plugins and so on) that would own a computer in the wild on an up to date browser ?

Re:Google's hatred of security and privacy

[thegarbz]

Erm I am running unvetted code all the time. Right now there's gigs of unvetted code in my memory. Heck even your typical linux users will have unvetted code in the form of binary blobs for various drivers, maybe even software packages, not to mention the computer BIOS.

Some how I find it hard to get up in arms about a bit of javascript knowing that it's scope is limited, it is sandboxed, and that it pales in comparison to the security nightmare which is 3rd party applications I am using constantly, most of which have some internet facing element or are riddled with exploitable bugs of their own.

As much as bashing on Google is the in thing to do, the product being discussed is 2 years old, they are just releasing an Android client for it. The world didn't implode when it was released, and I haven't heard of the plugin being exploited in any way either. And users being disallowed from blocking access to Android apps? Well with the 1000s of apps that do the same thing on the market, why not just download the ones with sensible security requirements? When a fart app needs access to my contact list it doesn't get installed, no security risk. And for shit like Angry birds which plays full screen video ads, that's easily defeated by a single keypress which disables data traffic on my phone. I'm unlikely to be browsing the net while playing angry birds anyway.

They are being cavalier with security partially because people don't care, and partially because security problems are usually blown way out of proportion.

Re:Google's hatred of security and privacy

[shikaisi]

You must not be running Google Grass then, every single blade of grass has a sensor and a 3G connection so that, you known instantly who's on your lawn! It even comes with a Google Plus plugin that posts exactly which blades of grass are being stood on.

Thanks for putting me straight. I thought Google Grass was the Japanese language release of their wearable computing product.

Hm

[Shemmie]

Am I the only one who's gone from 'oooo, that's cool!' to 'I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that' with a lot of new technology from 'the big guys' recently?

Google own my life. And by extension, my Government, other Governments, security agencies, and many corporate interests own my life.

I've known this forever (and tried not to think about it too much), but with recent disclosures, it's really brought it all home.

All tech I look at now I'm finally asking "So... what data does that give you access to?". It's taking time to figure out a migration path for all my current solutions, but I'm slowly trying to find a route where I'm in control of my data. I know that this probably makes me an idiot, and those that were always privacy concious can laugh - but meh, it's better late than never to come to this realization that I can't trust any third party. Isn't it?

Re:Hm

[skegg]

All tech I look at now I'm finally asking "So... what data does that give you access to?"

Bud, you're definitely not alone.

Large corporations will conduct due diligence before committing to a course of action.
I'm glad some of this mindset is starting to pervade ordinary consumers. (Though still a very small percentage of consumers.)

Re:Hm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not running code you wrote yourself on hardware you built yourself running firmware you wrote yourself, which in turn is not communicating in any way except with other machines like this, you're just whipping yourself into a frothy paranoid mess pointlessly.

A condom is not 100% safe, that doesn't make it meaningless to use a condom. Extreme black or white thinking like you outline is just giving up, instead of making informed choices along the range of risk/reward options that you have. Of course you can greatly influence your exposure to risk (security or privacy wise) without going to the extremes you describe.

Re:Hm

[thegarbz]

I've known this forever (and tried not to think about it too much), but with recent disclosures, it's really brought it all home.

Slightly off topic but recent disclosures have driven a different point home to me, that I'm just a number in a horrendously massive database. I was less comfortable when privacy attacks were specific such as warrantless GPS tracking. But now we are in a situation where the governments know everything there is to know about everyone, and by extension they have shown time and time again to be unable to do anything even remotely useful with their information.

The troubling thing is that most terrorists in recent times have been known to their governments and to the US government. In some cases people actively warned the US government about them and they still weren't stopped. In the recent Boston bombing the terrorists were caught on several CCTV cameras yet could not be identified.

I'm happy to know my private information is in the hands of people who have shown to be too incompetent to do anything nefarious with it.

Re:Hm

[Richy_T]

The problem isn't so much that they have a big bunch of data but that then rather than have a crime and find the perpetrator, they can now pick a person who they don't like and find a crime or other embarrassing data to fit them.

You can argue that people shouldn't be doing things if they don't want to have them show up later. However, firstly, there are so many laws that most of us are committing a few every day, often without knowing. Secondly, what kind of world is it going to be if only the completely pure can go up against the status quo?

In Your Dreams

[some old guy]

Google really thinks I'm going to give a security sieve like Android mobile (or any phone for that matter) RPC/RDP permissions of any kind? Knowing that an Android can be "rooted" by Google, the carrier, a mildy capable script kiddy,or the government at any time?

Fat fucking chance. The air wall between my phone and my desk stays up.

Not a fair comparison

[nurb432]

Google watching your stuff as 'payment' for their services is not the same as the government watching you, as payment for being a citizen.

One is a choice.