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Google Is Building a Way To Launch Chrome Apps Without Installation
An anonymous reader writes "Google really wants Chrome apps to take off. Not only has the company added rich notifications, in-app payments, and an app launcher into its browser, but now it's developing ephemeral apps that launch by just clicking a link. There are two separate components here. Ephemeral apps (you can enable this under the chrome://flags/#enable-ephemeral-apps flag) let you try a Chrome app before installing it. Linkable ephemeral apps (under the chrome://flags/#enable-linkable-ephemeral-apps flag) meanwhile allow you to launch said apps from hyperlinks."
It still becomes a brick when you have no wi-fi or you don't have an over-priced GSM subscription.
The truest words ever spoken on the subject were penned by Nicholas Petreley, the IT industry columnist, who opined that:
1) There should not be a "registry" or an :"install" program.
2) Everything needed to run $App should reside in C:\$App.
This of course would enable $App to be copied freely from machine to machine, which is probably why there is a Windows Registry.
Am I the only one thinking that Google are basically making Chrome into another VM? Its "apps" are programs that the Chrome VM can run, JavaScript is the main language you use to code stuff for it, but that can even be compiled into obscured JS which is about as readable as bytecode (or less), the DOM is the mechanism you use to create the UI, etc. Apart from being arguably faster, what are the fundamental differences between what Google wants Chrome to be, and Java?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Alternatively, "chrapps" for short.
Becwuz Gwugul is my seekwet wuver!
If I remember correctly, Microsoft did this years ago, although.... It was the exact opposite: apps would install without launching them.
..whatcouldpossiblygowrong
From which version is this? TV movie? Amazon fiction? But since you asked (and I know the answer) the snake was but a worm in an apple so you see there was not much to change. Action/Cut/Print.
Your Lord
God
(Bow down to me - you are Garbage)
Why would I want to make myself more dependent on a collaborator's infrastructure? I don't want to add dependency on Chrome "apps".
Anybody with a brain is running away from Google as fast as they can.
that would be awesome. i built a html5 web app recently and specifically put in contract shit browser compatibility (IE8-) will be provided by giving them portable chrome install which will launch the app. it was still a major pain to set up in an user convenient way. ended up wrapping it in node-webkit.
Since it's Genesis 3:14, representing pi, we can gather that the serpent's original shape was circular. What comes to mind when you think circular? The google chrome logo of course! The fall of humanity was caused by Adam being tempted by chrome to click the devil's ephemeral app link on his apple macbook. The proof is all there.
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I'm as guilty as anyone else, but when MS windows did this it was a major security problem, is this really any different?
Launch a program by clicking a link? Did we not call people retards every time they did this?
It seems like every new platform just repeats the same crap from every previous platform. Vendor bloatware should have been the blatant warning sign.
It was a velociraptor, not a worm.
rewriting history since 2109
Major stories about chrome on the verge and now slashdot on a slow news but everybody home Saturday. Googles pr team is working overtime.
So, Google is going to use Java or Ecma script for their apps now?
Edgy.
H'mmm. I've got an idea. Take a cheap netbook, throw a minimal linux environment on it with Xorg, and lock it down so that only Google chrome and its apps can run on it. I'd call it NSA/Google OS.
Want-O-Meter(tm) switched on? Check.
Batteries? Fully charged.
Sensitivity setting? Max!
Reading? Not the faintest fuck of a flicker.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How hard is it for an American to qualify for residency in "socialist Denmark" where the RF spectrum owners don't gouge as much?
saves having to worry about the different user directory configs you can get on the different versions or on networked corporate setups
But it only has to be done once per publisher, and then you can reuse the folder locating code across multiple applications. As for "networked corporate setups", Windows provides two folders: local application data and roaming application data. I don't see what's so hard about deciding whether a particular preference goes in your application's SQLite file for local preferences or its SQLite file for roaming preferences. If it's machine-specific, such as game control settings or a random free TCP port, or if it's a cache, it's local; otherwise it's roaming.
So without a registry, how would a program inform the system of the intents it can handle, such as the file types and URL types it can open? And how would programs that need to run in the background starting at login time, such as a weather widget or a service that opens a peripheral's related application when the peripheral is plugged in, get loaded?
All the others have user/$file.
Under your preferred setup, for a home PC with five users (mom, dad, and three kids), must all applications be installed five times, using five times the disk space and five times the data transfer (which counts against the house's monthly Internet cap) for updates?
People depend on the operating system to protect delicate file system data structures from misbehaving desktop applications. Because the web browser has become an operating system for web applications, Chromium (and by extension Google Chrome) implements a similar sandbox. Your claim that a browser can't properly sandbox a web application sounds like the claim that Windows can't properly sandbox a desktop application, which was true on Windows 98 but hasn't been true for a decade. Even on Windows XP, an application running as a limited user in a separate user account can't do much to fcuk up the system.
I would have to say the reason is because everyone intelligent knows the Bible is a bunch of made up fairy tales that contradict each other. Which of the two accounts of creation in Genesis is the accurate one? Which of accounts of the Resurrection, is the real one? But people who believe in the bible are like the world's worst and most obsessive comic book geeks. They will insist preferred publishing house, their preferred characters, their interpretations and selective hand waving of all the plot holes is the correct one and all others are all wrong. But rarely to you see fans of DC comic books killing fans of Marvel comic books and vice versa.
Put everything in the cloud! WebOS is the future! HTML5 apps should replace native apps!
Everyone who ever agreed with any of this crap has only themselves to blame. Also, no bitching when they change the layout/functionality/something else you can't control because IT'S NOT YOUR SYSTEM.
I called my brother on this multiple times and now he finally see the "cloud apps" for what they are, a farce!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
From TFA:
As for the launching ephemeral apps from hyperlinks, Google separated the two features into two separate flags to ensure that only links appearing on a Google search results page will launch the app. This should give the company more control over stopping malware from just launching:
Google has stated repeatedly that they lack the resources to reliably filter illegal MP3 download sites from their search results. How can they stop the much more sophisticated malware vendors?
A huge glaring error! They can fix it as soon as they stop depicting Jesus as a white dude.
The apps already run everywhere (well, Android, FirefoxOS, Firefox Desktop), already are one-click-to-use on FirefoxOS, and also they don't require you to be online to use them. And they're not pushing an agenda. Just sayin'.
I assumed he meant /usr like on Linux.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You can install an app under /usr and anyone's /usr/home directory can run it if they have the proper permissions. Their configuration files for that app are stored in their own space; one size does not fit all.
Unlike Windows, you also can't see other users' files or "folders" (using MS's nonstandard nomenclature) unless you're logged in as root ("Admin" in Windows-speak).
Your desktop is your desktop. If you install an app in your own space it doesn't affect any other user. In Linux, most any app you might want is installed with the OS anyway.
Free Martian Whores!
Windows allowed the running of applications from Internet Explorer, remember? You even get the option still of running an application or saving it to disk when you click on a link to an executable program. And we've spent what, the better part of 2 decades trying to figure out reliable ways of PREVENTING this! Because it's so commonly abused to get people to run malware and other undesirable software. And now we want to make another attempt at letting people run anything J. Random Blackhat throws their way? Thanks, but no thanks.
So, after the adblocker we now also need the appblocker when browsing.
What's new or news here?
Unlike Windows, you also can't see other users' files or "folders" (using MS's nonstandard nomenclature)
Nonstandard? "Folders" have meant the same thing as directories since Mac OS 2.1 introduced HFS in September 1985, years before Linux and 4.4BSD-Lite were released.
Unlike Windows, you also can't see other users' files or "folders" (using MS's nonstandard nomenclature) unless you're logged in as root ("Admin" in Windows-speak).
UNIX is this way for files and folders that have no world permissions, such as those created under a umask ending in 7. But it's common for a UNIX system used by a single household or small organization to have a umask of 022, which makes documents 644 (all read, owner write) and folders 755 (all list, owner write, all traverse).
In Linux, most any app you might want is installed with the OS anyway.
True, a common set of applications is included with the operating system. But this doesn't include editors of less common data types (e.g. Synfig for vector animation), or newer versions of applications not backported to your OS version, or games that aren't Solitaire. AAA games especially have large install footprints.
So should ports of Windows applications that use the registry to desktop platforms other than Windows include the Wine libraries just to have a registry? And how should applications running from removable media (sometimes called "portable" apps) store configuration information in a way that roams to whatever machine the media is mounted on, even on a machine that isn't part of the same AD domain? One pattern is to store configuration in Application Data when installed to fixed media or in a separate Application Data folder next to the executable when installed to removable media.
For the average user that does not use noscript, this isn't a big difference. They're already essentially trusting every site they visit.
Does nobody remember Active-X?
Don't download and run strange code. Ever.
--
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
If you're willing to bring up an article that only mentions an escape that was probably patched four years ago, I'll bring up old exploits that can shut down the bare hardware, such as Pentium invalid operand with locked CMPXCHG8B and the Cyrix coma.
Unlike Windows, you also can't see other users' files or "folders" (using MS's nonstandard nomenclature)
You mean Apple's (as introduced in the Lisa) nonstandard nomenclature? Though I'm not sure what you think the 'standard' is or why.
There was no real standard when the Lisa was out, but these days *nix is the standard -- Unix, Linux, BSD. Most mainframes and all the 100 fastest computers run Linux (which is taking over for Unix), Android is Linux, Apple is BSD. Microsoft is way behind everyone.
Free Martian Whores!
Well that's odd, you say Apple is BSD and BSD is a *nix yet OSX still calls them folders. Could it be there is no standard on what to call them? I can see you desperately want to make out that Microsoft is so far behind but in fact Apple and Microsoft both call them the same thing.