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."

Comments

Still becomes a brick.

[SimonTheSoundMan]

It still becomes a brick when you have no wi-fi or you don't have an over-priced GSM subscription.

Re:Still becomes a brick.

[Sardaukar86]

While niggers in their native setting are still chucking spears at each other and niggers taken out of their native setting are chucking bullets and gang signs at each other. But you're not supposed to notice. That would make you a bad terrible person and we will brand you "racist" to make you a modern heretic

I'm gonna go with another theory: repeatedly using 'nigger' in a sentence to describe dark-skinned people is the likely cause of you being branded a 'racist'.

C:\$App

[mbstone]

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.

Re:C:\$App

[drinkypoo]

Some programs work fine without their registry entries. Some don't. The ones that do probably assume defaults, or load defaults into the registry on firstrun. I haven't done a survey. Either way, dependence on install-time registry values isn't a necessity for Windows programs.

Google Chrome virtual machine?

[jez9999]

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?

Re:Google Chrome virtual machine?

[cmdr_tofu]

Indeed it seems like Java was the holy grail and Chrome is trying to reinvent Java applets (on a different VM). At least for this feature, it seems like addressing issues with Java applet security might be more productive.

I have a Chromebook with Ubuntu chroot, and I do find I spend a lot of time in ChromeOS-mode.

Re:Google Chrome virtual machine?

[Keyboard Rage]

Considering Google's track record with the amount of malware for Android, perhaps they are now trying to get Chrome into the #1 spot for "most unsafe browser out there" in spite of Internet Explorer?

Poor Steve Balmer. He left Microsoft too early to witness this event, and will now have to cool his anger on some chairs...oh wait.

Re:Google Chrome virtual machine?

[ArtFart]

For those of us who've grown weary of badmouthing Java, .NET and Flash, Google and Facebook are now determined to turn Javascript into the scourge of humanity.

Re:Google Chrome virtual machine?

[daveime]

This. Did we learn nothing from IE6 and the ActiveX legacy?

At a time when developers should be writing stuff that works across any browser (HTML5, CSS, JS), Chrome is trying to divide the web again with things that "only work" in their browser.

We all slated Windows for doing this

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

i thought this is what you wanted?

[Gravis Zero]

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!

Re:Every OS is a sandbox, including browsers

[ceoyoyo]

It was a bad idea for Windows to autoplay CDs and automatically run any attachment sent to you in an e-mail, because it can't sandbox apps in a foolproof way. Chrome can't sandbox webapps in a foolproof way either, so it's a bad idea to be able to run random programs by clicking on a link.

Didn't we do this already?

[Todd Knarr]

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.

Appblocker required

[johanw]

So, after the adblocker we now also need the appblocker when browsing.