Google Kills Cloud Print • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#31

Post by tech234a » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

It’s unfortunate that Cloud Print will be shutting down. It was a convenient and useful utility. It couldn’t have cost that much to run.

Perhaps the shutdown has something to do with the product possibly being based on Google Talk? The port requirements for the print server include: “5222 TCP (XMPP, using STARTTLS), with a persistent connection to: talk.google.com.” [1]

[1]: https://support.google.com/a/answer/3179

(Note: I also posted this comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21600206)

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#32

Post by mraudiobook_com » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

Wow, amazing! This was the last reason I was using Chrome. It was literally the one thing they had I couldn't get on other browsers and they kill it.

What an amazing company. Guess I should be happy that I'm now officially done with Google.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#33

Post by tech234a » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #28

tech234a wrote: post #241

It’s unfortunate that Cloud Print will be shutting down. It was a convenient and useful utility. It couldn’t have cost that much to run. Perhaps the shutdown has something to do with the product possibly being based on Google Talk? The port requirements for the print server include: “5222 TCP (XMPP, using STARTTLS), with a persistent connection to: talk.google.com.” [1] [1]: https://support.google.com/a/answer/317917…

This seems pretty plausible considering Hangouts, aka Talk 2, is being shut down the same month. So weird that presumably they glommed their print service on top of chat.

The Google Talk connection appears to only be used to receive print job notifications on the print server. I guess it made sense in 2010 when Cloud Print was launched.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#34

Post by anoncake » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:19 AM UTC

IAmEveryone wrote: post #19

Rebelgecko wrote: post #12

Bad timing for an announcement considering the (IMO valid) concerns about Stadia's lifetime.

In an industry where 80% of startups disappear, it's inevitable that they have to shut down products at a rate not much smaller than their introduction of new products. And if "Google Cloud Print" is considered significant, then that will result in frequent headlines of "Google is shutting down ". Considering how annoying I find this meme even though I have absolutely no stake in it, people on the inside are probably…

You would have a point if Google had become more reliable since Reader was shut down.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#35

Post by anderber » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

And Google wonders why their products don't gain momentum? Should I trust them when I buy a Chromecast, Stadia, or anything else? I mean even their probably most successful product, the Chromecast, doesn't get many updates and sometimes I wonder if they put much effort into it. It seems like they are very good at the initial launch but slowly and surely they remove resources from that product and things go downhill.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#36

Post by Donald » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 12:47 AM UTC

branon wrote: post #3

I'm confused on what the replacement is. Historically, ChromeOS hasn't been able to print at all unless using Google Cloud Print in some form. To my knowledge there are two existing forms: * a Google Cloud Print-ready printer, or * a computer that can run Chrome and bridge non-Google Cloud Print-ready printers to Google Cloud Print.[0] So the ancient WPS printer in my garage is entirely unsupported without deploying…

It probably suggests Chromebooks are on their way out.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#37

Post by yellowapple » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 1:10 AM UTC

inesprimibile wrote: post #21

Anybody have any good recommendations for alternatives? We use Cloud Print as a printing solution to allow users in our app to authorize us to send print jobs programmatically to their printers.

I've seen QZ Tray used for this sort of thing to great effect. It entails installing both Java and QZ Tray itself, though.

Most companies just roll their own "print client" programs, in my observation. Not that difficult to do (the hardest part is actually sending the document to the printer, which is relatively trivial for macOS/Linux/anything-else-with-CUPS and not-trivial but reasonably-documented to do with Windows; those two should cover your bases).

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#38

Post by jonahbenton » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

So mad about this. I am a paying google customer and this is a feature I use all the time.

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#39

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

Isn’t Google Cloud Print the standard way you print from an Android device?

Re: Google Kills Cloud Print

#40

Post by kalleboo » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

branon wrote: post #3

I'm confused on what the replacement is. Historically, ChromeOS hasn't been able to print at all unless using Google Cloud Print in some form. To my knowledge there are two existing forms: * a Google Cloud Print-ready printer, or * a computer that can run Chrome and bridge non-Google Cloud Print-ready printers to Google Cloud Print.[0] So the ancient WPS printer in my garage is entirely unsupported without deploying…

The article link takes you to the "Google Chrome Enterprise Help" section of their support site, so all the help articles linked in there are going to be geared towards Chrome Enterprise. Maybe you'll have better luck finding answers in the "Chromebook Help" area? https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/7225252?hl=en&r...