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Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

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Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#81
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like many people, I'm trying to step back from google/facebook snooping, and this would be a solid step toward such big brothering. Google seems to be working on this. If you've ever seen someone without a Google account try to use Android for the first time you can see how much effort they are putting into stopping people from using their products.

I've never used android--is it difficult then?

Not at all if your Android device does not support the Google Accounts in the first place.

It was really difficult with the ADP1/G1 back in 2008. But meanwhile it is not that difficult if you don't want to use the Google services.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#82
post #21

this is insanely awesome. as it stands right now, yes its "just ssh". But open up the developer toolbar and you'll notice this thing is rendering HTML inside of webkit. It doesn't take a genius to see this is a few baby steps from making it possible to render arbitrary graphics in the shell. edit: I might go out on a limb here and say this project is something that is going to be looked at as a real inflection point…

Shameless self plug: https://github.com/hoeck/schirm. It does exactly that, rendering arbitary html (inside iframes) between lines of a vt100 compatible terminal emulator, using escape-sequences to denote document data and images. Works quite well as a proof of concept. What annoys me so far is that its relatively slow (running find on a large dir may take ~20 times longer than on gnome-terminal) and the headaches around (automatically) resizing iframes.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#83
post #74
post #19

I don't know that this really rises to the level of a "killer" app. Serious ssh users are, of course, already quite happy with their terminal emulators and use platforms that support them natively. I find it very hard to believe (though I'm willing to be surprised) a chrome extension is going to present me with the performance, platform integration, or keyboard navigability I get and demand from gnome-terminal. I'd p…

Why are we happy? We are not. Terminal emulation needs to die, but as you point out, there is no reasonable substitute yet. I have enjoyed toying with interesting experiments like the MPW shell, and I support every attempt to replace or kill the ridiculous anachronism that is termcap. It's like we're the SCA and unix is our ren fest.

I was talking to someone recently who likened it to a shifting pendulum. For a while, he told me, terminal control languages were sufficiently complex that you could send a program to run _on the terminal_, and then things shifted back to running things where you store them on the server.

Now there's HTML5 and javascript, the world's most complicated terminal control language.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#84
post #74
post #19

I don't know that this really rises to the level of a "killer" app. Serious ssh users are, of course, already quite happy with their terminal emulators and use platforms that support them natively. I find it very hard to believe (though I'm willing to be surprised) a chrome extension is going to present me with the performance, platform integration, or keyboard navigability I get and demand from gnome-terminal. I'd p…

Why are we happy? We are not. Terminal emulation needs to die, but as you point out, there is no reasonable substitute yet. I have enjoyed toying with interesting experiments like the MPW shell, and I support every attempt to replace or kill the ridiculous anachronism that is termcap. It's like we're the SCA and unix is our ren fest.

I'm not sure that I disagree: the terminal implementation in modern unix is a terrible mess. But the terminal metaphor (a command line being fed by a keyboard and displaying to a scrolling window of text) is nearly perfect, and won't by dying any time soon. And ssh is fundamentally just a data pipe for that metaphor anyway.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using. Oh for pete's sake... Is there anything to this " I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I correspond with with mutt or whom I chat with on other services with finch etc.. Why expand google's data-gathering "attack surface"? Or is it further chicken-little, slipp…

> You'll have to forgive me for being blunt. "You'll have to forgive me for being rude, obnoxious, conclusion-jumping." Fixed that for ya. You're welcome.

Rude? I wasn't aware that pointing out something has no basis in reality is rude.

Obnoxious? Don't post misinformation and you won't be challenged.

Conclusion jumping? What conclusion did I jump to?

And as far as making "Fixed" posts go.. doctor, heal thyself ;)

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#86
post #23

Can someone please explain to me why I would possibly want to run a terminal emulator inside of my web browser, instead of just using the terminal emulator app that my system ships with?

As a followup, my terminal windows are rarely the same size as my browser windows. I don't like resizing my browser windows in general because the browser will remember the new size, even though it was meant as a once-off window. So having a browser-sized terminal doesn't seem like a very good experience.

Additionally, it doesn't even work right. In a screen-controlling app like vim it seems fine, but in the normal shell, once I enter enough text to use more than a screen, the bottom-most line is actually off the window (even if I scroll down).

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#87
post #50

I opened chrome to check this out, but it wants me to "sign in" to install the extension. For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using. Like many people, I'm trying to step back from google/facebook snooping, and this would be a solid step toward such big brothering. I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I c…

>For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using. Oh for pete's sake... Is there anything to this " I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I correspond with with mutt or whom I chat with on other services with finch etc.. Why expand google's data-gathering "attack surface"? Or is it further chicken-little, slipp…

That means they have your IP, and a metric ton of identifying information about you via your browser fingerprint (ala Panopticlick)

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. ;-)

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#88
post #50

I opened chrome to check this out, but it wants me to "sign in" to install the extension. For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using. Like many people, I'm trying to step back from google/facebook snooping, and this would be a solid step toward such big brothering. I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I c…

> Like many people, I'm trying to step back from google/facebook snooping, and this would be a solid step toward such big brothering. Google seems to be working on this. If you've ever seen someone without a Google account try to use Android for the first time you can see how much effort they are putting into stopping people from using their products.

Yeah. It's super easy to activate your iPhone without an iTunes account with a credit card on file.

...wait.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#89
post #50

I opened chrome to check this out, but it wants me to "sign in" to install the extension. For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using. Like many people, I'm trying to step back from google/facebook snooping, and this would be a solid step toward such big brothering. I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I c…

You need to be signed in so that the extensions/apps/games can be properly synced to your other Chrome installations. The philosophy of ChromeOS seems to be for absolutely everything to get synced from the cloud. The login can't be optional since it'd be an incredibly shitty UX to have apps installed from the store sometimes sync to your new machine and sometimes not.

Re: Secure Shell chrome (killer) app

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond that, you must trust the author, since Chrome may auto-update the extension to a future version that could steal credentials.

The author (rginda, http://www.hacksrus.com/~ginda/ ) is a Google Chrome developer. You're probably already trusting his code by running Chrome.

Can you vouch that he packages this extension on a machine free of trojans, viruses and backdoors? Hm.
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