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Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

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Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#151

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

bubblethink wrote: post #56

I hate this trend of dumbing down product specifications. I don't know who started it (probably Apple?), but everyone does it now. Like what fucking i5 or i7 processor ? Is the storage soldered even for the nvme option ? It doesn't help that Intel keeps playing tricks with their naming either. i7 used to be quad core, then it became dual core for thin laptops. Now they are back to low freq quad core in some SKUs. For…

AMD's new lineup makes some sense at least, but who knows, next year's laptops might be Powered by AMD® 5th Gen Processors.

I think the extremely vague branding must be at least partly from Intel's cues. Intel advertises their own NUCs in the same way, and perhaps wants customers to think in terms of generations and ignore the specs. After all, if consumers mistakenly assume a 7th gen i5 is a meaningful improvement over a 6th gen i5 and make a purchasing decision based on that, Intel aren't going to complain…

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#152

Post by terminalcommand »

victorhooi wrote: post #83
dabockster wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually to flash some new expensive tech item around the office in a show of dominance. Then us devs get stuck dealing with the fallout when the tech purchase wipes out the network or something.

Your comment seems like a troll...lol. I'm not sure how a Chromebook could "wipe out the network". In fact, if anything, I'd argue it's less likely to than a Window laptop since Chromebooks are so secure out of the box. I bought one for my mother a few years ago, and honestly, not having to go over and clean up malware periodically, or ever do Windows Updates, or ever worry about her clicking on dodgy links on the in…

I installed Linux Mint Debian for my mother, works just as you described. Once in a while I login as root and run "apt-get update && apt dist-upgrade" on the machine. That's about it. Even when her laptop broke and she needed to switch to a backup machine, I just plugged out the hard drive and put it in the new laptop. After installing wifi drivers, linux continued to run. And I'm at peace since she doesn't know the root password or even what root means :).

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#153

Post by raesene9 »

joshuacc wrote: post #142
sergiotapia wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I uploaded full seasons of a very old 90s cartoon and my account is disabled. I cannot even purchase YouTube TV to try it out. Of course, reaching out to support is moot - their RoboSupport sucks. I will never purchase a Google product if I can help it and will steer clear of them in any team setting where I can affect the decision.

> I uploaded full seasons of a very old 90s cartoon and my account is disabled. I cannot even purchase YouTube TV to try it out. You violated the law and their (rather reasonable in this case) terms of service and are shocked to find they'd rather not do business with you?

I think the problem is where accounts control a large part of someone's digital life.

so for example here, it appears that someone breached Youtube ToS and lost their whole Google account.

Now imagine you've got all your e-mail/photos/contacts etc in that account and you've just permanently lost them due to that ToS breach.

Of course as technical people we can say "ahh you should have had off-cloud backups", but realistically most non-technical people won't do that and likely won't realise the consequences of their actions.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#154

Post by Filligree »

haberman wrote: post #103
frahs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the developer mode notification on bootup kills the laptop :( It warns you that you're in developer mode, makes a beep, and prompts you to push spacebar if you want to turn off dev mode, deleting everything on your computer. Maybe you know to never make this mistake. Maybe you almost never turn off your computer. All that needs to happen is for you to reboot the computer once (say, it ran out of batteries while y…

I don't understand why it's not possible to run a Docker image that has the whole development environment, without turning on developer mode. ChromeOS doesn't want to expose these syscalls to ChromeOS apps? I can understand wanting to sandbox the actual OS environment, but a Docker container should be totally isolated from that?

Docker is not designed for security, and shouldn't be mistaken for a secure border. It can, with painstaking effort, be made semi-secure for particular audited recipes, but this isn't a FreeBSD jail we're talking about.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#155

Post by ehsankia »

raesene9 wrote: post #146
victorhooi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for bringing that up. However, te truth is often a bit more nuanced (although it doesn't make for as good headlines). Dissecting your three examples. In the first case, (and based on their own statements) those people were buying up phones by the hundreds, shipping them to a single physical address and then scalping over the internet. It's basically fraud. So yes, they probably got picked up by an automated al…

To speak about that third case the very real concern I would have there is that it appears he got access to his account back by being able to attract enough attention from Google management, as he was well connected and had a relatively high profile twitter account (> 100k followers) That kind of solution is unlikely to be of use to customers who don't have the ability to bypass the common process...

That may or may not be true, but it's by definition hard to tell because the cases that don't get attention, you don't hear about. So it's hard for us to tell for sure. But in general, considering that billions of people have Google accounts, the fact that you can count these cases on your fingers and that you don't see articles about it every week means that it's probably safer than flying by plane.

Let's be honest, nothing is 100% safe. If you decide to keep everything off of the cloud also has its own risks.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#156

Post by NiveaGeForce »

zeta0134 wrote: post #63
201709User wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are trying to list features, not defects.

Speak for yourself. A lot of members in this community, myself included, find being locked to a Windows workstation for any task to be a misfeature and a defect. Option are good! I'm not sure if the Pixel is a particularly attractive option, but I'll welcome any new competition that can help dissolve the Microsoft lock-in problem.

> that can help dissolve the Microsoft lock-in problem.

So that you can have a Google lock-in problem.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#157

Post by victorhooi »

raesene9 wrote: post #146
victorhooi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for bringing that up. However, te truth is often a bit more nuanced (although it doesn't make for as good headlines). Dissecting your three examples. In the first case, (and based on their own statements) those people were buying up phones by the hundreds, shipping them to a single physical address and then scalping over the internet. It's basically fraud. So yes, they probably got picked up by an automated al…

To speak about that third case the very real concern I would have there is that it appears he got access to his account back by being able to attract enough attention from Google management, as he was well connected and had a relatively high profile twitter account (> 100k followers) That kind of solution is unlikely to be of use to customers who don't have the ability to bypass the common process...

It wasn't necessarily the publicity. He reached out through normal channels, but these things normally take some time to process, since they normally have to be reviewed by humans.

It's one of those things where you want to tread carefully.

I mean, say my account got hijacked.

I want to get back in. So does the hijacker. I would much rather prefer waiting an extra day or so, than risk having the hijacker purporting to be me getting back in.

I've actually had to deal with the exact above scenario for a friend before - they had a Gmail email account, and another (unnamed) email provider. The hijacker did try to get back in, and it's a pretty scary proposition. So having a bit of peace of mind that the bar is suitably high is good.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any statements above are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer).

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#159

Post by raesene9 »

victorhooi wrote: post #143
raesene9 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth illustrating the concept. A device that's heavily reliant on a cloud service (in this case Google's) means you have to worry about the risk of being locked out of that account especially if getting access after that lockout is difficult. These devices are very different to traditional computing devices (e.g. Windows/Linux PCs) which mostly store content locally as there lockout from a single cloud…

I actually dissected the authors example above - and they actually don't really help prove his/her point. The first example - was basically fraud, that probably got picked up in hijacking/bot-net detection (based on public statements). The second - I can't comment, as there are no public statements. The third - the author made a public statement, and seems to harbour no ill-will to Google after it was explained to hi…

As responded on the third, a process that relies on the subject being well enough known or connected enough to bypass common process isn't a scalable solution.

If someone has to know to e-mail you personally to help fix an issue, that concept doesn't scale to x million accounts.

I'm not trying to get at Google specifically here, I'm suggesting that as all the tech. companies move more of people's digital lives to the cloud, these accounts become more important and how they deal with ToS violations, reactivations and the like will require a lot of thought.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#160

Post by notacoward »

frahs wrote: post #47
wazanator wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet crouton runs on it out of the box so you can get a dev environment up fast.

But the developer mode notification on bootup kills the laptop :( It warns you that you're in developer mode, makes a beep, and prompts you to push spacebar if you want to turn off dev mode, deleting everything on your computer. Maybe you know to never make this mistake. Maybe you almost never turn off your computer. All that needs to happen is for you to reboot the computer once (say, it ran out of batteries while y…

Totally agree. I had this thing's immediate predecessor, the second-gen Pixel. I used crouton and the integration was fantastic. Alt-tab between ChromeOS and a real Linux desktop. Clipboard integration. ChromeOS driver stability plus all of my familiar Linux tools. Fantastic battery life too.

However, that developer-mode "hit Crtl-D or lose everything" misfeature always made me super-nervous too. Whoever implemented that must have never read any one security-UX book, because they all mention the evils of taking irrevocable action in response to a password failure. Or maybe they were just brain damaged. Either way, what a horrible mistake.

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