Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#221

Post by ballenf » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

gressquel wrote: post #167

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #66

I think a major issue is what happens if Google locks your account for some reason. There have been instances in the past where Google has locked the account of a user for some TOS violations. http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/google-pixel-reseller... http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/1/jordan-b-peters... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-prof... Given that Google has a propensity…

By using chromebook, you are almost giving away your entire digital life. Such data will be abused by Google to sell ads, as it has happened many times before. What a horrible piece of privacy abusing junk this Chromebook is.

A lot of these will be used by businesses on paid GSuite accounts where the monetization of user data doesn't happen:

https://gsuite.google.com/security/

I think $5/mo per person in exchange for some degree of privacy and being the customer instead of the product is a reasonable deal. $10 for unlimited storage.

In addition that price gets you 24/7 live support from a real person.

I'm not suggesting this answers the general privacy concerns and other issues presented here.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#222

Post by daxorid » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #202

jellicle wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean that people aren't concerned, or shouldn't be concerned?

Both. I don't think anyone (reasonable) should be concerned and I think most people, developer or not, are not concerned. This is just yet another example of this vocal minority on HN that regularly talks shit about every Google hardware product, where the argument against this specific product actually comes down to a larger argument against Google and how much access and gatekeeping they have with regards to your c…

I don't think you fully understand the risk model the "vocal minority" is talking about. It's not so much that Google might know about our searches for horse porn, it's that we could lose access to our entire digital life at the whim of an algorithm or a politically motivated employee.

As others have pointed out, Google has capriciously cut off account access to numerous people. When they do that, you lose your email account, which is the de-facto access key to a very large number of other accounts. This is to say nothing of the documents, spreadsheets, photos, PURCHASED movies and music associated with that account.

Bear in mind the Jordan Peterson case, on which Google has yet to answer, is only one we know about due to its high profile nature. How many other users without access to the ears of the media get rolled over in similar manner?

When any other entity chooses not to do business with you, they don't show up to your house and make off with your DVD and CD collection, the home movies of your kids, as well as contents of your filing cabinet and a good number of the backup keys you have for other accounts.

The parent is not worried about PRIVACY, they are worried, rightly so, of LOSING THEIR DIGITAL LIFE on a whim of a third party.

The probability is low, sure, but the impact is very high. Evaluating risk is not just about likelihood, but also impact.

The obvious objection, that one should use G Suite from a domain name they control, and do hour-by-hour snapshot backups of every document and photo they host with Google, is a fair one, but it puts the user in a position in which the very value Google services offers -- convenience -- is no longer there. So what's the point?

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#223

Post by michel-slm » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

fictionfuture wrote: post #73

Are you guys crazy? This is a great computer, in case you didn't notice it's a tablet AND a laptop AND it runs Android. As a long time Apple guy and mobile web dev, I can tell you this has several development advantages. I'm sure it will let you use Chrome development tethering to test and debug on Android devices. I'm also a big fan of the Android ecosystem as it isn't a walled garden, a clear advantage for develope…

I'm tempted by this (had the previous 2015 Chromebook Pixel, ran great except storage is limited, which this version fixed, and the battery is now dying).

I've just splurged on some hardware this year though, but keeping an eye for this and hope that with Google's Pixel strategy they're now serious about hardware (yearly refresh etc.).

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#224

Post by bubblethink » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

somethingsimple wrote: post #89

robert_foss wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'd love to have a dev Chromebook. The software stack running on it is second to none. Even the BIOS is light-years ahead any Windows/Linux box. As for OSX I'm not familiar with the boot process.

> The software stack running on it is second to none. Can you elaborate on that? I thought ChromeOS was just a stripped down Linux with just enough to run Chrome and whatever other Google stuff they have on it.

There's the dm-verify path. In a locked down configuration, the os is updated as binary deltas. Your system partition is read only. You lose the flexibility of a general os though.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#225

Post by bubblethink » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

Romanulus wrote: post #125

robert_foss wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'd love to have a dev Chromebook. The software stack running on it is second to none. Even the BIOS is light-years ahead any Windows/Linux box. As for OSX I'm not familiar with the boot process.

The BIOS of a system has not once ever factored into my decision making about a tech purchase. Please elaborate...?

Look up coreboot and libreboot.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#226

Post by sushisource » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

milesokeefe wrote: post #76

cauthon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I see a lot of "power users" doing is simply using their Chromebook to remote into their desktop for their application work. Naive question - how would one set up a desktop at home to make it securely remotely accessible?

This is one option: https://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/

Wow, that's really neat. Surprised I've never heard of it.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#227

Post by 8note » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

victorhooi wrote: post #205

tehwebguy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there was something specific about that specific instance that made it fraud, but reselling a phone isn't fraud by default. Not interested in needing to beg a horrible algorithm or become internet famous just to get ahold of a human that might turn my digital life back on.

I'm only speaking in general terms here, not specifics. However, reselling phones is usually against the ToS of pretty much every retailer. This isn't unique to Google. Here are our ToS - https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht... . > You may only purchase Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but you may give the Device as a gift. Recipients of gifts may need…

You're saying that like it's a reasonable condition. Other sellers of things don't have such conditions like, having it be against ToS to resell your car or your forks.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#228

Post by sp332 » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:55 PM UTC

eweise wrote: post #209

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? When I worked in the Intelligence Community I had to go through multiple FBI investigations and polygraphs. Every single one of them asked me about laws I may have violated in the past. One of the agents even said (paraphrased, of course) "Maybe you downloaded some movies?…

Is downloading movies illegal?

They can sue for copyright infringement, but since the damages are tiny, they generally don't bother. What's different since the DMCA is that "commercial scale" infringement is now a criminal offense even if you're not making any money. And if you're uploading, say by using a bittorrent client which uploads while you're "downloading", then they could make a criminal case.

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#229

Post by colecut » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 7:58 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #69

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…

If believe if you run GalliumOS vs Crouton it doesnt do that.

This may have changed, but when I used GalliumOS a year ago I still dealt with the white screen

Re: Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook

#230

Post by colecut » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 8:00 PM UTC

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…

Agreed, I bought a used $100 chromebook and installed linux to set up some emulators for my ~6 year old at the time son..

I explained to him how to get around it, but forgot to give his mom the same instructions

It is funny how the "press spacebar" part jumps out at you, but the "to wipe this machine" isn't as obvious to the novice user.