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The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

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Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#41

Post by jwilliams »

swies wrote: post #12

Hi everyone! We'd like to especially encourage any news.yc readers who write windows apps to distribute them via BaseShield. Just get in touch with me at my personal email: pat (at) baseshield.com -- if you want to list it for free we'll get it up right away, if you'd like to charge you'll be at the top of the list once we get payments going. Thanks!

Not sure if you have this on your radar, but this would be useful in the corporate world.

Corporates spend massive amounts on deploying desktop software - and even then it's a painful, risky process. This would assist that process in a lot of ways.

(Edit: And when I say massive - I mean massive. I've seen XP deploys that were in the 10's to 100's of millions. A big chunk of this is software packaging and deploy).

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#42

Post by thorax »

Kaizyn wrote: post #37
staunch wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the purpose of a virtualization layer on top of Windows. To maintain the integrity of your computer in the face of potentially untrustworthy third party applications. You could compare BaseShield to a dating service (app store) that enforces the use of condoms (virtualization). Not that I'm recommending the BS'ers use that analogy though.

Why would anyone need or want this? Running Windows as a standard user and/or Vista's UAC mechanism seems to provide the same functionality. I can see that the virtualization layer is more beneficial if you were trying to make it so applications behaved the same when running on Windows, Mac, or Linux. In this case, you'd be expanding on existing things like Apache's Portable Runtime, Wine or Parallels. However, the b…

It's far more compelling than you think.

There are a number of companies offering this Windows app virtualization layer today in different ways (they actually have a lot of patents on this). Softricity did this and was acquired by Microsoft. Citrix also has their own app virtualization technologies. Symantec acquired AppStream which does this, too. There are some large existing markets for this, though it's vastly enterprise-based.

Streaming apps to your company desktops instead of worrying about what they have installed and how it might conflict is extremely compelling to large corporations, governments, etc.

Baseshield is aiming at the consumer side, probably, but the technology seems very similar to what these other companies provide for the enterprise.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#43

Post by adamsmith »

pg wrote: post #24

I have to salute the Baseshields for their imagination. Originally the virtualization sw was going to be the product. Might still be. But then they realized that, having built it, they could basically take over the delivery of software on Windows. I was blown away when Patrick came by YC to give me a demo. I thought I was going to be seeing a demo of virtualization sw, which, frankly, is not that interesting, and ins…

They could turn it into even more than delivering software on Windows. I'd pay to have a virtualization layer that transports settings/environments across my computers. For example, I like to set up custom keyboard shortcuts in my text editor, but every time I set up a new computer I have to reconfigure all of those settings. That shouldn't be necessary.

BTW I feel like the TC article didn't communicate the key point very well. They didn't mention virtualization until eight sentences in.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#44

Post by illumen »

ivank wrote: post #38
illumen wrote: post #35

I don't really see how you can claim it makes apps safe if you provide access to 3D hardware. Anyone who has done any 3D hardware programming will know that it's easy to crash/exploit through 3D APIs. Having said that... nice one! I see some code I wrote on there is being offered up! So can you please send me the source ;) You should provide any source for binaries you are distributing that require such things... inc…

Can you actually completely take down Vista 64 through 3D APIs, given the user-level drivers? It would be very interesting if you could. The only plausible way I know of is to repeatedly crash the driver for several minutes, and even this is uncertain (I've seen this happen with Forceware + DirectX 10).

Not entirely sure about vista 64.

However I've taken down vista 32 and win XP.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#45

Post by andrewf »

swies wrote: post #12

Hi everyone! We'd like to especially encourage any news.yc readers who write windows apps to distribute them via BaseShield. Just get in touch with me at my personal email: pat (at) baseshield.com -- if you want to list it for free we'll get it up right away, if you'd like to charge you'll be at the top of the list once we get payments going. Thanks!

Have you considered supporting third party "packaging" formats for Windows? Some companies, for instance, have already done the work to package up their product for U3.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#46

Post by kenshi »

This could be awesome if it takes off. I've always thought the biggest barrier to desktop app adoption vs webapp adoption is the problem of finding and deploying apps. If this takes off we could witness a rejuvenation in the market for desktop apps on Windows.

As a developer who is often frustrated by how much application development these days is limited to the capabilities of the browser, something that solves the problem of safely deploying and managing application installs, really appeals.

Good luck Baseshield guys!

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#47

Post by pchristensen »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #14
stcredzero wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithm for determining if there's innovation left for X. Ask yourself these questions: 1) Are there lots of people who really want to use X? 2) Is there something that sucks about X? Your answer is the AND of these two.

You may have a useful algorithm, but it does not determine if there is innovation left for X. It seems to be a function that determines if there is potential profit in innovating for X.

There's always innovation left for X. This algorithm determines if it's worth pursuing.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#49

Post by halo »

A few comments from using it:

* The installer is utterly terrible and gave me no options whatsoever like installation location or where to put icons, which is just outright obnoxious in the Windows world.

* The application installs it itself in C:\Windows\system32\BaseShield\BaseShield\Data\AppStore. This is extremely bad karma - I have /never/ used a legitimate application that did this. Hiding your application amongst the operating system is just something you outright don't do.

* The uninstall is flawed. It did not remove the applications and left data in c:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\BaseShield, c:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\BaseShield\ and c:\Windows\System32\Baseshield\Baseshield. It also did not uninstall the application I installed to test (Abiword), leaving 24 megabytes of data on my hard-disk drive, and I had to uninstall it by hand, along with removing its icon from both my desktop and start menu.

* Using an application's icon in the application stub that launches the main application is dubiously legal at best.

* The user interface is bad, and makes Steam look good, which is a scary state of affairs. Please use Windows-native widgets where possible.

Personally, I would not use, nor recommend anyone use, the application as currently designed.

Re: The BaseShield App Store for Windows launches (YC Winter 08)

#50

Post by swies »

ideamonk wrote: post #48

How do I put my own app on sale on BaseShielf App Store ?

We have a form linked from the front page of the App Store just below the featured apps.

You can also just get in touch with me: pat (at) baseshield.com and we'll get you going quickly. Because of our secure virtualization layer apps can run safely with no modification needed.

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