Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 109 posts

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#81

Post by Slartie »

jacquesm wrote: post #78
Slartie wrote: post #30

I chuckled at this: > "Do you see the impact you created for thousands of us without any warning or explanation? We are not your test subjects," said an angry sysadmin. "We are running professional services for multi million dollar programs. Do you understand how many hours of resources were wasted by your 'experiment'?" Did you, dear sysadmin, pay anything for Google Chrome? No? Are you in any contractual relation t…

> Did you, dear sysadmin, pay anything for Google Chrome? No? Are you in any contractual relation to Google that covers your use of Chrome? The idea that because you did not pay anything for a product translates into 'you have no rights' really is getting old. Even if you don't pay you have plenty of rights and the provider of the software should not - and in many places can not - walk away claiming that because you…

That is a straw man argument. We are not talking about an incident that may in any way be covered by the rights you might have against Google even though you did only use a free piece of software - like for example the right to not be actively and intentionally harmed by Google (think of using Chrome as trojan horse to infiltrate your network).

I am not doubting that such rights exist. But I am doubting that you have any legal right to demand Google to not enable a generally non-destructive and well-intentioned feature in some randomly chosen installations of the software that just by bad luck happens to have a bug which makes the software non-functional (but not actively harmful) in your particular terminal server environment. There clearly was no malicious intent behind this particular issue, and Google is not obliged to test every single feature on every possible combinations of systems, including every kind of remote terminal solution imaginable.

And, having established that the legal system does not help you here, I additionally doubt that you have any other leverage over Google to make them not do such feature enablements in randomly chosen installations if you don't pay for the software and if you don't happen to be a company of huge size (which might allow you to threaten to switch your hundreds of thousands of users to a different browser). But if you paid for it, Google just might be interested in keeping that cashflow flowing, and thus might be inclined to put the additional effort in to create an option for you to disable these random feature enablements, and/or to disable them outright for the paid Enterprise installations.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#82

Post by jacquesm »

Slartie wrote: post #81
jacquesm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you, dear sysadmin, pay anything for Google Chrome? No? Are you in any contractual relation to Google that covers your use of Chrome? The idea that because you did not pay anything for a product translates into 'you have no rights' really is getting old. Even if you don't pay you have plenty of rights and the provider of the software should not - and in many places can not - walk away claiming that because you…

That is a straw man argument. We are not talking about an incident that may in any way be covered by the rights you might have against Google even though you did only use a free piece of software - like for example the right to not be actively and intentionally harmed by Google (think of using Chrome as trojan horse to infiltrate your network). I am not doubting that such rights exist. But I am doubting that you have…

You wrote "You are not a customer, hence you aren't really in any position to demand anything. "

So don't go around now claiming straw man arguments. Clearly, and you seem to agree, you do have rights, and whether or not that particular right is yours remains to be seen. I can see several ways in which it just might be so that you have that right based on your expectations of performance and that a near-monopolist like Google is walking on very brittle eggs the day they start using their position to perform unsanctioned experiments on the population at large, especially when those experiments can't be opted out of.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#83

Post by jacquesm »

vanadium wrote: post #72
jve wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. > We are running professional services for multi million dollar programs. Do you understand how many hours of resources were wasted by your 'experiment'? -- Angry sysadmin Well, do they pay Google for testing in their environment? Chrome is a free-to-use product. Their rollout strategy is good. Not that they experiment in prod - the flag was in beta for 5 months. And then they turned that on in prod for %1 user…

Making experiments opt-in seems like a good first step, no? As it is, there wasn’t even a clear opt-OUT.

Was there any opt-out at all? Even an unclear one would do, then at least users can point each other to the option.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#84

Post by curryst »

jve wrote: post #35
Slartie wrote: post #30

I chuckled at this: > "Do you see the impact you created for thousands of us without any warning or explanation? We are not your test subjects," said an angry sysadmin. "We are running professional services for multi million dollar programs. Do you understand how many hours of resources were wasted by your 'experiment'?" Did you, dear sysadmin, pay anything for Google Chrome? No? Are you in any contractual relation t…

Yeah. > We are running professional services for multi million dollar programs. Do you understand how many hours of resources were wasted by your 'experiment'? -- Angry sysadmin Well, do they pay Google for testing in their environment? Chrome is a free-to-use product. Their rollout strategy is good. Not that they experiment in prod - the flag was in beta for 5 months. And then they turned that on in prod for %1 user…

> Their rollout strategy is good.

Their rollout strategy was bad. They tested it on 1% of beta users for a month. They should have ramped it to 100% in beta before thinking about prod. Maybe 1% for a week, 25% for a week, 75% for a week then 100% for a week.

Then think about enabling it in prod. Testing on a subset of the subset of people that run beta is not enough to validate the functionality.

Even then, they probably should have done a ramp in prod as well. There are certain configurations that seem unlikely to be tested in beta. VDI is one that comes to mind. Headless operations also seem less likely to be running the beta build.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#85

Post by Slartie »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
Slartie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a straw man argument. We are not talking about an incident that may in any way be covered by the rights you might have against Google even though you did only use a free piece of software - like for example the right to not be actively and intentionally harmed by Google (think of using Chrome as trojan horse to infiltrate your network). I am not doubting that such rights exist. But I am doubting that you have…

You wrote "You are not a customer, hence you aren't really in any position to demand anything. " So don't go around now claiming straw man arguments. Clearly, and you seem to agree, you do have rights, and whether or not that particular right is yours remains to be seen. I can see several ways in which it just might be so that you have that right based on your expectations of performance and that a near-monopolist li…

It is a straw man because you are obviously dragging this into the realm of defending against malicious intent from Google, which clearly does not apply here. The near-monopolist argument by which you attempt to construct a "right" to demand anything more than omission of malicious behavior does not hold water: Google does not have a monopoly (or a near-monopoly) on the browser market, there are Firefox and Edge, of which both are fit for use in enterprise environments, regularly patched and compatible with practically any website out there, including even those from Google.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#87

Post by davvolun »

Slartie wrote: post #30

I chuckled at this: > "Do you see the impact you created for thousands of us without any warning or explanation? We are not your test subjects," said an angry sysadmin. "We are running professional services for multi million dollar programs. Do you understand how many hours of resources were wasted by your 'experiment'?" Did you, dear sysadmin, pay anything for Google Chrome? No? Are you in any contractual relation t…

Exactly, and when the workaround is "just use one of the other 3 or 4 major browsers that are probably already installed on your work computer" (and if you're using an enterprise setup as mentioned in the article, you've probably got 2 or 3 things that are still locked into IE, probably IE6 for some stupid reason).

If your business is so locked into using Chrome, and specifically Chrome, and you aren't paying money to Google to ensure it keeps working as you need it, then you have only yourself to blame.

(And yes, being unable to disable the experiments thing, and not giving any warning before-hand, is a mistake on Google and the Chrome teams part, and hurts Chrome's enterprise-ready image, but that doesn't refute the point above).

If an essential piece of your business relies on something you have no control over, then you only have yourself to blame when that reliability fails and you can't fix it. Cost of doing business, at worst.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#88

Post by datavirtue »

BuckRogers wrote: post #7

I’ve seen Chrome in so many corporate environments and never understood why. Native browsers work fine and are crafted to work reliably in the environment they’re used in. My guess is some admins simply like Chrome and thus decided everyone should. I like Firefox but I keep it at home, at work I use Microsoft Edge.

Largest Corp in America here. Looking at three modern browsers on my machine right now. I think IE is even tucked away somewhere so I have four at my fingertips. Zero trust or love for Chrome.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#89

Post by colejohnson66 »

Slartie wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote "You are not a customer, hence you aren't really in any position to demand anything. " So don't go around now claiming straw man arguments. Clearly, and you seem to agree, you do have rights, and whether or not that particular right is yours remains to be seen. I can see several ways in which it just might be so that you have that right based on your expectations of performance and that a near-monopolist li…

It is a straw man because you are obviously dragging this into the realm of defending against malicious intent from Google, which clearly does not apply here. The near-monopolist argument by which you attempt to construct a "right" to demand anything more than omission of malicious behavior does not hold water: Google does not have a monopoly (or a near-monopoly) on the browser market, there are Firefox and Edge, of…

From the dictionary:

> straw man (n):

> an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.

So, no, it isn’t a straw man because he’s not manipulating/misrepresenting your argument. Whether an argument is about defending malicious behavior or not has no bearing on whether or not it’s a straw man.

Re: Google Chrome experiment crashes browser tabs, impacts companies worldwide

#90

Post by Slartie »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #89
Slartie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a straw man because you are obviously dragging this into the realm of defending against malicious intent from Google, which clearly does not apply here. The near-monopolist argument by which you attempt to construct a "right" to demand anything more than omission of malicious behavior does not hold water: Google does not have a monopoly (or a near-monopoly) on the browser market, there are Firefox and Edge, of…

From the dictionary: > straw man (n): > an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument. So, no, it isn’t a straw man because he’s not manipulating/misrepresenting your argument. Whether an argument is about defending malicious behavior or not has no bearing on whether or not it’s a straw man.

Moving the argument, which has been about a user of a free software program having neither an actual nor a moral capability of demanding that the free software fits their particular needs (which in this case means to work as a critical part of their business and continue working as such under their particular environment) into the legal realm and making it into a proposition that a user of a free software has no rights at all, not even legal rights to defend against malicious behavior of the producer of the software, is an intentional misrepresentation of the argument, and it is easier to defeat than the actual argument since there are clearly such defensive rights.
Post reply on HN