That's true, it is all about marketing.

I don't know much about Open Source, but surely such projects would not require you to register. In fact, is this OS even OpenSource at all?

With Linux you do not register with anyone nor sign any terms and conditions. Some things are free.

I'm curious about this. Sounds interesting. I have always liked Google's UI  [Google Search / and Chrome] So i can't wait if and when they show some screenshots of the new OS.

my wife and I had a discussion about the free linux open source, she works for a company that uses open source on their end user product. What I was told is that the free open source OS requires a little more than superficial knowledge about computers. correct me if I'm incorrect but this is not some *.exe file but a zip file that further needs to be configured, compiled and installed.

my lack of skills would make this an unreasonable consideration.

I don't understand the question.

There is a difference between posting something on the internet and putting something in a folder that can be read/seen by an OS that phones home.  As things stand, Google has to wait for you to go on-line before it can data mine/track your movements, but with its own 'phone home' OS its ability to snoop it infinitely multiplied.  And placing trust in Google's privacy policy is foolhardy to say the least... it does NOT give away 'so-called' free stuff out of the goodness of its heart. 

Google is in the business of amassing as much advertising revenue as it can, and yours and everyone else's data is used to compile demographic charts, etc, to target the general public with what it wants to sell rather than what the public may otherwise want.

I do NOT give Google personal information... nor the consent to use it, yet Google has pages of data on me, as a recent forum thread here revealed.  Shit, they even know my real name... and I certainly didn't give it to them.  So much for their privacy policy!!

Furthermore, I am NOT giving Google information when I visit WC, DA or any other site, yet google analytics is there watching, data mining at every page load.  That is my personal business... my relationship with those particular sites, yet google analytics knows my IP address, location and what I'm looking at.  So tell me, if you can, how that is respecting my privacy? 

I did NOT send Google an open invitation to pry into my surfing habits... so yes, they DO need a warrant/court order to "look around".  Do they have one?  No, they do not!!!  So yes, my argument does fly.

Furthermore, I get targetted with specific 'localised' ads whenever I'm not signed in here at WC.  For example, I made mention of being bitten by a spider in a thread started by Karmagirl (as I recall), and for some time after that, if I got signed out for some reason or other, I'd get pest control ads for Australian pest control companies on just about every page.  There are other examples, but that one comes to mind particularly because I made mention of it and jokingly wanted to know who at Stardock had shares in Aussie pest control.

And while on the subject of unwanted ads, when I did use Google products and services way back when, my email boxes were constantly being inundated with advertising spam/junk mails wanting to sell me shit I didn't want or need.  Now being that I hate advertising with a passion and was told Google was the likely source, I uninstalled the 'phone home' google bar and other products, stopped using google search entirely, and now I rarely get unsoloicited emails.  I still get the occasional fly-by spam that millions of others get also, but for the most part I'm spam free and not deleting 20 - 30 spam-mails a day.

I don't want or need advertising - which is why I rarely watch TV, with constant ads and reality shows aimed at selling you stuff - if I want or need something I go into stores and open my peepers, ask questions and research products/companies at my own volition when I'm ready to buy... I don't need some jumped-up advertising exec telling me what I want and giving me only so many days to purchase it a X-amount.

Linux might be but Google apps are not. No doubt Google will have terms and conditions link to the use of their own programs or services.

I think that Google will probably not require terms and conditions for their OS, but possible for the apps that are used within the OS, perhaps.

For example, Google may have an auto-install manager that looks for programs on the web (like Firefox Addons), provides you with the details, and then asks you to click "I have read the terms and conditions", before installing the app automatically.

I was reading an RSS feed from Betanews.com last night, and saw some very relevant information in an article, entitled, "Google Chrome: Too little, Too Early".

Carmi Levy has this to say:

"The cynic in me believes Google pre-announced its upcoming OS to steal a little bit of Microsoft's thunder and tweak its arch enemy in the months leading up to what some are calling the most crucial product release in the Redmond vendor's history. That same cynic in me believes Google doesn't have anything approaching alpha code at this point, but couldn't resist the urge to rain on Microsoft's parade."

The cynic in me believes him, after-all Google have always wanted competition with somebody.

REDstyler, please stop screwing with the fonts. Not only does it make your posts basically unreadable, it can sometimes break pages in IE (assuming you are copy/pasting from word instead of doing that manually here).

On topic, how fucked up does your company need to be to be LESS trustworthy than Microsoft? Yet Google does it effortlessly.

All ASUS computers come installed with a flashrom chip that has a version of "splashtop" in it..

I have no need for the Chrome browser OS.

If they take the idea of could computing all the way there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to play demigod or whatever else you want on the thing.  Supposedly Onlive is already functional, though I'm skeptical that it could be popular in the US or any other country with a similarly crappy internet backbone until some major infrastructure development takes place (aka not especially soon).

i dont know about this whole ms vs google thing, but i know that my mom and dad use the computer differently than me, and my little brother uses it even more differently than i do. Mom and Dad surf news and weather, not much else, i play some games, do my homework, look things up, email and socialize a little, mod Sins  and sleep.  My little brother plays games and chats, surfs the net looking at guitars, while listening to itunes in his ears and texting with his phone in his lap while he does the rest. Mom and Dad are on maybe an hour a day, im on two or three, my brother is on like 5 or 6. Lotta time.  

But i do notice he uses the web mostly, something like Google might be interesting, and nice if its free.

just my two cents, but remember that im no expert at this, haha, so im just saying what i think.  

-Teal

Microsoft states in its privacy policy that it DOES NOT collect or store personally identifiable data... Google does NOT state this.  In fact, as I recall, there was some public outrage that Google stated in its Chrome browser EULA that by clicking the agree button users consented to the collection and storage of personal search inquiries/surfing habits, etc... meaning the browser has spy and phone home capabilities.

Yeah, right, like that's going to instil and confidence in potential/prospective users.  It's not whether you have anything to hide, but the fact that Google assumes the right to snoop on all your internet activities... and this Chrome OS will just make their prying that much easier. 

The OS will no doubt have phone home capabilities... meaning that not only would your internet activities monitored, but also that the contents of your PC would be accessible to Google.  And it doesn't matter if you're storing personal documents or a drive full of porn, the fact it that it is YOUR property and Google has NO right to view it. That's tantamount to some filthy lecher peering through the keyhole while you shower/take a bath... and Google, given its history, IS that perverse parasite peering through your internet/PC keyhole, if you're naive or foolish enough to believe they're doing you a favour with this 'supposedly free' shiny new OS... it WILL have strings attached.

Wrong. You must agree to the fact that GNU must be respected. If you modify and give out your own version, it must have GNU agreement.

Otherwise its very nice agreement indeed.

Get with the times and use Firefox.

Sorry, I use Firefox, and it looks fine - but I'll stop

Agreed. The license is free open, and I think that one should look at RESPECTING the license, rather than just aggreeing to it.

Naturally, the logical thing to do is not store incriminating or confidential information on your computer. But that doesn't make data harvesting any less disturbing, does it? For those of us in America, what the hell happened to the right to privacy?

Google scans public sites for public info.  That's not infringing on anyone's rights.

At home I have Firefox and use it only for pages people break doing stupid shit like this, because I find it generally inferior to IE, but that's just me. Right now, I'm at work and don't have the option of installing Firefox on a university computer.

Based on that argument, then, my complaint is with WC!!!

So my profile here is public information, is it???   I must be mistaken, then... I thought access to personal pages was reserved for WC subscribers... yet the Google page I was linked to shows info that would only have come from my PP... my full name has never appeared in the forums.

Send me the link and I'll look into it.

I don't recall exactly which thread it was in right now... I just remember clicking on a link that took me to a Google page containing multiple references to me, and reading in one: "starkers aka Mark *******"

I'll try to hunt it down, but I won't use Google to locate the page... against my principles.

yes, it is true that IF the software in question isn't available in the repos, you must manually install it from the source, which is usually provided in a zip file.  However, instead of a *.zip, it is usually a *.tar.gz (they're called tarballs, but are just zip files). Most of the time, you just right-click on them and select "extract here" from the context menu (should be very familiar with Windows users) and then there will usually be a file called "install.sh" or something like that. you just double-click it and when the dialog box pops up, you select 'run'. It's not hard like it used to be, and the learning curve from Windows is very minimal nowadays.  In most cases, the software is available in the repos (most Linux distributions have thousands of programs in their repos) and you can install the software titles with just a few mouse clicks automatically and entirely painlessly (and free).

This is very true. Also, all of the current Linux distros that I know of have Firefox and OpenOffice.org software, and also has eye-candy that beats Windows 10 times over (look at Compiz-fusion's 3D desktop cube...WOW). Linux shouldn't be associated with Google, it is among the most stable and secure operating systems (along with Unix) available anywhere for any price, and it's absolutely free with no strings of any type at all...you can even change it, copy it and sell it.  You programmers out there that love Windows, how about downloading the source code of an entire operating system and play with that for a while? OMG! Try that with Windows.

You folks figured out that I'm a Linux fanboy? LOL I would guess that 90% of everyone who ever trys it will feel the same way.

Jesus christ, that sounds like a mental sickness.

Who do you think you are? And more than that, who do you think can damn cares about you?

God, you can be at best just a little bunch of statistics for Google, nothing more. Do you really think they are going to hunt for your private garbage?

Hmmm, let's see! 

Orright, I are my own person...meaning that what I do and what I share with others is MY business

I are NOT the property of Google... yet Google assumes the right to store my personal data, gathered either via google-analytics or trawling the sites I visit. Now what I put on the forums here is there for all to see, and thus is public knowledge, but when Google covertly collects/stores data via it's web monitoring tools (google-analytics) it is an invasion of my personal privacy. I have NO Google products or services on my PC, nor have I signed any EULA agreements with them, yet they still data mine as if i had, via google-analytics.  Last I heard, law enforcement needed a warrant to *say* tap phones to gather information, so why is it, then, that Google is still being allowed to do what is tantamount to the same thing via 'illegal internet tapping'????

It isn't about whether anybody cares about me or not... it's the principle of the thing.  At no time have I authorised Google to collect or store data on me, yet it does.  It's not about whether or not you can 'google' my name and find references to my WC activities... it's about Google data mining me with the intent to seek profit. If I refuse to use their products and services on the basis that I detest advertising and the Google agenda, there's no way on Earth I'm going to sanction the use of my data for the pupose of seeking to profit.

Again, it's a matter of principle! It's not about whether or not Google specifically hunts for my "personal garbage", it's about Google having the technology and means to snoop/pry into my on-line activities and more... and that being the case, Google more than likely does have personal information on me that I've NOT openly shared and is NOT public knowledge. 

Now I don't give a stuff if people know I once tried pot; visited a particular porn site on such n' such a date; sent my sister a dirty joke... or even that I think Google is the scum of the internet, what I do object to is Google's collection and storage of my personal information, none of which is relevant to Google's continuing operation  More to the point, being that Google is in the business of making money, how long before Google starts selling personal data to the highest bidder??  Oh, that's right, they already do... to corporations seeking your business.  Hmmm, now that is a can of worms just waiting to be opened/exploited by the unscrupulous, isn't it!!!