Will Chrome privacy be illusionary?
The market for software to run your computer with got a little bit more crowded late last week. Google excited software developers by releasing its Google Chrome operating system for them to play with. It's an operating system -- the thing that makes your computer run, kind of like Windows -- but with some key differences. And it has me a little bit worried.
Google was driven to do this because it thinks that many people these days mainly want to do things on the Internet, rather than locally on their hard drives. So it whittled away a lot of the things you'd normally find in an operating system -- the things that take extra time to start when you turn on your computer -- and instead just concentrated on the Internet part. It essentially merged the browser and the operating system together into something thinner, and much faster. The thing will only take a couple of seconds to boot up, apparently, compared to the tens of seconds for conventional computers with desktop operating systems.
Chrome OS is designed to run on low-end netbooks -- those tiny, light computers that are about half the size of a normal laptop -- and Google has said that these machines won't have any hard drives to speak of. They may have a tiny piece of solid state memory, kind of like a USB stick embedded into the netbook, but basically, all the applications and files users will want will be accessed online.
I don't think that Google will lock down access to other online systems. I'm sure users will be able to access online office suites such as Zoho, for example, in addition to Google Apps -- but the point is that because it is a Google operating system, it could well be optimised for Google's applications. Users may be encouraged to use Google's online software rather than other people's.
And when everything that you do on your computer lies within Google's systems, or within the systems that Google's partners use, it will become very easy for the company to document even more information about you on its own computers. Where will this end, and what will it mean for privacy?
Back in 2001, Microsoft proposed a system called Hailstorm. It was a system hosted on a central computer that would talk to lots of other online systems created by other companies. The idea was that no matter who you did business with online -- say, to reserve plane tickets, buy flowers, or book a hotel room -- the services were all talk to each other about who you were and what you were doing, to try and make your life easier. Microsoft eventually canned the service after privacy advocates complained that it would be too intrusive.
Fair enough, but now we have an operating system designed purely to access online services, operated by a company that provides hugely popular online services that are easily accessible by third parties, who in turn built their own services. All of that sounds suspiciously like Hailstorm to me -- and Google is doing all this, apparently with little or no resistance from regulators.
So, how much privacy are you prepared to trade for convenience in this always-on, connected world?
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech and Gadgets
Comments
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Posted by: Runes | Nov 23, 2009 9:34:12 AM
About the time Microsoft was heading towards in Windows 98... they were already looking at merging the desktop with internet and online apps...the Active Desktop was the first trial of this merging. At the same time windows nt4 workstation and server had the option of using profiles and remote desktop so that a user could have a "thin client" a computer with very little memory and even no hard drive..you could boot through a floppy drive or network card and run your apps through a server. None of this tech is new really...they just renivent it and rebrand. Linux and Unix have had the option of booting a thin client for years prior to Microsft and Google. Now for the privacy and security aspect....Never leave personal data on a remote server...never. You can't control that in your workplace but you certainly can at your home....take the time to learn about encryption of your operating system and USE it. Make sure you have a proper password on your login regardless of whenther you are using Linux or Windows. And if you think you are already secure..search for password recovery software for windows and linux...there are free bootable cd's that you can download to reset your passwords in less than 10 minutes.
Know how to properly secure your machine. If you can't protect your data at home how can you expect it to be secure online???
Posted by: Michael | Nov 30, 2009 6:18:31 PM
I completely agree. Google is becoming to big and although Microsoft has learned not to mess around with anti-trust or privacy. Google, hasn't yet. They soon will need to learn that people don't like the fact one company has so much control over what they do and how they do things. Let alone, just how much PERSONAL information they can get from you. Oh yes, they are making my life easier by tracking my habits, but I don't want that. Do I really want something in their database knowing the odd websites I go to? Heck, I'm sure tons of people in the future will have some explaining to do when there websites they visited back in the day are leaked.
Sorry, but I've seen google becoming so big way to quick. I will no longer use them and to be honest feel safer with Microsoft than google. I feel strange saying that, but that's the facts.