[idm]

I made a separate account for the Chromebook. I don't associate any personal info with this account. Of course, most people will reuse their existing accounts, but it's not strictly required to provide personal details in order to use a Chromebook.

[mooman219]

Do you have an example of when your were personally attacked with you private data by Google? If you're going to say ads in general, you know targeting can be disabled? I see all this constant distrust towards Google, but they're probably the best example of keeping your data secure. (According to market share) 99% of people are running an OS that collects some amount of telemetry data about them already, but Chrome OS, with a <1% market share is the real offender? People are less vocal about companies that actually lose your data, like Equifax, Facebook, and even Canonical had a data breach. I know it's fun to pick on the biggest players, but mid size and small companies have atrocious security practices that are actually abused.

[zwaps]

It's naive to think the data that is collected about you is harmless if it is secure.

Standard economic theory suggests that precise knowledge about your properties and preferences will, in the future, allow firms to extract the maximum profit from you, to your detriment. Google is already heavily investing the health sector, for example.

Not only does Google have a lot of broad data associated with your person, for example, any symptoms of disease you ever plugged into search, but we are also talking about an OS, which has absolute supremacy about anything you do on that computer.

That is why we should care, and that is why a comparision even to amazon or facebook is not accurate here. In this particular case, the breadth and depth of the possibilities to get data about you are unusual.

And keep in mind we are arguing about an OS that is technically not even open-source.

[throw2016]

Privacy is not just some vague 'great to have' value. The opposite of privacy is surveillance, which democracy by its very definition excludes, but happens to be a key feature of totalitarianism.

Everyone knows the consequences of surveillance, there is no need to wait for consequences to be concerned. The casual disregard and lack of appreciation of the values that make modern societies possible is concerning.

Hand waving away surveillance infrastructure and seeking to normalize invasive surveillance is in the interest of companies like Google who profit from it, but for citizens to be blase suggests a reckless disregard of historical record and the societies they live in.

[mosselman]

It still sounds like something I’d not be interested in: having to be so defensive around the os. Apps are already annoying, but if you can’t trust the OS itself, then why bother with it at all?

[jchw]

That's the reality I feel every time I boot into Windows to be honest. I work at Google so I am definitely biased but candidly those OneDrive ads in Explorer pissed me off pretty badly, as does start menu ads, Cortana notifications, automatically installing Candy Crush, and so many other things. You can disable most of that, but then I hear there's still telemetry getting sent back to MSFT even after you disable every tickbox in site.

Of course, the obvious solution is to run a good Linux distro or OpenBSD, but frankly it's hard to live with purely just Linux for me. ChromeOS has the advantage of things like near perfect High DPI support.

[zwaps]

For what's it worth, I have been using Linux as a side-OS since pre 2000, and only in the last two years has it become really good. It's now my main driver on all my machines and frankly I have started to prefer it.

This has never happened in the ~20 years I have been using Linux and other OS. Linux went from "meh" to just as good pretty recently, imo.

Furthermore, this is just a usability consideration. Don't forget that all other OS become more and more closed, more and more about collecting private data, and more and more about proprietary app stores.

[dingdingdang]

My experience too, we've just started switched 100+ PCs at work over to Linux Mint as a result of this maturation - it's just plain better than Windows now, no ads, no upgrade ruining everything, no telemetry, no ignoring and resetting of user settings. Best of all: consistent software deployment via package management that actually works and does not include malware, adware and other janky sideloaded stuff.

[jchw]

Wayland is still a mess. And I can't share my screen via WebRTC in Wayland, and mixed DPI is still not as functional as Windows and Mac and ChromeOS are. I use Linux regularly, but I don't feel like it's really making much forward progress anymore.

[mosselman]

Exactly. I only use Windows for gaming from time to time and I have to be careful about other things on it. No way to work though so I am happy that Steam is making lots of progress on their wine fork.

[pisky]

I did this for years until Google demanded a phone number in order to log in. (HN thread about it in my history.)