[pkulak]

They are just apps that use the ChromeOS development library (JS, HTML, CSS and some custom APIs). Think of it like Cocoa on OS X. Except they can also run in the Chrome browser on other OSes. I don't understand why people get so riled up about this.

[archagon]

I think people get riled up because the humble browser is rapidly turning into this: http://i.imgur.com/XNRtCGh.jpg

[tadfisher]

So browser extensions are bad now?

When can HN get off the hate train for everything new? This place is seriously starting to depress me.

[archagon]

Well, most browser extensions relate to browsing. Google, on the other hand, is trying to turn the browser into an OS. This is a really big shift that may very well determine the future of computing, so I think there's plenty here for people to get legitimately angry about. Not really the same kind of "hate train" that occasionally shows up on project posts, I think.

[tadfisher]

Are people angry about building an OS that incorporates Chrome? Or are they angry about Web apps shipping on the desktop, turning Chrome into an application platform? These are separate things (Linux does not ship with your desktop browser, for example), and frankly, criticizing either is ignoring the couple of years' worth of successful desktop applications running mostly in embedded WebKit. Making this environment useful through a centrally-controlled and sandboxed runtime and, now, a development toolkit, is simply not worth being angry about at this point.

[techzomby]

What's wrong with the Chrome browser becoming an OS? What you get is a fast and secure OS. Most users spend most of the time on the browser anyways - why not leverage that to make user's lives easier?

[archagon]

I don't know about others, but for me, it just doesn't make any conceptual sense. Would you use Excel as a word processor? Would you use Lightroom for mapping? The modern operating system offers so many amazing frameworks and features; why throw that all away and start anew on a shaky foundation of Javascript, HTML, and insanely complicated rendering code, all originally designed for a completely different purpose?

I prefer my software to adhere to the single responsibility principle as much as possible.

EDIT: Why are you downvoting me? If you disagree, that's what the reply button is for. I'd like to think that HN is better than Reddit.

[epsylon]

Why would I want a crippled, vendor locked-in OS inside my fully capable and free OS?

[coldtea]

>What's wrong with the Chrome browser becoming an OS? What you get is a fast and secure OS.

Citation very much needed.

Fast? It's slower than native, and --for some tasks, like any kind involving multimedia editing-- useless.

Secure? When did OS+browser became more secure than just OS?

[haberman]

> Secure? When did OS+browser became more secure than just OS?

You can't get a virus from visiting a web page.

You don't give a web page access to all your files just by visiting it.

Running a native app requires significantly more trust than running a web app. Web apps are significantly more sandboxed.

[coldtea]

>You can't get a virus from visiting a web page.

You very much can.

In fact, that was one of the most common attack vector for viruses: web browser exploits, from applet bugs to native web browser code buffer overflows and other issues.

[sangnoir]

> Google, on the other hand, is trying to turn the browser into an OS

This isn't new, not since Marc Andreessen said "[Netscape will soon reduce Windows to] a poorly debugged set of device drivers" - in 1995. Which I take to mean he fully intended to make everything above device drivers the domain of the browser.

[pkulak]

It's not an OS, it's a development platform. Linux/Windows/Mac is the OS.

[mbreese]

Is there someway to do standalone installs as well? It seems like that might be against Google's motives in getting everyone to use Chrome as a browser, but it would make it easier to distribute applications in a "traditional" manner.

Plus, it would be nice to have dedicated icons, etc...

[busterc]

https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit

[mbreese]

Can you run Chrome Apps with that though? It looks like it might be just nodejs.

[busterc]

No, you cannot build Chrome Apps with Node-WebKit, but you can target Win/Lin/OSX. See my comments below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6778882

[_urga]

Chrome Apps as far as I know can only be installed via a proprietary web store. You can't actually package them up as an exe or dmg to distribute yourself. They also don't have access to the system tray - they're not really first-class standalone desktop apps.

[bergie]

There is a PhoneGap wrapper for Chrome Apps, which you can probably eventually use also for packaging for the desktop OSs (even though now the focus is understandably on iOS and Android as Chrome apps work on the other platforms):

https://github.com/MobileChromeApps/mobile-chrome-apps