[TheTaO]

> This is a colossal, market-moving play from Google.

Is it that or is it just an effort to stay relevant? If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does and has a full OS for a few bucks more, would you do it? There are tons of tablets from HP/Dell that cost 100-200$ and run full windows OS and have comparable specs to the Chromebooks. As far as I know they are selling quite well. I am wondering if this is Google responding to that pressure.

[ntakasaki]

It's sad to see folks celebrating computing devices that are more extremely locked down than even the iDevices. A Windows PC/laptop is much more open than a Chromebook.

Can Mozilla even make a Firefox browser for ChromeOS? Only Google can make system and native apps, unlike the iDevices where you can access most of the native functionality even if you have to go through Apple's approval and you're not forced to upload all your information into Google's cloud with paltry local storage like 64GB on even a 1500 dollar machine where the information is mined by Google and is accessible to various parties like the Government. They now even track which retail stores people visit using their Android phones or iPhones. http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/

Looks like user and developer freedom are a big concern only when Apple or Microsoft infringe it(even though Win32 is much more open than ChromeOS, after all Google exploited it with the Chrome browser and bundling it with Flash and Java updates), but Google gets a free pass to lock everything down and still call itself open.

[nightpool]

Actually, I upvoted this, but on reflection I think this is wrong. Here's why:

 - Most Chromebooks are freely bootloader unlocked, allowing any operating system to be loaded on them.

 - ChromeOS follows the same open source model as Chrome—Most core features open, with things like Flash/Wildvine/API keys held secret.

 - There are no native apps on ChromeOS—the correct question is not "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS", its "Can Mozilla write an app for ChromeOS" and "Can Mozilla write a browser for Chromebooks". Both of these statements are absolutely true.

So I fail to see how Chromebooks are "more extremely locked down" than iDevices.

[noteloop]

> There are no native apps on ChromeOS

This is not correct, you can run native apps for Chrome OS via Native Client (NaCL) or App Runtime for Chrome (ARC).

VLC, a poster child for native apps, will be released for Chrome OS in a few months using ARC.

Anandtech has already tested a beta version: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9082/the-chromebook-pixel-2015...

[jorgearturo]

> Anandtech has already tested a beta version

It's an interesting experiment but I don't think Google is aiming to please the crowd with the need for "native apps" anyways and they wouldn't be terribly interested in keeping the native VLC dependencies alive and/or compatible. It seems pretty obvious to me that Google is trying to push the mainstream consumer market into a "cloud computing/services lifestyle", it only makes sense because their whole business model revolves around web users. So VLC is out, Netflix/Playstore is in.

Not for me, don't get me wrong, I'm not that kind of consumer and it may be safe to state that most people within the HN crowd isn't either. I'm personally following and waiting for the Novena[1] laptop and open hardware to be launched.

Even if chromeOS is removed and Gnu/Linux is loaded instead, chromebooks' keyboards look abysmally ugly and useless to me, otherwise I would at least be excited about the inexpensive hardware.

So yeah, as a consumer I can distill my opinion about this product to "meh...", but as a web developer though, that's a different story, the possibility of Google hardware converting handheld mobile users to desktop-ish mobile users and reaching a broader international audience makes me almost enthusiastic about Chromebooks.

After all, until some potentially better hardware project (Firefox OS [2] or Indie Phone [3], who knows) expands to the netbook-ish form factor ("Lapfox"?/"Indiebook"?), the not-so-open inexpensive Chromebook hardware & affordable by hundreds of millions (potentially billions, we'll see) introduces and welcomes new demographics to the web and is better for the world (in the short run) than almost-fully-open expensive hardware that only a few million can afford (for now), don't you think?

[1]: https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop

[2]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/

[3]: https://ind.ie/about/

[fpgeek]

Hmm... If you can port VLC to Chrome OS with ARC, I wonder what happens if you try to shove Firefox for Android into it. Are there fundamental roadblocks that would prevent it from working, or would you just end up with a slow and buggy waltzing bear?

[amaranth]

I suspect their sandbox doesn't allow code generation since they statically verify you aren't using instructions they can't protect against and that would break it. That means that while you could probably get a Firefox running, it'd be with a Javascript interpreter, not a JIT.

[boulos]

While I don't work on any of the related pieces, it should be noted that NaCL has dynamic "check this code" support precisely so you can JIT-compile code and execute it safely.

[largote]

You'd have Firefox running on top of Chrome, so that doesn't make that much sense.

[KeytarHero]

> There are no native apps on ChromeOS—the correct question is not "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS", its "Can Mozilla write an app for ChromeOS"

Exactly - ChromeOS is a browser. "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS" makes about as much sense as "Can Mozilla write a browser for Chrome" or "Can Google write a browser for Internet Explorer".

...or it would have made that little sense before Mozilla wrote a browser in html: https://github.com/mozilla/browser.html

[jrockway]

The fact that the Chromium process is what's compositing windows is relatively uninteresting to the end user. It's Linux with a different GUI system. Ubuntu is ditching X11 also, as I understand it, so people other than Google appear to be prepared to redo Linux GUIs.

There's Native Client, so you can write native code. I believe there are things like Emacs for NaCl, though Emacs is relatively useless until someone also ports your favorite programming language, version control, etc. to this model. For programmers, it's tough to have to redo everything, and because we tend not to use the ability to run unaudited native code to install viruses on our machine, it seems like a lot of work for no reason. For the end user, though, things are a bit different. It's a long road but ultimately computers that are easier to use and get fewer viruses is a worthy goal, I think.

Someone could port Firefox to ChromeOS if they found it to be interesting. It would probably be quite difficult, however.

I use ChromeOS as my primary workstation because it removes a lot of headaches I have with computers. I hate configuring things. I just want a terminal with Emacs and a web browser. ChromeOS gives me this. I log into my laptop and it has the exact same configuration as my desktop.

ChromeOS auto-updates and takes 8 seconds to reboot afterwards. It doesn't nag me about auto-updates or checking that Windows Defender is up to date. All my work is saved somewhere other than my desktop/laptop, so if I lose the computer or get another one all I have to do is log in again.

It's very much a thin-client thing, which some people hate, but I find quite suitable for my normal workflow. sshing into a Linux box is generally great for doing work. Using the GUIs is an effort in frustration. ChromeOS solved that issue for me. (Yup, I need an Internet connection to get to my ssh-able Linux box somewhere. I always have one.)

If you are convinced Google is out to get you with configuration syncing, SSH clients that run "in a web browser" (but are native code and preserve all keybindings that you're used to), and "cloud storage" then ChromeOS is probably not for you. Enter developer mode (one keypress) and install your favorite Linux distribution instead -- all the patches necessary to make the devices work are in the open source tree, and unlike with Linux on random Windows laptops, your WiFi will work and you'll get the advertised battery life.

I have given ChromeOS laptops to family members where my previous attempts at giving them computers have failed. A year later their laptops are running the latest version of the OS and didn't have any viruses. I even got them using two-factor authentication with security keys! I was surprised.

Disclaimer: I work on ChromeOS as my 20% project. But I work on it because it solved a lot of my computing problems and I find it worth my time. I wouldn't waste my time advocating to help my employer sell $149 laptops.

[wstrange]

Totally agree on the family thing.

I purchased my 88 year old father a chromebook two years ago.

It just works, and is the only computer he has not messed up.

Highly recommended.

[Scarbutt]

I guess the terminal is just a browser tab? can the configs made to the browser terminal tab persist? like font, text size, color, etc...

Also, when running emacs in the terminal through ssh, doesn't emacs keybindings interfere to much with chromeos's browser?

[jrockway]

Apps running in a window can capture whatever keys they want. So Control-W is interpreted by your shell/app, not by the browser (closing the window). In a tab the browser keybindings still exist, so be sure to set "open in new window" by right-clicking the app before running.

Terminal settings are configurable and persistent.

You can have as many windows open as you like.

Here's the app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

It works on any machine running Chrome. Things don't quite work right on MacOS, I'm told, but it seems native on Windows and Linux. (And CrOS of course.)

[bandrami]

> Can Google write a browser for Internet Explorer

Sure they could; it would just be an ActiveX control, or whatever they call that this week.

[zyx321]

They could, and they pretty much did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_Frame

[aikah]

> - Most Chromebooks are freely bootloader unlocked, allowing any operating system to be loaded on them.

So do most Windows Notebooks. I just bought one recently at 250$, installed Linux. so there is nothing special about chromebooks in this regard.

[russjr08]

They weren't saying such.

"So I fail to see how Chromebooks are 'more extremely locked down' than iDevices."

[michaelt]

  There are no native apps on ChromeOS—the correct question
  is not "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS"

Ah, so we're back to "the browser and the OS are inextricably linked, so the browser can't be replaced with a competing product" ?

It's just like the old days!

[sireat]

Which Chromebooks are freely bootloader unlocked?

I am asking because it was a major pain to get Lubuntu installed on Acer C720, Windows is not an option at all.

Chromebooks feel extremely locked down I'd say close to iDevices.

[haberman]

> Can Mozilla even make a Firefox browser for ChromeOS?

Can Google even make a Chrome browser for FirefoxOS?

All of the PR surrounding the creation of FirefoxOS lauded how it was completely open because it was built on standards like HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

But when Google does the same thing, it is an example of "locking everything down while still calling itself open."

Mozilla has been arguing for years that compile-to-JavaScript is good enough (and based their opposition to NaCl/PNaCl on this principle). It is strange to see argument here against Google that "only true native will do", when that argument is what motivated NaCl/PNaCl to begin with.

[e12e]

> when Google does the same thing, it is an example of "locking everything down while still calling itself open."

Well, Mozilla have a proven track record of providing a self-host alternative for their cloud platform (the main reason I'm using Firefox sync -- with Mozilla servers -- is that I could set up a proof-of-concept sync server[1] on my own hw, see that, yes it does work fine. Contrast that with what Google does ("We have a magic database, here's some of the ideas behind it; sorry you can't host your own, so all our service tech will remain proprietary").

I use Chromium from time to time, but I don't use Chrome -- and I avoid logging in to Google services when I can.

I've been waiting for a Cyanogen-mod for my current phone, because I don't like running stock Android in it's sort-a-open, mostly-closed state -- not to mention the amount of spyware that ships with the platform (it doesn't help that Samsung ships its own software too -- which I'm assuming contains its share of bugs).

Try building a working phone kernel+userland with whatever Google+partner have released and try and convince me that they're good at doing "open".

I hope they will keep the dev-mode for all chromebooks -- and that they'll make it easier to boot into custom kernels without a boot-up delay etc -- but I'm not holding my breath.

[1] I actually ran the previous one, but I'll be setting up an updated one, as soon as I move "into" my new server.

[ntakasaki]

Folks aren't talking about FirefoxOS replacing laptops or desktops though, unlike Chromebooks, if you follow this thread. Nor does Mozilla do a lot of cloud business nor is it in the business of tracking users for advertizing purposes.

The PC software ecosystem has been open historically, even with Windows and OS X, and now there's talk of it being replaced by a completely closed alternative

[haberman]

> now there's talk of it being replaced by a completely closed alternative

If Mozilla and Google both do X, but Mozilla's actions are judged as "open" while Google's are judged as "completely closed," then the words open and closed are losing their meaning.

How does Google's other business activities affect whether, in principle, an HTML/JavaScript-based OS is "open" or "closed"?

Yes, it's true that OS platforms are moving towards sandboxing their apps more and more. This is mainly being driven by market forces, because more sandboxed platforms offer important features:

    - more resistant to malware

    - more secure (one stupid little app can't steal/delete all your data)

But no one is taking away your Windows or OS X boxes. If people keep wanting them, manufacturers will keep making them.

And while mainstream consumer devices are moving towards being more sandboxed, the ability to tinker is being addressed in other ways, like Raspberry Pi, which are very cool in their own way.

[georgemcbay]

You are kind of conflating a few different issues here.

iDevices are locked down for the purposes of Apple maintaining iron-fisted control over the platform at the expense of both developers and end-users. Chromebooks are locked down for end-user security and ease-of-administration.

Chromebooks allow the end-user to unlock the bootloader and/or run them in developer mode if they really want to do that (and this is all well documented by Google, not akin to jailbreaking), and pretty much the only reason a lot of developers even consider Chromebooks as full laptop replacements is for this reason.

Want to run Firefox on a Chromebook? Install crouton (a project developed by a Google employee) and just go ahead and run Firefox, works fine, just like any other Linux app. Google does nothing to stop this (in fact, they go out of their way to make tools to enable it), they just put enough friction into it to let you know that when you do this all bets are off as to the security of the chroot you are running native Linux apps in.

[threeseed]

> Apple maintaining iron-fisted control over the platform at the expense of both developers and end-users.

There are legitimate benefits to having a locked down platform which Apple (and developers/consumers) have decided is worth the negatives. There are zero viruses or malware on iOS compared to quite a few on Android. The quality of applications is significantly higher on iOS because (a) developers have a consistent platform to optimize for and (b) majority of iOS users are more than likely on the latest release.

This approach is working so well for Apple that Google, Samsung and Microsoft are all trying to emulate it.

[georgemcbay]

I honestly don't see any real benefits of Apple's lock-down approach compared to ChromeOS's lock-down approach. Users who want the full security of ChromeOS can use it as it ships and be happy, users who want to live on the wild side can fairly trivially (but with enough effort that they don't do it on accident) break the locks.. best of both worlds, user gets to decide how much they want to live in a locked box.

I don't disagree that there are benefits to the consistency of the Apple ecosystem versus that of Android, but all of those benefits are rooted in Google's lack of control of what phone vendors do with the OS (though they have been working to change that), not lack of control of users or app developers.. the entire jailbreaking ecosystem proves that such freedom doesn't harm the people who want the safe thing, it is just a shame they are forced to constantly fight against the phone vendor (on the Apple side) to keep things open whereas Google (usually -- they've been uncharacteristically dickish with Chromecast hardware) usually goes out of their way to allow the user to run free if they want to.

[afarrell]

And these advantages are meaningful not just for the companies, but for the end-user. Most users don't want to root their own machines, they just want a machine that can help them live their lives, make ends meet, and learn more about their world. A virus that bricks the machine keeps them from doing that.

Of course, for some 15-year-old girl in Jakarta, "learn more about their world" may in fact mean rooting their machine so they can deal with grotty Unix details and 8 years down the road build on that to for an MEng thesis and then startup.

[yohui]

> Nor does Mozilla do a lot of cloud business nor is it in the business of tracking users for advertizing purposes.

What does that have to do with how open the devices are?

[zobzu]

nacl is not exactly "standard"

[geofft]

> Can Mozilla even make a Firefox browser for ChromeOS?

Sure, Native Client's there and should have all the functionality you need. It'll technically be running inside Chrome, but so is everything else like the settings dialog.

[Zikes]

https://github.com/mozilla/browser.html

[dao-]

That's merely a browser GUI, not a full browser with a Javascript and rendering engine and whatnot.

[KeytarHero]

> Can Mozilla even make a Firefox browser for ChromeOS?

Apparently they can: https://github.com/mozilla/browser.html

[malkia]

There is crouton. Just github it.

[ntakasaki]

Just because you can replace an OS does not mean it's open. It's about the ecosystem too. How much percentage of Chromebooks could be running Crouton or Linux? I wager less than 2%.

[yohui]

And how many Windows users installed Linux? If it's easier to run Linux or use Crouton on a Chromebook, then that's an argument against the view that they're less open than Windows or iOS.

[EddieRingle]

You're wrong. 100% of Chromebooks are running Linux. If you don't want to use Crouton you can bootstrap Linuxbrew and have access to pretty much any program you'd have on any other Linux distribution.

[anonbanker]

not just Linux, but Gentoo Linux. the one everyone used to make fun of[1] before Google made it acceptable, and the only one not going the systemd route.

1. http://funroll-loops.teurasporsaat.org/

[Sargos]

You can't release Firefox for an iDevice either as Apple does not allow native code that you need for Gecko so they are about equal in ability to run system apps front.

Chromebooks also run Android apps so in the near future there will be a lot more flexibility in what kinds of either web apps or Android apps you can develop. Firefox already runs on Android and presumably will be available for Chrome OS within this year.

[amyjess]

Apple allows native code. What they don't allow is the use of any other rendering engine besides WebKit.

[tkubacki]

and that's fucking stupid - because web browsers can't compete on iOS

[Tloewald]

Sure Apple allows native code.

Apple doesn't allow third-party interpreters/compilers if they can run code from untrusted sources (Codea and some Python environments get around it by only running locally written code).

[VikingCoder]

> If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does

That's not remotely true.

When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a very nice box.

And the number of zero-day exploits, viruses, keyboard loggers is way smaller for a Chrome OS machine. And the update process is a painless reboot. And I'm not helping them try to read data off of a dead hard drive (because it's in the cloud.) And if they want a second or a third, all of their data is visible on all of them. And the battery is great, the wifi works great, the build quality is great. Get them hooked up with two-factor protection, and their accounts and data are pretty well protected.

You're viewing the Chrome OS machines and their competitors, from a tech-savvy super-user standpoint. Many people don't need, don't want, and are hindered by that flexibility and power.

The maintenance cost on a "full OS" is higher than the maintenance cost on a Chrome OS. Period.

[Tloewald]

One of the problems I run into when recommending Chromebooks (I tried to convince my 75 year old mother, for example) is that almost every user turns out to have a need for something you can't do on a Chromebook. It ends up being a 90% solution for 90% of people, rather than a 100% solution for 80% of the people.

[mkozlows]

The thing is, most people are replacing a junky old Windows laptop that's just too slow/malware-ridden to use anymore, right? Keep that thing around, drag it out when you need that 5% app, and use the Chromebook the rest of the time.

I mean, if you buy a tablet, you don't worry that it can't print out Excel documents, right? It's still the best device for doing what you're doing with it. So with a Chromebook -- it's a better general-web-use device than a Windows laptop, particularly at the price points that Chromebooks live at.

[Tloewald]

I think most people want one device not two, and they want to improve their experience with everything, not just most things. While a Chromebook met 90% of my mother's needs, the 10% of functionality it lacked was 75% of her usage.

[Tloewald]

Trying to reply to sibling post:

She works as an interpreter/translator and needs to be able to write documents in multiple language systems (e.g. non-Latin alphabets) in a way she understands.

[VikingCoder]

What was she trying to do?

For me, it's the camera-printer link that keeps messing me up.

[wstrange]

A google cloud print enabled printer solves the printing issue.

[72deluxe]

The Google printer "solution" has always struck me as an exceedingly stupid solution. I have a local microcomputer, and a local printer yet the solution is to send my data to the other side of the world and then push it back on to the printer I am stood looking at? Why? It's stupid. Why not talk directly to the printer without the requirement of an Internet connection?

The same goes for sending files via Dropbox to someone next to you on an iDevice. Since it's very difficult for me to send data from my Android device to my wife's iPad or even from my MacBook to my wife's iPad3, the "solution" is to send it to the other side of the world on to Dropbox's servers for her to retrieve it.

Back in thte 50s when people had visions of an interconnected world and a utopian human future, filled with spaceflight and wonder, I am pretty sure they didn't have visions of needlessly sending data through 50+ network nodes just to get it back again on a device right next to them.

It's so stupid; if you had proposed this "solution" 20 years ago they'd have laughed you out of the room, yet today Chromebooks ("store all of YOUR data ELSEWHERE! Struggle to get it back! Find it impossible to send to a device NEXT TO YOU!") and the associated cloud solutions are all the rage.

It's stupid.

[VikingCoder]

When I send an email to my boss, it goes up to Google servers.

That's how cloud stuff works. Picking on cloud printers in particular is raging at the wind.

[JoshTriplett]

> When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a very nice box.

If you really need Office, and not just Google Docs, you can actually run Office on a Chromebook.

[VikingCoder]

Yeah, but Office in the browser is worse than Google Docs, in my opinion.

[Mikeb85]

Chromebook sales are constantly rising.

With the eventual capability that they'll be able to run Android programs, as well as PNaCl and Emscripten borrowing from each other and getting better offering opportunity for tons of apps to be ported to the web, and then of course HTML5 and Js becoming the technology of choice for all sorts of apps, Chromebooks are the eventual future.

Maybe they're not the present, but they ARE the future.

And this is the main thing - for millions (hundreds of millions, maybe billions soon), a smartphone is their first entry to the internet. Probably an Android. When they see the Chrome logo in a laptop they can afford, and they already like the Android/Chrome ecosystem, they'll buy it, versus Windows which is associated with viruses, scams, piracy, etc...

Keep in mind Googles current business is still search. The net they're casting has nothing to do with the present, they're gunning for 7 billion people to associate them with computing, and to create the new future of computing.

Go to the third world. Yes some families have cheap PCs running pirated XP, but every kid has a cheap smartphone that they can connect to the internet with. They all have Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc...

[ssmoot]

> "Maybe they're not the present, but they ARE the future."

That reminds me of Sun in the early 90's.

I'm not saying you're wrong. But I don't think it's inevitable you're right either. Especially since browser UI toolkits are still stuck in the stone age compared to native counterparts.

Until that gets fixed, I actually think it's probably just wishful thinking.

[Mikeb85]

How ubiquitous is Java? Containers, VMs, etc..., ARE all the rage. Sun was correct as to what technology belongs to the future, they just couldn't position their company properly. Odds are we're all using technology that's part of Sun's legacy...

[ssmoot]

That wasn't the vision that I recall. Maybe part of some of it, but I'm talking about the Internet Terminal idea.

A lot of cool things came out of Sun. I don't think this was one. Have you tried Web IDEs? They're probably decades behind their desktop counterparts.

[Mikeb85]

> Maybe part of some of it, but I'm talking about the Internet Terminal idea.

I'm pretty young, so I was woefully ignorant of this. However the more I read about it, the more it sounds like 'Cloud computing' and 'internet of things'. In fact, Chrome OS isn't too far from their Java Internet Terminal idea.

> Have you tried Web IDEs? They're probably decades behind their desktop counterparts.

I have. My main IDE, and probably my favourite ever, is R Studio which runs in a Webview (or as a webpage) and uses Ace for editing. Two fairly popular upstart IDEs, LightTable and Atom both use web technology. I quite enjoy Caret as well.

Not sure why you think they're decades behind. If anything the fact they're as advanced as they are is impressive, given most have been developed only in the last few years, whereas Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc..., have been around much longer.

[ssmoot]

> In fact, Chrome OS isn't too far from their Java Internet Terminal idea.

That's what I was getting at. That was 19 years ago.

> Not sure why you think they're decades behind.

I was thinking in person-hours. I don't mean to belittle them. But I feel like these are mostly "JustAnotherTextMate".

[flinty]

any good sources on sun's history?

[sjtechie]

You mean like Atom? A lot of the web IDEs are pretty good nowadays. Not decades behind desktop software.

[ssmoot]

No. Atom is a text-editor with plugins. It's no more a competitor for IntelliJ than UltraEdit was a competitor to Visual Studio.NET. (IMO)

But I was actually talking about in-browser environments like CodeAnywhere.

[akhilcacharya]

Are there any decent modern ones at all? I'm looking for a few, but don't want to re-invent the wheel.

[kowdermeister]

There are orders of magnitude more UI kits for HTML/CSS then there are for native.

[cwyers]

Is that because HTML/CSS UIs are more robust and advanced than native UI frameworks? Or because native UI framekits solved all the problems that the vast cornucopia of HTML/CSS UI frameworks are still struggling to solve? Or because everybody looks at all the HTML/CSS frameworks, decides none of them solve their problem, and decides to write their own?

[kowdermeister]

It's because it's so easy to create your own. HTML/CSS is very accessible, well tested by lots and lots of small communities.

There are many HTML/CSS frameworks that are doing really great job and not struggling at all. It all depends of course on what you want to do, but finding a good kit that solves your problem is definitely not the bottleneck of creating a modern HTML UI based application.

[aikah]

> There are orders of magnitude more UI kits for HTML/CSS then there are for native.

of course you need them because working directly with hTML/CSS is total crap.

[ssmoot]

I don't think you can compare Angular with Cocoa.

[ntakasaki]

>Chromebook sales are constantly rising

Where are the real shipping numbers from Google then? Surely they must know the numbers? Why won't they release it then? The only reason I can think of could be that they aren't all that great.

[Mikeb85]

You do realise that Asus, Lenovo, HP, etc... sell Chromebooks, right? Google sells very few branded as a 'Google' product.

The numbers are out there, but Google isn't releasing numbers because they're a tiny vendor.

[ntakasaki]

You mean Google does not know exactly how many Chromebooks are being sold by Asus, Lenovo, HP, etc?

[Mikeb85]

They probably do, but all those are public companies. They all report sales a certain way. Google isn't going to mess with reporting sales that other companies are making. That's irresponsible.

[jhall1468]

No. Why would they? You think Asus, Lenovo and HP are giving sales data to Google?

[jeromegv]

They do know about Android activations, it's not so far fetched.

[robotresearcher]

All the Chromebooks phone home regularly checking for updates, etc. Google knows exactly how many have been used and are in use now.

[acchow]

I don't have a Chromebook, but I think you have to sign into a Google account to use a Chromebook, so surely they have the numbers?

[kaared]

You can use it in guest mode without a Google account or other authentication. I don't remember if you need to explicitly set it up to do that, though.

I'm sure Google has the numbers since the Chromebooks/Chromeboxes auto-update (part of the whole point, really) so given that they likely have unique device IDs (or ethernet MAC addresses), the 'live devices count' would be rather easy to figure out.

[scholia]

"Chromebooks in Q3 2013 had at best a 1.2 percent share of the PC market and a 0.76 percent share of the combined PC-tablet market."

Latest IDC figures show Chromebooks continue to struggle http://www.zdnet.com/article/latest-idc-figures-show-chromeb...

[mkozlows]

Q3 2013 is a long time ago. According to NPD, Chromebooks had 14% market share in 2014, counting retail and commercial (read: education) channels. Growth was up 85% year over year, too, which is amazing in the context of a stagnant/declining laptop market.

http://betanews.com/2015/02/24/2015-is-year-of-the-chromeboo...

[scholia]

NPD is a less reliable source covering a much smaller market (not that any of them are reliable).

[scholia]

Chromebook sales are about 1% of all PC sales, says ABI Research http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/22/chromebook...

Different source, different paper, different journalist, same conclusion.

The idea that Chromebooks sell in volume is delusional, at this point, and downvotes won't make it any less delusional.

[Mikeb85]

You can spin it all sorts of ways. Keep in mind the 'PC' market includes all those legacy Windows XP computers which are languishing in peoples homes, businesses, corporations, etc...

Chromebook sales are a much bigger part of current PC sales. And vendors do keep expanding their Chromebook lines. If it was a failure they wouldn't.

[millstone]

The "PC market" refers to current sales. "Installed base" is the term for the metric that includes the languishing WinXP machines.

[Mikeb85]

Ah yeah you're right. The 1% came from some guy extrapolating Samsung's sales of Chromebooks to mean the whole Chromebook market...

[foxylad]

I just bought a Chromebook for my parents-in-law, even though there were slightly cheaper Windows laptops. The reason? I'm off the hook for support. No malware issues, no backups, no nothing - worst case the thing lets out the magic smoke, you buy a new one and log in again.

And that's why the education sector is flocking to these things. OK, the price is good, but when you factor in order of magnitude less support costs, it's a very compelling proposition.

[eertami]

> If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does and has a full OS for a few bucks more, would you do it?

Are there really any sub-200$ Windows laptops that have 10 hour battery life on an 8 second boot?

I find that pretty hard to believe. Maybe they have similarly specced components but the experience will be much worse.

[aikah]

> 10 hour battery life on an 8 second boot?

8 second boot ,frankly who cares ? my windows machine takes 40 second to boot sure, but I boot it like 2 times a week.

10 hour battery life ? maybe on idle, I bet this thing doesn't last 10 hours with 50 tabs opened or when playing youtube videos ...

I can't believe there are still people defending that stuff, it's netbooks all over again but worse cause it's only a browser ...

Or we are on full astroturfing mode like anytime there is a Chromebook thread on HN i'm not sure.

[nl]

10 hour battery life ? maybe on idle, I bet this thing doesn't last 10 hours with 50 tabs opened or when playing youtube videos ...

You are right - it's probably more like 8 hours. The older Acer c720 got between 6 and 7 hours streaming Netflix[1]. The Chromebook 13 got 10 hours[2].

[1] http://www.trustedreviews.com/acer-c720-chromebook-review-ba...

[2] http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/23/acer-chromebook-13-review...

[jiffytick]

Those numbers are with hardware decoding, aren't they. I'd be more intrested in something compute-intensive that was compiled to asm.js. I bet they'll last much less.

That said, these are machines with mobile processors and an OS that is tailored for mobiles. It isn't all that suprising that they are more capable than their normal counterparts.

[nl]

Decoding is hardware accelerated, yes.

Chromebooks seem to average around 8 hours of continuous web browsing[1].

[1] http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/samsung-chromebook-...

[tracker1]

For my mom/grandmother/dad... They're all using chromebooks... not for the reduced cost, but because the environment is more secure, and fits their needs.

So the answer is maybe.

[lostlogin]

Your grandmother picked a platform to be secure? Grandmothers these days...

[tracker1]

No, I did after the 3rd time I had to remotely remove crapware from my grandmother's computer... when the hdd died, I sent her a chromebook... my mom liked it so much, I gave her one too, and she got one for my dad. They all really like them. They simply work for what they wanted.

[nevir]

I don't think having a "full OS" factors very much into the decision process for someone considering this kind of device.

[TheTaO]

Not phrased that way but phrasedmore like: why can't I run skype on this? Or why can't I use this while on plane and so on

[pgeorgi]

Why no Skype? Because the owner of Skype doesn't feel like supporting that. That may make these devices unsuitable for you, but consider that this same owner may want to consider dropping service for you on your other devices, too.

(The ubiquitous presence of an ISA/OS pair is a historical anomaly, and I believe it's on the way out)

You can't log in to a Chromebook for the first time while on a plane. After initialization, for example the Google Docs suite works pretty well with no connection - and so could any other web app that doesn't rely on connectivity for its base operation: eg. Skype on Windows on a plane will work just as bad as Hangouts on Chrome OS on a plane.

[tonyblundell]

No, it isn't just about the cost.

If I had a choice between a £150 Chromebook and a £75 Windows laptop, I'd choose the Chromebook.

Windows isn't an 'upgrade' to Chrome OS.

[gcb0]

exactly. in the US they also launched with the mobile association. leading them to be mostly ignored by everyone.

the only time i heard about chromebooks in the wild was while walking at low income are shopping malls. the Cricket and att stores would often have a little banner on the floor advertising the "cheap kinda of a computer!"

[chetanahuja]

"ignored by everyone"

Heh... wonder what your definition of "everyone" is. Another comment posted above points to data that chromebooks are forming 14% of PC sales in the US. From my personal experience, the local highschool and middle school where I live have basically mandated that each student buy a chromebook -- they don't say chromebook exactly but heavily, strongly suggest it for the low price and maintenance factors. 90+% of the students are carrying around lightweight chromebooks in their backpacks now.