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Comment by zouhair | Hacker News Reader

I don't think relying on a third party and especially one that is as fickle as Google to do the most basic workload is a sound idea.

I won't be surprised if Google kills Chrome OS in the near future, as they killed a lot of stuff already[0].

I don't trust Google anymore.

[0]: https://killedbygoogle.com/

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While Google hasn't been the best at supporting products (and support in general), I always find statements like this with sites like that distasteful, as they leave out a lot of context that mitigates how bad it is. Sure, Google is EOLing Hangouts, but they provide a replacement. Sure, they've turned down a lot of products (like reader), but many (possibly most of the very large number presented on that site) were beta products.

I clearly remember telling people that asked me about whether they should worry about it saying beta on some Google product I had recommended that Google always leaves stuff in beta for years and not to worry. Well, now we all know better. I'm not happy about it, but I don't feel like I can blame them for that either. They were pretty up-front about services being beta in most cases.

And, as far as Chrome OS specifically is concerned...Yes, I'd be more than annoyed if they pulled support for my new PixelBook in anything less than a reasonable support window.

But my use of Chrome OS creates far less lock-in for me than most products. Other than my hardware investment--which I don't expect to last forever--I could basically switch to anything else with a browser next week basically without skipping a beat.

Here is the thing. Google has one primary source of revenue. Ad tech. If Ad tech fails, all their other sources of revenue won't be able to pay for their other services, so the fear they'll cut them is warranted.

Disclaimer I use Google services, but I'm definitely looking for alternatives.

> Here is the thing. Google has one primary source of revenue. Ad tech.

This is changing though - the most recent quarterly report has YTD ad revenues as 84% of overall revenues, with the corresponding previous year's period at 86%. The non-ad revenues are in the tens of billions of dollars - hardly nothing.

https://abc.xyz/investor/

If your other preferred client is the Mac, you have the same challenge with Apple. Their entire mac product line is only 10% of their revenue.

Do google developers get issued chromebooks these days? Either way, there’s a large scale difference in the amount of money (because Apple makes more money than google in addition to 10% being 4x the 2.5% of revenue google is devoting to chromebooks). On top of that, Mac revenue is eaten into by iOS device revenue, which is a pretty close product category. Much closer than ads, at least.

Yes, they do. The default machine you get is a pixelbook, that’s true of basically everyone at Google. You can request a Mac, which is what I did, but I later also got a pixelbook and found that I quite like it.

Literally the only thing keeping me from using it as my primary work machine is that it only supports one chrome browser profile per login, so I can’t be logged into my work account at an OS level and my work and personal accounts at the chrome level. But I went and paid out of pocket for a pixelbook for home because I thought it was a great all around home laptop.

(Disclaimer: I work at google, but not on chromeos or hardware, this is just my personal experience )

Did they remove multi profile login?!

You used to be able to login with several accounts and switch between them similar to virtual desktops.

You can still switch between accounts on ChromeOS. I do this on my Google issued Pixelbook daily.

Once you're signed into the other account, you can switch quite easily with <CTRL> + ,

Sorry, to be clear, it switches all of your windows like a separate desktop. I like having both windows available simultaneously. I realize this is a nit picky complaint, and I am in the minority.

You can run the embedded Linux and then run Firefox there. Also, with multiple workspaces now supported I'm funded less reason to grab the mac (bettertouchtool being one thing). I even have vscode running full screen in another orksoace and can easily swap over.

Very neat, thanks for the insights!

It isn't the same challenge because Apple doesn't sell Macs at a loss.

Are you saying that Google sells Chrome OS at a loss?

They do make a substantial amount of money with G Suite subscriptions, and they're bound to SLAs.

I on the other hand avoid vendor lockin like the plague and self host open source applications where i can.

But as long as you can install another linux on a chromebook(i once bought a refurbished x131e for less than $100,upped the ram to 8gb, put a seagate sshd hybrid in it and dual booted windows10 + ubuntu on it. Its just like any other laptop except no function keys) there's really no issue here..

Google EOLed Chromebooks that were sold 3 years ago, they do not give a crap about maintaining a stable ecosystem.

These 3 year old Chromebooks don't even get Chrome security patches, you would literally be better off with any other laptop when it comes to security.

Beta means prerelease testing, not EOL.

Beta means not meant for general use/production, and all that implies about people being upset about beta products being diacontinued.

I was covering two distinct cases, one where Google discontinues a production product, and generally they have a different product to migrate to, and one where Google discontinues a beta peoduct, where it seems they usually don't care if you were reliant on it.

Beta does mean prerelease testing, and while it implies they are moving towards a release, there's no guarantee implied or otherwise that a release is forthcoming.

And non beta is no guarantee that a product won't be discontinued.

This is a confusing and boring take.

A) You have to trust third parties.

B) It's boring to point out what Google has killed. But when you look at that list there's nothing as substantial as ChromeOS.

Finally, ChromeOS is incredibly widely used internally, and is a revenue generating product in the Chromebook family sold to enterprises alongside Cloud products. It is not an area where Google is going to capitulate or kill without a sufficiently long runway and carefully considered EOL plan.

Disclosure: am Googler. Am tired of half-considered takes on Google.

> But when you look at that list there's nothing as substantial as ChromeOS.

Google+ got way, way more investment than ChromeOS and was considered a top priority at the C-level. Still killed.

The context of this thread is Enterprise, where G+ was not killed.

In the enterprise context, I guess the Google Search Appliance would be a good example.

Before you say "it wasn't widely used" -- that's probably why it was killed. Google customers who use a product that doesn't lead its market and/or make megabucks should be worried.

We know there are other products that are failing to gain traction in the marketplace -- like GCP. While I'm not saying GCP will meet Search Appliance's fate, it has already been reported[1] that there will be financial consequences if GCP is unable to get a #2 position in the cloud marketplace by 2023.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21815260

What’s the margin vs Google’s ad business?

There not much relying involved. It's not like Android, which is considerably less useful without the Googley bits. It's just a regular Linux desktop with Chrome pre-installed.

Even if Google would kill all of Chrome in its entirety you could still run other software on it. You would lose secure boot but that's about it. It's more like a PC than an embedded system.

Exactly. I am running android with microg without any google software installed. I cope with it, I had to reverse and patch banking software as it was using "safety net" but it works perfectly with few smali gotos added. If you take chrome os you have installed spyware as an os.

Sorry, maybe "I have nothing to hide as a person, but as a bussiness I have plenty to hide.

Or just avoid Adobe scenario (I live in EU): https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20904030/adobe-venezuela-...

What Enterprise spyware is in ChromeOS/GSuite?

But there is no lock-in there.

If Chrome OS is dead, we switch to regular Linux|MacOS|Windows laptop running Chrome. It is more annoying and less secure, but all the software still runs.

And Chrome-the-browser is pretty unlikely to be killed.

> https://killedbygoogle.com/

Looks like they are missing DejaNews / Google Groups (it started as an index /browser to Usenet, but was transformed as a tool for mailing lists)

> I won't be surprised if Google kills Chrome OS in the near future

I think both Chrome OS and Android will be replaced by Fuchsia at some point. Native apps will be written in Dart/Flutter and they will also support web Chrome apps like Chrome OS does today.

Honestly this trope is tiring. FUD.

You might be tired of it, but what it underscores is that Google has developed a reputation for creating experiments and killing them off when they no longer serves Google's purpose. It reminds Google's users that they're not customers, but proverbial farm animals whose attention is being auctioned off to advertisers.

I get why they need to kill off products. I took a few minutes to look through https://killedbygoogle.com/ and there are a lot of fleeting, gimmicky things on that list that should have never been released in the first place.

Google has an image problem with this. By releasing all these unfocused products into the wild, they've signaled that they will create unfocused products and kill off the ones that aren't hugely successful.

Now when they launch a new idea, people are no longer excited, but legitimately suspicious. When Google launched Allo and Duo at the same time (while Hangouts still existed), it sent a clear message that they really didn't care about product management and continuity or communicating to their users. They would rather be the ADD company that built 3 competing things and measure usage than to nurture and improve already successful products.

People don't like having the rug pulled out from under them and the repetition of this trope will continue to echo so long as it resonates with readers. Even if it's FUD, this is a big problem for Google.

I don't think Chrome OS will be on this list anytime soon, but if something shinier comes around, can you honestly tell me Google won't drop Chrome OS for the shinier thing?

Enterprise products are not ad financed.

FUD is exactly what it is, with good reason given Google’s habits with “poorly” performing products lately. Mind you, in chromeOS’s case it’s easy to go back to a regular computer.

How is it FUD? They literally keep killing years old projects. A lot of those project had a lot of regular users that added them to their workload for years just for Google to scrap them with no alternative.

How one can trust them is beyond me.

Then there is horror stories like this one[0]

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWaz7ofl5wQ

That’s a really lazy argument.

The entire business world relys on a third party product (Microsoft Windows) whose business model has already changed and has already mostly killed its once flagship product (perpetually licensed windows).

Google writes contracts for chrome enterprise support that are 5-7 years long, so it’s unlikely they would just make the product go poof.

The enterprise support contracts state that the EOL date is the one listed publicly: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

This means the Thinkpad X131e had under 3 years of support if you bought it brand new like many school districts did in 2015.

> This means the ThinkPad X131e had under 3 years of support if you bought it brand new like many school districts did in 2015.

The ThinkPad X131e Chromebook was originally released in February 2013 [1] and has received five years of Chrome OS updates from Google. From March 2017 onwards, new Chrome OS devices receive 6.5 years of support [2] and in November 2019 many received a further year of support on top of that [3] so the update situation is a lot better than it was.

School districts purchasing X131e Chromebooks would have known at the time of purchase that they would stop receiving updates in February 2018 [4]. Being two plus years into their lifecycle is not really Google's fault. The districts need to do better due diligence.

As you mentioned, EOL dates for all Chrome OS devices are published in an article on Google's website [5]. To get the most life out of a particular Chromebook model it needs to purchased as close to launch day as possible. That's what I always try to do when purchasing Chromebooks where I work.

It's also worth mentioning that the X131e is supported by Neverware's CloudReady until 2025 [6] so the Chromebooks don't have to be thrown away when Google stops supporting them.

[1] http://www.notebookreview.com/news/lenovo-releases-thinkpad-...

[2] https://chromeunboxed.com/googles-end-of-life-policy-for-chr...

[3] https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/11/05/google-gives-most-c...

[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20151120005811/https://support.g...

[5] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

[6] https://guide.neverware.com/supported-devices/#LenovoThinkpa...

Due Diligence == Not buying ChromeOS.

My 2011 Windows desktop runs Win 10 and drivers just fine.

2012 Macs work fine with Catalina.

If you buy old stuff late in the lifecycle you’ll have that problem.

This issue exists with Windows as well. PC OEMs will only commit to a few years of driver support. I have a few thousand PCs that are 2018 purchases that will not be eligible for the next major branch of Windows 10 and will need to be replaced by mid 2021.

Considering how much the education sector uses Chromebook for their students (a big market they managed to capture early), I doubt they'd pull the plug on ChromeOS out of the blue without a long heads-up.

That's an issue for the web services, not Chrome OS, given that the appeal of Chrome OS is not installing apps or keeping data locally.

You can switch to 'anything' running Chrome as a replacement.

I’m more concerned that ChromeOS is essentially a spyware operating system.

How so, for GSuite?

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