Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

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It depends on the Chromebook, but having owned a personal Chromebook Pixel of the first two generations, it's because, the Pixel at least, represented something that I couldn't find anywhere else. In no particular order:

* We MUST MAKE MORE 3:2 screens. Content is not wide, except video which I don't watch. Content is vertical. A 3:2 screen makes for an amazing laptop shape that is very well suited to the way humans view content, especially on the web.

* I've done computer security stuff for a while. Chromebooks are, by far, the best computer security model I've seen. Trusted boot, hashed root filesystems, fast updates that are as painless as possible (they even keep entered text in textareas on pages). They are, by default, secure enough that I would log into my core accounts on someone else's Chromebook (given a fresh reboot to ensure it wasn't in developer mode - physical firmware attacks aren't in the scope of things I worry about from people I know). Yet, I can twiddle a few keys and get one to be a properly nice Linux laptop with all sorts of great features, that also manages to "just work."

* OS resolution scaling is amazing. Eyes tired at the end of a day? A keystroke or two and you've rescaled the entire UI to match. Throw in the super high res, high def modes on the high DPI screens, and it's good for just about anything.

* Almost everything can be done on the web today, even if one probably shouldn't. I've used them as primary computers for many years, and I only rarely ran into something that I couldn't do (or couldn't do with Crouton and a Linux chroot environment). Those things included "a handful of Windows applications" (wine covers a lot) and "some kernel interfaces for Linux Internals classes" (the kernel simply lacks things that the OS doesn't need).

I know it's popular to hate Chromebooks, but if you're willing to toss them in developer mode for a few things, the value you get for your money, even at the high end, is legitimately impressive.

Hopefully more Laptop manufacturers make screens at least in 16:10 which is a compromise to having 16:9 on all consumer laptops due to the movie industry (the new Dell XPS comes to mind). The only way right now strangely enough to get something resembling that would be supported by a large manufacturer would be to buy an iPad and use it as a secondary display. You could try to use the iPad with a keyboard as a productivity oriented laptop but it would only really work out right now if you were a web developer and only needing ssh access.

I haven't given up the hope that an iOS hacker manages to jailbreak the new M1 iPads so that you can boot macOS or Linux (https://asahilinux.org).

The 4:3 screens of the iPads are really nice and Thunderbolt on the new devices allows for a large number of peripherals (if you buy a hub :)). Only Apple's "Magic" keyboards are far too expensive, but regular Bluetooth keyboards and mice should also work.

Booting Linux or macOS is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but we might get them running in a VM if a jailbreak shows up.

Microsoft's Surface Book line have 3:2 screens and are absolutely wonderful (though the price premium might be even worse than Apple).

I fully agree on the 3:2 displays and I'm happy to see more of them being used in regular laptops (Apple, do you listen?).

While I certainly don't hate Chromebooks, it seems that one can either buy inexpensive but underpowered devices (with slow ARM cores or low-end x86 Celerons) or devices on par with other notebooks - the Chromebook Pixel was certainly nice - but then you are not saving money compared to a regular notebook, even though the Windows (or macOS) tax doesn't apply.

The Chromebook security concept seems to be well implemented and can protect the user from a lot of typical problems. I'm still curious how much data Google collects from Chromebook users, though.

Resolution scaling is one of the most underappreciated technologies. My eyesight isn't really great and I'm using the macOS zoom feature often when I struggle to read text in a small font. It's great to see that ChromeOS implements something similar.

The trend of having to do everything on the web today (or using Electron apps) is still irritating. Contrary to expectations, this seems to result in more proprietary protocols (Slack, zoom, Teams, ...) instead of using open source or proprietary clients for open protocols. Well, this is probably yet another approach of solving a problem in CS by adding another level of abstraction ;-).

I'm using a Lenovo Duet ($170 on amazon right now) which is a mediatek powered arm tablet. it came with a keyboard and a stand that pair with it perfectly and it works like a surface go. I do all of my work on it for over a year now where most things are either run inside of the linux vm or pinning PWA's to the homescreen. since most desktop apps are made cross platform through having a web version and having full chrome extensions makes me easily leave behind any "native apps"

the concept of saving a lot of money, having 20hr+ battery life and no way to brick the computer (unless I really try) is kind of incredible, especially since this came out way before my patience ran out for the m1 macbooks.

I can still imagine someone wanting a premium chromeos experience since just having a logged in session of chrome is super powerful in being able to store your internet knowledge through bookmarks and history. While the trend of ignoring native apps accelerates it seems foolish to use something like windows these days and running it in chromeOS mode where accessing information or connected chat apps like slack might as well not be electron apps and be PWA's not running their own browser instance :/

One of the pitfalls with the security model of Chromebooks is the end-of-life of their products. In one respect, it is great that Google is up-front about the duration of support. On the other hand, the only way to get security updates after that point in time is to replace the operating system.

Give me an SSD and an OS distro on a thumb drive with USB3.0 support, and you get the same guarantees computer security-wise on literally any UEFI secure boot enabled system.

Fast updates are enabled by heavily locking in what user's are able to do with them. No exotic checks to be done.

I am not impressed by Chromebooks in those regards at all. Different strokes I suppose.

I might give you the screen, but to be honest, most of the time Chromebooks find their way to me it's because they're broken, and I'm everybody's computer guy of last resort due to high tolerance for frustration. All of them have had their screens or MOBO's rendered inoperable. Further, I philosophically reject anything that cannot be side loaded or is so locked down you can't load software onto it from external media.

Yes, security people may love that, but in reality, the entire point of processors is to run code. If I can't get my code to the processor that needs to run it without hostage negotiations, then that is not a useful machine to me. That is a niche PoS. Which all power to those who need it as such. Just isn't high on my list of things to actively purchase.

> Further, I philosophically reject anything that cannot be side loaded or is so locked down you can't load software onto it from external media.

But they're not. You can, with the proper incantations of "fiddling keys you can't do remotely," boot anything you want on them. Just disable the secure boot stuff, which is a designed in, required feature for a Chromebook, and run whatever.

> Yes, security people may love that, but in reality, the entire point of processors is to run code.

If you let a computer, connected to the internet, run any code that is sent its way, it will eventually run mostly malware. Probably foreign, and while well behaved, still quite unwelcome.

Which is rendered moot by understanding your user's needs, robust traffic monitoring, and paying attention to network logs.

What's fun is when you shut down that sketchy looking outbound traffic, and it turns out to be a new Windows telemetry service thing.

I also find, driving with kiddos through sketchy places on the internet and getting deliberately infected, so they learn what to look for, and letting your user's educate you on software they need/want also cuts down on the necessity for cargo cult infosec practices.

User's are not stupid, nor Lusers. Developers, programmer's, and the companies that pay them are not fond of repetition, expect you to only use their thing and bend over backwards for their convenience, and are often in it not for producing Quality software, but for the paycheck.

Admittedly, my practices don't scale to the point of being taught as general infosec practice, as I'm in it for the long haul for the hope that one day computer literacy will be as widely spread as regular literacy. We'll see if I live long enough. (Probably won't).

> Chromebooks are, by far, the best computer security model I've seen.

Did you hear about Qubes OS and Heads software?

There is a major trade-off between convenience and security. Qubes is likely significantly more secure, but it is far, and I mean FAR less convenient.

Not a bad thing at all, I feel both have their place but they aren't comparable. Also you pretty much can't (shouldn't is more correct but when you do, you will feel it is closer to can't) run Qubes on the kind of low-end hardware many chromebooks ship with.

> I've done computer security stuff for a while. Chromebooks are, by far, the best computer security model I've seen.

How can you talk about security if there is spyware on every Chromebook? I mean Google Chrome. Everything you do is recorded on Google servers, not only that but Chrome doesn't integrate any anti tracking protections like other browsers do (even Chromium based ones like Microsoft Edge), because it's the interest of Google to track the users. Not only that, but Google Chrome has a lot more security vulnerabilities than the competitors. I wouldn't say it's secure, and I would never do something on a Chromebook or in general in a Chrome browser, since it's like giving the access to Google itself.

Regarding the operating system, how can you trust more a system from Google than a system you build yourself? If you are paranoid you can buy a machine that supports Coreboot and even run your own trusted BIOS. If you don't want to take this seriously, you can setup your secure boot by creating your own keys, installing them in the firmware, and signing the kernel that you compile yourself. I don't know why you would have to be that paranoid but whatever, to me when I have an encrypted hard drive and my computer stays in my bag is more than enough.

> Almost everything can be done on the web today

You can't do programming in the browser, you can't do graphics, video editing, 3d modelling, you can't connect to a remote computer with RDP from a browser, you can't even have a full office suite in the browser (Office 365 in the browser, Google Docs, etc are limited), you can't play big games in the browser, you can't connect to a VPN from a browser, a webmail it's worse than using a desktop email client, you cannot have an advanced video/audio player in the browser (like VLC), etc.

Also, if internet doesn't work you are basically screwed, what do you do? Stare at the screen and play with the dinosaur game?

> How can you talk about security if there is spyware on every Chromebook? I mean Google Chrome.

I have the option, in Chrome, to decide what is synced up to "the Google cloud." Are you asserting that this doesn't work - that if I turn off history/bookmark/etc sync, that this is still pushed up? I've not SSL intercepted a Chromebook to determine it, but I believe if you tell it not to do something, it won't.

You've got a bit of a solid anti-Google screed here, but you've not bothered to actually provide any evidence in favor of it.

> * Regarding the operating system, how can you trust more a system from Google than a system you build yourself?*

Because they hire an awful lot more security conscious people than I am, who I believe know their stuff pretty darn well.

As for your list of "You can't XYZ in a browser," you can put Linux in a chroot on a Chromebook in developer mode, so most of what you claim is either false through extensions, or false through Linux dev environments.

> Also, if internet doesn't work you are basically screwed, what do you do?

Well, I keep a local Ubuntu repo at home, so...

> I have the option, in Chrome, to decide what is synced up to "the Google cloud." Are you asserting that this doesn't work - that if I turn off history/bookmark/etc sync, that this is still pushed up? I've not SSL intercepted a Chromebook to determine it, but I believe if you tell it not to do something, it won't.

How can you be sure? Chrome is a proprietary software. Even if you don't sync up with your Google account, Google collects some usage statistics and similar things. Of course you can use Chromium (and Chromium OS) that is open source and thus doesn't contain that kind of trackers, but we were talking about Chrome OS.

> Because they hire an awful lot more security conscious people than I am, who I believe know their stuff pretty darn well.

They hire them to make Google interest, not yours. Google interest is to track you and make profit with your personal data. Your interest is having a system that preserves your privacy rights.

> you can put Linux in a chroot on a Chromebook in developer mode

Yes, you can, with some limitations. But at that point, why not installing Linux as the main OS on the Chromebook with Firefox as the default browser and throw away all the Google crap?

> Well, I keep a local Ubuntu repo at home, so...

Because you reinstall your software everyday? I install all the software I need when I install the operating system and I'm done. I can work without internet fine, of course I cannot do anything that requires a connection (emails, for example), but I can do everything else.

With browser based software if you don't have a connection you can't do anything. We evolved from the idea of mainframes to the personal computer, and then we are going back to mainframes with all the disadvantages that they have.

> how can you trust more a system from Google than a system you build yourself?

You have never built a system yourself. Neither has Google, for that matter, but they've gotten closer than you. The amount of code that runs on the average modern computer is probably too much to be read in a lifetime.

> You can't do programming in the browser

But you can on a Chromebook because you can use the Linux underneath.

> Also, if internet doesn't work you are basically screwed, what do you do? Stare at the screen and play with the dinosaur game?

You use the apps you have installed. I don't actually have a chromebook, but try to argue in good faith

> You have never built a system yourself. Neither has Google, for that matter, but they've gotten closer than you. The amount of code that runs on the average modern computer is probably too much to be read in a lifetime.

When I say built a system obviously I don't mean writing the code. But deciding what programs install and how to configure them to build a system customized for your needs, secure and optimized. In fact Chrome OS is based on Gentoo Linux if I recall correctly, I installed Gentoo Linux a lot of times in the past.

> But you can on a Chromebook because you can use the Linux underneath.

But you aren't doing it in the browser. Running Linux inside Chrome OS has some limitations anyway.

> You use the apps you have installed.

On Chromebooks you cannot install applications locally. Unless you use a Linux Chroot, that is something advanced that most user don't do (and I would argue what is the point, just install Linux as the main operating system at this point). You are supposed to use only web applications, like Google Docs, that will not work without a connection available.

Also typically Chromebooks have little SSD space, because you are supposed to keep all your stuff in the cloud. Of course if you don't have internet the cloud doesn't work. I prefer having all my data locally on my computer, so I can access my files without needing a constant connection (and internet connections seems to know when you need them and decides to stop working exactly at that moment).

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