Sony To Put Chrome On Laptops 278
consonant writes "FT is reporting that Google has reached a deal with Sony to ship Chrome on the Vaio line of PCs. Google confirmed that Sony PCs carrying Chrome had started to go on sale and said it was in talks for similar deals with other computer makers. It said the arrangement was 'experimental' and part of wider efforts to boost distribution, including a deal to make Chrome available to internet users who download the RealPlayer software and the company's first use of television advertising. While mainstream media coverage and financial details were very sparse, El Reg terms it a 'Microsoft-snubbing deal.'
Google also mentioned it was pushing for similar deals with other vendors. Could this spell the beginning of the end for IE?"
For those who don't read the article (Score:4, Informative)
Chrome Won't Make It In The Enterprise (Score:3, Informative)
Chrome as it currently stands won't ever garner wide enterprise acceptance.
In Windows, Chrome installs itself into the user's profile folder under the Local Settings folder, rather than into the traditional Program Files folder location.
This appears to be done to try to circumvent user restrictions, often imposed by network administrators to prevent users from installing unauthorized software. While this may work in some settings, any well crafted software restriction policy will prevent this attempt to bypass security restrictions.
As well, by failing to follow proscribed methods for installing software on Windows, Google is actually making it difficult for enterprises that might choose to distribute Chrome on their networks.
Until Google addresses this issue by creating an IT department friendly version of Chrome, it doesn't stand a chance of making any inroads on enterprise networks.
Re:Let's get this straight... (Score:3, Informative)
As well as Google pays Firefox, Opera and other browsers to have Google as the default search engine. This is their main marketing method, to have their services as default. There has been occasional other ad's, but they're quite minority with google. And well, it seems to work great for them.
Re:Yay, more Riders... (Score:4, Informative)
Good or bad Software, I hate being marketed-to during a software install.
Then stop using Firefox, Chrome, Opera or for that matter any browser. Google is already paying those browser makers to include themself as the default search engine, so Google gets you to use them and see their ads. You are already being marketed right after you've installed those. It doesn't even matter if its open or closed source, firefox and opera are on both ends.
Re:Head asplodes (Score:3, Informative)
Ah! I see where you are coming from. An advertising company's systems are being pre-installed by a company that has resorted to using hidden rootkits.
Free indeed.
Just follow the money. Who exactly are Google's clients again? Wait, who exactly is that browser designed for again?
Let me just pontificate on the eViL of Google Analytics (GA) here, while I've still got the ink. Let's say website owner Jill sets up GA, signs Google's EULA, and is basically a happy camper. Jill is happy, and agreed to be happy. So is GA. But Jill is now reporting all the IP, browser, OS, time-of-day tracking info to GA of supposedly 'anonymous' visitor-Jackie. GA also has agreements with most of the websites visitor-Jackie visits today. SO, GA can effectively track visitor-Jackie's internet-usage without Jackie's knowledge or agreement, or other strong-regulation whatsoever. (Yeah, under protest Google said they'd reduce the amount of time they agree to 'track' visitor-Jackie from something like 3 years to 1.5; so what!).
But wait, that's not all:
Google will also provide you with free software that you can catalog all your images & videos, including facial recognition; (and provide free hosting.)
And manage all your phone calls, and SMS, providing free transcription and search based off the transcription, (and free hosting of this info)
For free? Just follow the money folks.
Re:Let's get this straight... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why must every article sensationalize "the end" (Score:2, Informative)
...which is more than I can say of Microsoft.
No it's not [w3.org]
Re:Will it make a dent? (Score:3, Informative)
Sony did have 25% of the laptop market 8 years ago and I used to see Vaios everywhere so it's a bit surprising that Sony have fallen so far. The 2008 sales figures [cnet.com]:
Rank Vendor Market share
1 HP 20.8%
2 Dell 15.1%
3 Acer 14.6%
4 Toshiba 9.3%
5 Lenovo 7.5%
6 Fujitsu 5.2%
7 Apple 4.6%
8 Asus 4.3%
9 Sony 4.2%
Almost every one of those other manufacturers will be shipping IE. So technically you're right, Apple at 4.6% is a slightly bigger dent than Sony's 4.2%, but it's not a huge difference.
Re:Chrome Won't Make It In The Enterprise (Score:5, Informative)
In Windows, Chrome installs itself into the user's profile folder under the Local Settings folder, rather than into the traditional Program Files folder location.
This appears to be done to try to circumvent user restrictions, often imposed by network administrators to prevent users from installing unauthorized software. While this may work in some settings, any well crafted software restriction policy will prevent this attempt to bypass security restrictions.
As well, by failing to follow proscribed methods for installing software on Windows, Google is actually making it difficult for enterprises that might choose to distribute Chrome on their networks.
Per-user installation is a well-documented [microsoft.com] feature of Windows Installer, and is one of the "proscribed methods". It's not a hack or a workaround for anything.
Re:Will it make a dent? (Score:2, Informative)
Market share goes down the tubes...
Re:Head asplodes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Head asplodes (Score:5, Informative)
You have to be joking. Chrome is open-source. You can go and look through the source and VERIFY that it's not sending anything about you home.
Seriously, go look. We'll await your admission of being wrong.
According to the Chrome Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], there are several tracking methods in Chrome, one is not optional, several are optional. The scary one is the RLZ Identifier.
The RLZ Identifier is non-optional, it can send back anything it wants in an encoded string, and it sends stuff back to Google 1) every 24 hours, 2) or on every Google search query, or 3) when a 'significant event' (no definition except 'such as a successful installation') occurs. Some of the stuff Google admits to being in there is the installion date, when the first time you used certain features and where you downloaded the install files from. The RLZ parameter is stored in the system registry (yay) and can be updated at any time Google wants. Another fun fact:
The code that makes this work is not included in the open source project (http://www.chromium.org) because it only applies to the version of the browser that Google distributes, Google Chrome.
From Google itself on the RLZ Parameter [google.com].
So tell me again how it isn't tracking you?