Google Chrome -- key reasons for its debut

[zridling]

Lashiec: Still, I wonder what's the reason of its existence, Google does not really need to launch a browser. I hope mouser's theory it's not the answer, otherwise both Opera and Firefox could be in BIG problems.

Read Google's comic book and their press release more carefully and you'll see that they're wanting some specific things from Chrome; that is, to have a browser that:

(1) Google itself can control, thus eliminating its middleman dependence on Microsoft or Mozilla or Apple, etc.;
(2) will give the company direct access to the user; and
(3) Google can write AIR/webware apps for;
(4) can potentially dominate the mobile and portable PC markets.

[attach]

[zridling]

And on cue, Matt Cutts provides answers to common Google Chrome objections.

[tomos]

he doesnt really address this one

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

[kartal]

They are not answers really, just personal responses to allegations.

And on cue, Matt Cutts provides answers to common Google Chrome objections.

[mwang]

he doesnt really address this one

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this on Digg. This is not the EULA of Google Chrome, it's for Google the service. Go to google.com with Firefox or IE and you can find the same terms of service.

And here's a similar one from Yahoo:

#With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Another one from MSN

...with respect to content you post or provide you grant to those members of the public to whom you have granted access (for content posted on shared and private areas of the service) or to the public (for content posted on public areas of the service) free, unlimited, worldwide, nonexclusive and perpetual permission to:

    * use, modify, copy, distribute and display the content in connection with the service and other Microsoft products and services;
    * publish your name in connection with the content; and
    * grant these rights to others.

The verbiage varies, but they basically means the same thing. And in this case, don't blame Google (or Yahoo, or Microsoft), blame copyright law. Without these harshly-worded, scary-looking legal terms, they can be sued just by serving search results to us.

[Lashiec]

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this on Digg. This is not the EULA of Google Chrome, it's for Google the service. Go to google.com with Firefox or IE and you can find the same terms of service.

Errr, then why it's in the Chrome EULA? Firefox and Opera license agreements don't have such provisions.

[kartal]

Because that is what everyone is doing does not mean it is the right thing.

[tomos]

This is not the EULA of Google Chrome, it's for Google the service.

no, you're wrong there - it may be in google eula but it's also in chrome
http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html
and scroll down to #11

[fenixproductions]

When I am using G or MS online services I can expect such restrictions. Also when I am walking down the street I know that someone might observe me or follow. Someone can even record me on CCTV. Hopefully: my home is my castle. No one should even dare to sneak inside. The only thing which might happen is observing me through my window BUT not from the inside. If I invite you I don't expect installing candid camera in my bathroom too.

It should be simple and work both ways:
My place == my rules. Take it or leave it.

[mwang]

no, you're wrong there - it may be in google eula but it's also in chrome
http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html
and scroll down to #11

I stand corrected. (For the second time today on this Chrome thing, and I've only used it for five minutes. Doh!)

That said, The whole EULA is basically a clone of Google service EULA (with minimum changes), and I still think they are covering the same bases, though I have to say they could have written a better EULA for the software part.

[mwang]

It should be simple and work both ways:
My place == my rules. Take it or leave it.

Privacy is a different concern here, and it's never that simple, though it used to be much simpler.

What do you make of wiretapping? It doesn't have to be done "inside" your house, and yet most people today consider it an intrusion. Beating up my children inside my house used to be "my businese" (hence my rules) a few decades ago, but not anymore in many countries today.

There's no privacy when walking on public streets? If so, then it should be perfectly legal to plant hidden cameras on the ground to pick up scenes under ladies' skirts.

"My place" really is a fluid concept. Land rights, in various civilization, used to extend to the space under and above the ground, all the way to hell and heaven. Some people seriously argued -- in court, no less -- that flying over their home is an act of trespassing.

The boundaries of "my castle" are even murkier in cyberspace. The Googles of the world are pushing the limits every chance they get, with carrots and sticks in their hands. Will there ever be a consensus on what privacy really means in a world where the net is ubiquitous, I don't know.

[fenixproductions]

2mwang
I agree with most of your words.

There's no privacy when walking on public streets? If so, then it should be perfectly legal to plant hidden cameras on the ground to pick up scenes under ladies' skirts.

The only thing the government might do is to yell that it might help on fighting with terrorism, paedophiles, knives or racism (or maybe for everybody's sake).

EOT from my side.  DC is not a place for politics

[jgpaiva]

EOT from my side.  DC is not a place for politics

Great to see members respecting (and remembering) the rules of the forum! Some day I'll be out of job around here

[allen]

People policing themselves? Sounds like the seeds of a political discussion to me . . . damned anarchists.

[mwang]

Politics? I thought we were talking about Google Chrome all along. 

[mouser]

A negative take on Chrome from OSNews.  Not saying i agree with all of it, but i think it's worth sharing:

Google Chrome Considered Harmful
http://www.osnews.com/story/20244/Google_Chrome_Considered_Harmful

..in the following text I will demonstrate that Chrome [based on what we are allowed to know] puts strain on the Designer and Developer communities, is not innovative (save for one feature), and copies ideas liberally from Google's worst enemy.

And google jumps on the apple marketing bandwagon:

My greatest problem with the cartoon strip is that while it's supposed to explain how Chrome works, it really explains how all major browsers work, implying that these features were invented for Chrome alone.

This is the #1 trick apple uses to sell their products (in my view), and i find it depressing.

[Ehtyar]

I think Matt Cutts intended to address the EULA problem in his last question...

Q: Dude, this anonymous commenter said that Google claims that they own everything you touch when you run Chrome! Should I be worried?
A: No, of course not. I debunked that misconception last night in a Mashable comment and this morning in a ReadWriteWeb comment. Google does not want to claim the rights to everything you surf or do in Chrome, just like we didn’t want it the time before with Google Docs. I’m sure that other Googlers will clarify that point more officially. It is good that people pore through the license and ask these questions though, because if something looks worrisome then we can use that opportunity to make it more clear.

Apparently he's not personally worried about it, and is more than comfortable giving others the impression that this means nothing. Trolls like this could only get popular through the ignorance of Digg.

Ehtyar.

[edit]
He also happily ignores the concerns of yet another group of people.

Q: Another browser? Geez, I’m a webmaster/search engine optimizer/front-end programmer and I don’t want to worry about another browser.
A: Google did not add another rendering engine. Google Chrome uses WebKit for rendering, which is the same rendering engine as Apple’s Safari browser, so if your site is compatible with Safari it should work great in Chrome. Personally, I do think creating clean code that validates and works on many different browsers will be an important skill for webmasters and web designers. These days a smart site owner thinks about how their web site looks to all browsers, from Internet Explorer to Safari to Opera to an iPhone.

Perhaps his brain was a bit bogged down after reading that comic and he missed the fact that Google had to rewrite WebKit in order to have it render a decent amount of pages correctly (23%-99%). He may also want to consider the reports that while Chrome has good standards compliance, it's quirk mode (rendering non-standards-compliant pages) leave a substantial amount to be desired.

[Grorgy]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-google-on-chrome-eula-controversy-our-bad-well-change-it.html

Ars Technica have an article on this link above.  Basically they are going to change it.

[Ehtyar]

It must be terribly amusing for the Google lawyers to use EULAs like this, get all the info. they can in the first few days, then have everyone think their saints when they fix an EULA that was their doing to begin with. Can anyone spell G U L L I B L E?

Ehtyar.

[Grorgy]

Seems to me they are just lazy, and the comments around the web sort of suggest that people aren't as gullible as they perhaps once were with these sort of things, privacy and anonymity matter to more and more people so companies like google will have to lift their game if they really want to stay in the game long term.

[Ehtyar]

Google lazy on the legal? Surely not!

Ehtyar.

[kartal]

You know most evil things can also be blamed on sloppiness as well. That is not an excuse. Google thought that they had a free pass (They generally have ) . And because of people like us who are the people with tinfoil hats, crazy paranoids, conspiracy theorist, now they will need to write a proper policy statement.

[Ehtyar]

That does it, if there's ever an IRLDD Down Under *cough*youreadingthiszilla?*cough* I'm wearing a tin foil hat!!

Ehtyar.

[Darwin]

You know most evil things can also be blamed on sloppiness as well. That is not an excuse. Google thought that they had a free pass (They generally have ) . And because of people like us who are the people with tinfoil hats, crazy paranoids, conspiracy theorist, now they will need to write a proper policy statement.

[zridling]

Lots of folks had concerns about Gmail for a while, but now just about everyone has an account. And given that it's open source, I have no doubt someone will eventually write an adblock extension/plugin.