News - Google executives talk up Chrome OS

[HEXUS]

They answered questions about its potential, its limitations and its ability to revolutionise computing.

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[mondayriot]

Cloud based... pfft. So I take it all applications and data will be stored in the Cloud? I know I don't talk for everyone, but where I live the internet speeds are pretty dire at the best of times. Probably not the best idea for me to use this OS...

[zinger5]

It's an interesting idea certainly to have all your data on the cloud - but do you really want to be in the position of not being able to do anything if you get a bit of downtime?

zinger5

[Animus404]

Only running on Google approved machines... Well that's just killed any interest I had in this OS.

[Saracen]

Only running on Google approved machines... Well that's just killed any interest I had in this OS.

Three good points made so far by previous posters :-

- cloud computing limited by internet speeds
- what about when you don't have internet access at all, or the net is down?
- Google-approved machnines only? Like hell I will.

But for me, all these are irrelevant because I am NOT putting all my data in Google's hands (or anyone else's for that matter) in a cloud.

It just ain't going to happen, with me.

Call me paranoid (and someone probably will) but despite the user-friendly, cuddly. fuzzy-warm image Google work very hard to promote, they are, in my opinion, just as hard-nosed, profit-centric corporate as any oil company or bank. And data-mining is VERY big business.

I have no idea to what extent, if any, Google (or MS, or anyone else) would data-mine client data stored on their networks. Similarly, I have no idea what a paedophile would do if he was put in charge of a classroom full of kids and everyone else given a week off, leaving him unsupervised, but it's an experiment I don't care to try because the results could be horrible. I'm no more trusting my private data to corporate America (or corporate anywhere else either) than I would trust kids to the care of a paedophile. I just don't feel inclined to put temptation in their way.

I have private letters on my computer about personal and family matters. I have medical letters to doctors, etc. I have tax returns and my business accounting records. I have an asset register detailing personal assets, and personal accounts detailing bank accounts, etc.. I have business correspondence. some of which is financially sensitive and I have client data over which I have a legal duty of care and and which are commercially valuable and subject to confidentiality agreements. I also regularly have press information which is under NDA.

I am NOT, under any circumstances, storing all of that in the web. Not under any circumstances. Yes, it's protected, and yes, it's encrypted, and yes, I guess some of it is still possible exposed to a small risk of hackers, but it is very small. But I'm not trusting storage of it to Google, or anyone else.

So while all the above points are perfectly good, they don't concern me because the cloud aspect of it guarantees I have no interest at all in Chrome OS.