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Hardware Technology

Moving To a Chromebook (avc.com) 235

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
VC Fred Wilson writes: I've been thinking about moving from a Mac to a Chromebook as my primary computing device. I have not used desktop software for probably a decade now. The browser is how I do all of my desktop computing. Paying up for a full blown computer when all I need is a browser seems like a waste. And there are some security things that appeal to me about a Chromebook. I like the ability to do two factor authentication on signing into the device, for example. I am curious what advice those of you who use Chromebooks have for me. In the comments section, Kevin C Tofel, a long time journalist and an ex-Googler writes: I'm all on in Chromebooks, currently using a Pixelbook. Base model is fine for my needs, which sound very similar. I am taking some CompSci classes but even from a programming standpoint, the addition of Linux running in containers -- available in Dev and Beta channels now, coming to Stable v. 69 in the coming weeks -- fills that need easily and securely. I don't do a bunch of video editing but I can do audio edits in Audacity for Linux once audio support arrives for Linux on Chrome OS.

I actually use Google for my password management. It's built in to Chrome / Chrome OS and syncs to all devices. Plus, you can always log in and look up passwords at passwords.google.com. Sure if Google is hacked, someone has my passwords, but same can be said for any cloud-based password manager or (if you run 1Password, etc... locally) if someone gains access to your device. I use Google's 2FA to log in to my Google account and even to log in to my Pixelbook - can be done with an authenticator app, SMS or -- my preferred method -- a Yubikey. I'l be buying a Google Titan Security key to replace my Yubikey once they go on sale.
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Moving To a Chromebook More

Moving To a Chromebook

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  • "Well respected" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @08:34AM (#57216448)

    The summary begins with the words 'well respected' but the river of garbage immediately below leads me to believe that they're only respected by Google's sales department, and that's only the kind of fawning service a whale receives rather than respect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      The summary begins with the words 'well respected'

      Looks like the summary got edited, since it doesn't start with that any more.

  • Spyware by default (Score:5, Insightful)

    by johnsie ( 1158363 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @08:52AM (#57216554)
    If you want to use a data collection tool as your main computer then be my guest.

    • Google collects the exact same amount of data if you are using Google Chrome.

    • Yeah, I was wondering about the use of "two factor authentication" when you already handed over all your information.

      Other than as a last-ditch backup, I have no need for cloud-based anything. And if you are doing everything browser-based, then why not get a tablet and add a keyboard and just borrow real computers and login to this browser computing world? It seems like going back to the terminal model like in the1980s.

      I mean, it's good if browsers and these thin clients are good enough to do what you want

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Other than as a last-ditch backup, I have no need for cloud-based anything.

        Unless you're collaborating with a co-worker or client or whatever in another city. In that case, would you instead pay to lease a VPS to host your source code repositories, file drops, chat servers, etc.? Is that still "cloud"?

        And if you are doing everything browser-based, then why not get a tablet and add a keyboard

        True, you could buy a tablet, a keyboard, and a case to hold the tablet and keyboard in place while you are using both on your lap. People suggested this sort of workaround back in fourth quarter 2012 when manufacturers discontinued 10" netbooks [slashdot.org]. But the combination of these can prov

  • My views have changed recently (Score:3)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @08:53AM (#57216558)

    My views on Chomebooks have changed recently. My oldest kid starts middle school this Septermber, and the school recommends that every student gets a Chromebook. They have a deal where you can get a Chromebook and a comprehensive warranty for a good deal, so we got one. I'm a software developer, and I'm pretty impressed with how well it runs. 4GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage plus room for an SD card makes it a reasonably capable machine for most computing tasks.Add to this the news that you'll be able to run full Linux applications on the Chromebook, and I can see this being a very enticing offer for many people. I'm strongly considering getting one when my tablet finally bites the dust. I don' have a laptop, because I still prefer an actual desktop for development and other heavy computing tasks. I think I could meet all my computing needs with just a desktop and a chromebook. I'd never give up a desktop with a real keyboard and large screen, but getting stuff done on the small screen of a laptop, even if it's 17 inches feels like there is never enough space. So I might as well use my desktop for anything that's programming or requires a large screen and then just use a Chromebook with a 11 or 13 inch screen for the basic web browsing and media consumption.

    • Re:My views have changed recently (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bongo ( 13261 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @09:10AM (#57216652)

      The PC era (one personal computer) is over and we can all afford multiple devices and cloud services. These questions around, “is device X a real computer” died like all the arguments about whether iPads were or weren’t for real serious work, also died.

      Every device is potentially useful and it is just a question of one’s life and work habits. For example, I have no interest in wearables. But I do love my little projects in high-end-ish 3D modelling software (and these days a decent desktop with large screen is fine for my small projects). I also sit on the sofa a lot and the desktop is in another room, so a tablet is essential, but I never take it out of the house as, essentially, I do not commute on trains, but if I did, I would take it out a lot. And all work is on a laptop, again, because various reasons.

      IOW, lots of little lifestyle quirks. Every device has potential, and we are way past the day when a computer has to do everything in order to succeed in the market.

      • While I personally believe there is room in my life for various levels of compute and limited function devices, I do not know that the hardware makers and the consumers that support them will see things that way.

        There's not a lot of profit in the PC market, whereas the ipad/wearable/consumer toy market is fairly high margin. It wouldn't surprise me if general purpose computers suffered at their hands. And honestly most consumers really don't need or want it, so it probably won't go down with a lot of fight.

      • we can all afford multiple devices and cloud services.

        To which "we [...] all" do you refer, especially prior to tax-funded basic income? I still see people in various chat rooms complaining that they can't do this or that in an application's mobile version and have no way to afford "a computer" to work around it. Granted, many of them are still in high school or college.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Add to this the news that you'll be able to run full Linux applications on the Chromebook, and I can see this being a very enticing offer for many people.

      But don't buy one until you know that the model you're buying has a new enough kernel to support Crostini (the container allowing what you call "full Linux applications"). Otherwise, you may end up disappointed. (See "Linux Apps Are Not Coming To Many Still-Supported Chromebooks" [slashdot.org] from last week.)

  • Personally almost all I use is Chromebook. Occasionally I need to tweak a graphic or Word document which I can do via tVNC on my old desktop.

    For work I use Citrix to get into my desktop. My storage is 95% in Google Docs. When the Linux windows come out I'll be set there.

    The only things I really want beyond quality desktop office and graphic apps that don't have a huge monthly cost (I'm looking at you Microsoft and Adobe) is better Android support. There's a few apps and games I really wish ran better on my system. Maybe a better gamepad interface. But that's more on the game producers.

    • What you're really saying is there are 2 kinds of users/ processes... Consumers and Producers. Consumers sit back and consume data via browsing, watching videos, reading....etc.
      However when you actually need to produce something, be non-passive, be a creator, you need something more than a chrome book. By you're own admission, a 20 year old PC running windows 95 is better than a Chromebook when it comes to being a producer..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        He said his storage is 90% Google Docs, i.e. he creates documents on Google Docs. For basic video editing you can do it with YouTube. Photo editing can be done online. Some of the online stuff can even be more powerful, e.g. there is no desktop solution for automatic subtitles on videos that is close to what YouTube offers.

        The divide is more between people who want all their stuff stored locally and those who are happy to live in the cloud.

    • Occasionally I need to tweak a graphic or Word document which I can do via tVNC on my old desktop.

      For work I use Citrix to get into my desktop.

      But can you work through these remote access methods on your bus/train commute, where you don't have Wi-Fi? If not, then you'd have to include a mobile broadband subscription in the total cost of owning a Chromebook. Furthermore, if all home ISPs in your area use carrier-grade NAT, as Bert64 mentioned is the case in Myanmar [slashdot.org], you'll also have to subscribe to a VPN tunnel so your desktop can receive VNC connections while you're away from home.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mozai ( 3547 )
      "almost all I use is Chromebook" but then you say "via tVNC on my old desktop" and "I use Citrix to get into my desktop".
      So is "my old desktop" a Chromebook too?

  • The only reason to do it is to save money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by captbollocks ( 779475 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @09:02AM (#57216612)

    I did it 4 years ago when my macbook air died and I didn't really have the money to buy a new one. So I switched to a chromebook, and an android phone.

    If you remember that Apple builds computers/phones/systems to profit from and Google builds computers/phones/systems to run more of their ads to profit from, you won't be too shocked by how rough google tech is.

    I lasted 3 years on an android phone before going back to an iphone, I am not sure I want to spend the money on a new macbook, so I will probably get a cheap linux laptop when my chromebook dies and keep everything in the cloud (probably MS with MS office, which is still 10 times better than google apps).

    There is nothing that a Chromebook does better than a mac, it is just a lot cheaper.

    • I am not sure I want to spend the money on a new macbook, so I will probably get a cheap linux laptop when my chromebook dies.

      Wait two months to see what the "low cost MacBook Air replacement" rumours are about.

      • Wait two months to see what the "low cost MacBook Air replacement" rumours are about.

        Isn't "low cost macbook" an oxymoron?

        Low cost and value are overlapping on a Venn diagram but are not the same thing. Macbooks are valuable to many people but it's hard to argue they are low cost unless you are merely talking relative cost to their even higher priced offerings. Conversely just because something is low cost doesn't mean it is valuable. Chromebooks are obviously inexpensive but since they don't solve any problems I currently have they aren't valuable to me.

        • Re:Oxymoron? (Score:4, Informative)

          by StuartHankins ( 1020819 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:37AM (#57217266)
          If you consider an employee making $x output per hour, and compare that to 97% $x because someone wanted to save a few dollars, it doesn't take long before the cost of the laptop is a rounding error.

          Take a developer making only $75K per year. Let's say they work 40 hour weeks, 49 weeks per year, that's 1960 work hours at $38.27 per hour ($75000 / 1960).

          Say you shave 10 minutes a day by using a Mac. That's .17 hours at $38.27 per hour, or $6.38 per day. Taking that 49 weeks and assuming 5 days per week that's 245 work days... which totals up to $1563 a year saved. That should pretty much pay for the Mac by itself, especially if you consider a 3-5 year replacement cycle ($4689-$7816).

          It makes even more sense if your salary is higher. At $100K per year, that is $51.02 per hour and $8.50 per day, or $2083 per year saved by buying the Mac. Over the 3-5 year replacement cycle that's $6248-10413.
    • Save money? I am writing this comment on a 10 year old laptop that still works fine. (Admittedly, it was an expensive laptop, and now performs like a average laptop) But a 5 year old Pixel is EOL? https://www.reddit.com/r/chrom... [reddit.com] Does not seem like a savings to me.

  • I picked up a Asus Chromebook a couple of years ago, and it's been a solid champ up until last month, when the screen started flickering.

    If all you need is a browser in a box, the chromebook is the way to go. For programming tasks I still use my windows and linux desktops. But with Linux coming to Chromebook more fully soon, this need may disappear too.

    I have wished from time to time that my Chromebook had a free Windows Remote Desktop client, a decent free editor, and a few other things. But on the other hand, never worrying about losing your data (it's mostly stored in the cloud), makes it worry-free to take it along with you where ever you go.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @09:38AM (#57216828)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      if somebody asks to look at my PC

      And then "somebody" presses Space as prompted and then Enter as prompted. Now what happened to your Crouton?

  • I thought the same (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cid Highwind ( 9258 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:06AM (#57217032) Homepage

    ...but after about 2 weeks of dealing with the limitations of vanilla ChromeOS, and then another 2 weeks working around the limitations of ChromeOS + crouton, I wanted a real OS again. So my advice is to pick a Chromebook with the biggest SSD and best hardware support in the mainline kernel you can, that way when living 100% in the cloud doesn't really work you can put a full GNU/Linux distro on it.

  • Buy Cheap (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:11AM (#57217058) Homepage Journal

    Chromebooks are great if all you want to do is browse the web. Just don't spend a lot of money on it.

    Simply put, stay away from the Pixelbook unless you enjoy lighting money on fire. It's over $1000 and you'll get 5 years tops out of it guaranteed, even with the crazy specs it has. If you're going to spend that much you might as well stick with a Mac. At least you'll get at minimum 7-10 year use out of it. After the Pixel EOL, The only way I would even consider a Pixelbook right now is if Google flat out announces a commitment to a 7-10 year software support strategy for it.

    The HP Chromebook X2 or the Samsung Chromebook Pro would be the highest I would pay for one and only if I was going to use it daily. There are also cheaper alternatives out there. Personally, I wouldn't spend more than $200 for one.

    Printer wise, you need a cloud print enabled printer. Epson's are cheap, are very easy to setup, and their scanners can scan directly to Google Drive out of the box, but it is an inkjet so if you don't print often it will dry up and then it's toss the printer time, so buy an Epson XP-440 all in one for $50 and only if you really need to print. HP and Canon's also have printers that are cloud print capable, but tend to be harder to setup and can be more expensive.

    • so buy an Epson XP-440 all in one for $50 and only if you really need to print.

      If you want to use 2-factor authentication without using a cell phone, you will "really need to print." Google won't let you use TOTP until you have two of the preferred 2FA methods (SMS, prompts through the Google Search app, FIDO U2F security key, and printed codes) set up, and only U2F and printed codes work without a phone.

    • The only other thing I would say about Chromebooks is that you can do more than browse the web, the basic word processor and spreadsheet apps are adequate for most home users.

      We use them in our company and I've found that the more you spend on them, the less value you get. We've had a lot of luck with Acers that are less than $200 USD. When we've spent more to try out new features, we've been disappointed.

      • They can use Google's web based office suite as a chrome app, so they have an office suite, and I think the chrome app even allows for offline use that will sync to drive once it goes online. Never tried offline mode with mine. It will do about 90% of what most home users do with a PC.

        In the end however, it's a $200 web browser that can now emulate an android tablet and soon run Linux apps. Anything you can do online you can do on a chromebook assuming that you're online and it doesn't need a third party pl

  • Blatantly incorrect information (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:56AM (#57217460)

    I stopped reading when it talked about having your passwords exposed if someone got to your local copy of 1password. He clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

    Having Google manage your passwords is like having a fox guard the henhouse. 1Password encrypts everything at rest, and you have to put in your master password to access your database. By default it auto-locks again after just a few minutes. The only way someone would be able to get into your 1Password vault would be if you set your master password the same as a previously hacked account. And if you did that, then you missed the entire point of having a password manager.

    If a Chromebook servers the author's needs, then all the power to him. I just can't wait to see him melt down when his internet connection goes down.

    (How the heck do you develop on the web anyway? Unless he works exclusively in Javascript I don't see how that would work)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )
      I was going to make the same comment. The same is true of Lastpass and any non-horrible password manager. If someone hacks Lastpass and downloads my vault, congratulations, you have a block of encrypted text. Anyone who can break strong encryption with a long nonsense password has a lot more valuable targets they're going to be attacking.

      (How the heck do you develop on the web anyway? Unless he works exclusively in Javascript I don't see how that would work)

      I've never used them and don't know how they work, but there are online IDEs for a variety of languages. https://github.com/styfle/awes... [github.com]

    • 1Password encrypts everything at rest, and you have to put in your master password to access your database.

      The same is true of Chrome's password database, though it doesn't auto-lock.

      If a Chromebook servers the author's needs, then all the power to him. I just can't wait to see him melt down when his internet connection goes down.

      Many Chrome apps work fine offline.

  • Do you really need a computer that signs you into a corporate social network every time you want to read the news or talk to friends? Do you really trust companies that keep getting caught for not enforcing the privacy that their Terms promise? Using a Chromebook as your main machine is like trusting your brother with your girlfriend; you might be okay and then again, you might never know what really happened.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • You can have my Chromebook (Score:3)

    by Proudrooster ( 580120 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @01:12PM (#57218580) Homepage

    Hi...
    I have all six devices:
    1. iPhone
    2. iPad
    3. Yoga Laptop Running Win10
    4. MacBook Pro
    5. Chromebook
    6. Multibook Desktop WIndows or OS/X

    Out of all the devices, the Chromebook is the most useless device. It reminds me of the modern dumb terminal that needs to connect back to the mainframe to get any work done. I seldom use it.

    If you are just a consumer user: surf the web, use web services, and have a good WIFI connection, the Chromebook could be the device for you. If you are planning to create, possibly make a video, music, program, or do anything CPU intensive, it is a lost cause. Working as a school consultant, the #1 request I get every year is how do to shoot and edit video on a Chromebook, short answer is, you don't.

    Ranking my computing devices in order of usefulness:
    1. Desktop
    2. MacBook Pro (love the retina display and trackpad, best, period, not in love with the keyboard)
    3. Yoga (Whoever designed this keyboard should never be allowed to design again, trackpad ok, lacking useful ports, touchscreen and tablet mode are mostly useless)
    4. iPad (I can use it as a computer in a pinch, it is just harder)
    5. iPhone (Like an iPad only smaller)
    6. Chromebook (In your right hand you have nothing, in your left hand you have a Chromebook, the Chromebook is slightly better than nothing)

    The only time I ever use the Chromebook is when I have to train others how to use a Chromebook. Usually the limitations of the device surface quickly.

  • I cannot imagine ever needing to move to a Chromebook. Or really, even a laptop. Sure, I use one at work, but it's docked most of the time and I have 3 monitors hooked up to it. When I do need it in a meeting I hate using one tiny screen and I feel so inefficient using it. At least I take my mouse with me, I can't stand watching people in meetings fumble around with their trackpads. (I hate them so much) Even at home I have 2 monitors for my linux desktop.
    There is a now a Chromebook in our house now,

  • We got my son a Chromebook for classwork. It's fine as long as you don't mind being limited to online versions of everything. There's only so much you can do in I can't imagine not being able to use "real" Excel or 3DCAD software. Once the features of online "cloud" apps match that of their desktop counterpoints, it might be worth it. But for now, it's just not flexible enough. And forget gaming.

    That being said, the new version of Windows really sucks; I'm putting off upgrading as long as possible. If you'

  • Stopped reading at "I have not used desktop software for probably a decade now. "

  • How about an iPad Pro? I've basically switched to an iPad Pro. The battery life is insane, the portability and weight are insane, and believe it or not, the speed is insane as well. It's much faster than my 10x as expensive desktop workstation at Lightroom and Photoshop, for example. I'm frankly flabbergasted by its performance every single day. Never going back to traditional computers.
  • What I do is buy a 150$ refurbished Chromebook online, and side-install Debian or Ubuntu on them via crouton. Highly recommended!

    For web browsing and other stuff done in Chrome, ChromeOS is great. But if I need something more specialized, I can have a full-fledged (if admittedly a bit, but not too, slow) Linux system running in seconds.

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