Firefox OS: Why My Hard Drive & Software are Obsolete

For MP3 online-storage and playback, try Media Master (http://www.mediamaster.com/) You can upload all of your MP3′s (I’ve uploaded 6 GB of my library and I have more to go.

Very nice writing :)

nXqd

Speaking of Gmail, you praise its “powerful searches.”

It bugs me to no end every time I hear this because it simply isn’t true. Gmail’s searches SUCK! It’s the suckiest thing about Gmail.

1) If you search for Ben then it won’t find Benjamin. Google, you have to be kidding me!

2) It won’t search attachments, which I know Thunderbird does and is very useful. Why on earth not?

3) And finally, you can’t search on anything advanced, such as message size.

So just for the record, Gmail may be great, but it’s searching definitely is not. Thunderbird and most email clients pummel it in this category.

I am sympathetic to browser-based applications, both on and off line. However the online versions give me pause.

The major problem, but not the only one, is with the one-sided Terms of Service that provide users with no recourse or redress when the provider decides to close the account for whatever reason, changes the services provided, or goes out of business.

Until we have a consumers’ online bill of rights this is a dicey proposition.

He didn’t say have no OS. He only said the OS doesn’t matter anymore.

There is one piece of the puzzle that I have yet to see. Google needs to integrate these things as nicely as Yahoo has and then allow you to sync with a PDA. Yes, you can see these apps through their mobile online versions, but they are really crippled and using them is a deathly slow process.

Don’t matter? And I suppose these websites are hosted on websites? I suppose you code your websites on a website, and compile it? For “users” in the sense of people who just are doing their work or their homework the web can replace much of what they do. However, the debates really are between power users who want to do more than just write a document.

The web as a medium was built for document retrieval. We’ve hacked and worked with that model a lot to make it seem like an application but FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X aren’t going anywhere.

I’m using a lot of the same tools. The only thing that scares me is Gmail. There have been several outages for certain sets of users recently; during one my friend couldn’t log in to her account for hours. I realized I have EVERYTHING in Gmail and use it as a reference for lots of business and personal things. If I lose access, I have to wait and trust they’ll restore service and not lose my data – and since it’s free, I don’t really have much leverage to complain. That being said, I have not stopped using Gmail or any other Google service, simply because I, like you, think they are the best. I am looking into ways to back up my data and email though.

Thanks for the tip on Google personalized desktop. I use Netvibes for my personal start page and feed reader, but the Google page will be perfect for organizing access to all my Google services!

A great alternative to Google is Zoho which offers online software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database, calender, wiki, planning software and more!

Zoho

Great article, I just started reading a few weeks ago. It appears we are not alone in the way we use google. Keep up the good work.

I could never take this route.

If privacy doesn’t mean anything to you and your needs are light, sure: upload all your stuff to third party servers accross the net.

But you’ve got to take into consideration that you’re stashing your data under propietary systems (data recovery in the future, changed TOSs,) and effectively sharing it with company (marketing, customer profiles)

RE: Firefox OS.
I couldn’t agree more with the direction you point out things are heading toward. The debate b\w OS’ is superfluous if the browser can mediate all into one language. These are rudimentary, but seminal, structures.
Not sure about mp3 storage, but I’m growing fond of http://www.finetune.com. Personal radio, flexible, community based. Cool & easy.
That’s the point here, I think: if you take someone who knows NOTHING about a computer, wouldn’t you start with the GMail apps listed in the article? Cool & easy…

Great ideas – I’ve been carrying a key-chain USB drive that has documents that I access every day (stock watchlists, to-do lists, different documents I’m writing, basically anything too big or cumbersome to put on my PDA) – this would help eliminate that extra weight on my keychain.

However…

The privacy aspect worries me, as well as the backup situation. The reason I put the documents I use on a USB drive was because I needed access to them on a regular, uninterrupted basis. I’d suggest combining the suggestions in the post with some sort of local backup system – that way you’re always covered.

For GTD, I like the new service called Nozbe:

http://www.nozbe.com/

It’s in free beta right now.

I have started to move in that direction myself, but it makes me a little nervous handing over everything to Google like that. Already, I have found that my blog, my feeds reader and my gmail are often all down at the same time (all google-based) and it’s not too much of a stretch to start to worry that if something went wrong or Google became evil, I might end up having no access to my files, my blog, my photos, my feeds, my email, my music and my calendar.

And for most of these applications, it is difficult and time-consuming to back them up to something off-line.

Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

What do you do if you can’t access the internet?

Great discussion. Thanks to everyone. I’ve been thinking of doing everything online for years. The future is now. Admittedly, it’s not perfect…..yet.

What about us WoW players…? I can’t seem to get it to run on linux…

You are not proposing Firefox. You are proposing Google… are you so sure this is freedom from a system?

If you love Firefox and Google, then you’ll love GSPACE!! I created an extra GMail account just for this reason – so that I could upload GIGS of music to my GSPACE and not have to worry. You can essentially set up multiple GMAIL accounts and have all your MP3′s (assuming you have more than 2.8GB and growing). Check it out!
http://www.getgspace.com

I don’t believe Picassa stores your pictures online, it just organizes them and allows you to edit them online.

I believe a lot of people are missing the point here. First off, the idea isn’t that the OS is obsolete, or that it’s going anywhere soon, it’s just that it doesn’t matter as much which one you use because there are few programs that most users need that aren’t online. That’s another point: MOST users. Because most people who use computers just use them for email, documents, and maybe pictures. I majored in computer science in school (I am graduating next month), so my computer is my life, but I completely agree with everything this article says. My OS (currently Vista on one machine, XP on another, and Ubuntu on a third) serves only a few keys purposes. For example, I do most of my programming and hosting on my Vista and Ubuntu machines, but my XP machine is little more than a print server. I use Firefox with many extensions, and most of the time, if I’m on the computer, I’m on Firefox. Another thing that the article didn’t mention is Meebo (meebo.com), an online chat client that allows you to log into AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, and I believe ICQ simultaneously. As far as Gmail goes: there are some quirks in the search, but if you know how to search right, 99% of the time you can find exactly what you’re looking for. Also, if Gmail is down for a day, I don’t have a problem because I use Google Desktop. I use it mostly for searching my computer, but it also has the added advantage of being able to index my Gmail, and allow me to search and view it even if I’m not online. The other option would be to use POP3 forwarding to have Gmail send a copy of your emails to Outlook or Thunderbird, which solves the problem of search AND storage during outages. Besides, all of your email is stored online whether you like it or not; anything that you get in Thunderbird or Outlook is online somewhere, and is just forwarded to that local app via POP3 or IMAP, so privacy issues are going to be there no matter what. Google isn’t just a group of low-class hackers, they are just as legitimate as Microsoft, but they have an incredible business plan, as well as geniuses who work for them. During my recent job search, I got high-paying job offers from high-ranking companies, including financial companies and defense contractors, but Google didn’t even give me an interview. Most of the people that work there have PhD’s and have done some incredible things in their field. Same thing goes for companies like Amazon.com (believe it or not). Now, I’ve gone off on a huge tangent, but the point is, this article is right on the money, and some of the comments people are making about it makes it look like they didn’t really read the article before commenting. There, a long story to make a short point. Enjoy!

oh and yeah he is proposing firefox and not google because you need a browser to get to google… jeez…

In fact I have another issue with this – what happens when you want to work on the train? Or in the sticks?

What about *real* games? Not the exiting java based crap you find today? I am talkin, Quake, WoW, Ultima Online, Dungeon Siege…

Your about 2 years too late. This is old news.

Funny how the debate nowadays already HAD nothing to do with the operating system… you’re right, it’s not Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux- It’s Mac vs. PC.

That’s important to note, because that still matters quite a bit. Do I want luxury machine that costs twice as much for less power, is hard to upgrade, and still has compatibility issues? Or do I want to find the best hardware, the best price, or heck, BUILD the machine myself?

Yeah, THAT is the debate.

I can’t disagree more with you.
Web based apps are cool, gmail especially. But you can’t say “Do eveything online” and “OS doesn’t matter”.
Simple example, have you noticed the ads on gmail are based on your emails’ contents ? This means google analyses the content of your emails. What about your documents and spreadsheets ? No privacy.
Furthermore, you become dependent of your ISP, and your online app provider.
So web-apps have this limitations. Performance-wise, they just can’t compete with an OS based application.
Tom also points two interesting points.

Other point, your browsing experience does not rely only on firefox. Firefox uses your OS, and if your OS is crappy, or is not fully compatible with your hardware, or does not have an ergonomy that suits you, your experience will not get better only by using web-based apps.

Last point. Who do you really think has more chances to get their HDD erased or attacked by pirates ? Your little desktop, or a corporate server ?

Just one question : do you work for google ? or do you have any stocks ? or are you just another fanboy ?

Good article, but like most things in life, you we’re the last to think of it… well until someone else comes along and claims a “new” idea, again :S

Well, i just took your advice and transferred a screenplay i’m writing from Word into Google Docs.
It promptly removed all the line spacing.
Word never did that.
I’m going back.
Hey, i tried.

Hey Leo,

I completely agree with you about having an “on-line OS” is the future. And a lot of people out there is advocating the same thing.

But there’s a point that (I think) have not been being discussed as it should: What about privacy? Don’t you be concerned of leaving your personal documents in the hands of a third party?

Regards,

Leo

Feels like google paid you for that one, aye?

Ahem, games, games, games, games…

Aside from World of Warcraft, you need a Windows PC to play anything. Don’t get me started with games on linux…

Sorry if I think this is mere google propaganda… im happy with my OS and my hard drive, but thanks for asking.

Please try the following: Download the DSL (damnsmallinux) Distribution, it is only 50 MB and boots from USB/CD. It includes firefox. It’s a pretty nifty package, and if your pc has more than 128MB it can run entirely in RAM, when started with the toram option. In fact go ahead and disconnect your harddrive before you start using DSL.

I dare you to exclusively use that distribution for one month. In fact ignore the many other included applications and the extensions available. I am curious whether you will feel that you are missing something. If you come to the conclusion that you didn’t miss anything after a month (or even forgot that you were using DSL), you’ll truly have given weight to the opinion to the opinion that OS doesn’t matter. You will even benefit from a) less noise due to the missing harddrive, and b) a very fast and snappy desktop-experience.

Are you going to do it?

What you are saying is that you dont need the power of any applications besides Firefox.

Your OS isnt obsolete, because Firefox doesnt do the core job of the OS – provide an interface to your hardware.

I simply wouldn’t want my documents spread out over the net like this. Anything I want to use whilst mobile, I put on my usb stick which is attached to my keyring and loaded with apps from portableapps.com

I think people read every third or fourth word (more common than admitted). In short, I found the article useful. I choose to go with the spirit of the article which I read as freeing oneself from OpSys dependency. I will continue to use the hard-drive and DVD Burn archives of data, largely due to Big Brother, but I see some advantages here I may have overlooked. Thanks! Thanks also to those who posted other useful links.

My $.02 to the list:

- Check http://www.netvibes.com to put everything together. It’s faster and leaner than the Google personalized home page.
- To keep the bookmarks in synch for all your Firefox, use a plug-in called Foxmarks.
- If you still depend on desktop calendars, use Calgoo (http://www.calgoo.com), it runs on any desktop OS and combines your Google calendar with Outlook or iCal as well.
Now you’re done.

This was the best definition i read of what WEB2.0 is about.
Bravo !
“The web is the computer”
Why?
Because the Webbrowser is the biggest common ground for apps, and the better connected.
Try to run a Windows mobile 5 app on a Palm (not to mention a earlier windows mobile version).
Why i cannot run a Mac app straight into my Windows Xp?
Get the picture?
Inspiring Post

this is just and advertisement for Google and it apps….
very dissappointed…..
for myself and where I live and the places i work I don’t always have an internet connection… what then smartass

it’s really hard to take you as credible in any way when your article ignores the fact that–YOU NEED AN OS TO RUN A COMPUTER AND HOST WEB APPLICATIONS.

in other words, obviating the entire premise of your article.

why not retitle it “Why my applications are obsolete”? because then, it’d just be another run of the mill article on the same old crap, eh?

Leo, this is a thought-provoking and affirming post.

I realized not long ago that the bulk of my work was being done through online apps. It didn’t happen with a lot of foresight, but a little helpful app here and a little app there started to make a difference.

Not sure why all the hand-wringing and negativity. It is clear to me that the spirit of your post is all about what’s possible without the hard drive and what we might have a look at.

Thanks for taking time to do a lengthy set of examples…good food for thought.

“Second, it can’t IM well. Yes, Meebo exists, but it is not sufficient for being the primary IM application.”

Completely disagree on this one. I’ve been using Meebo for a few months now for all of my IM needs, and never had any problems with it. In all, it is much better than the various multi-IM apps out there.

Is this a real Story or just an ad for Google apps????

My biggest problem with the “Online OS” is security and privacy. You have everything almost everything on Google and depend on it for security. Once slip up, one key-logger, and your entire online existence in files is compromised. At least with the files stored locally I can be more cautious with my files and privacy.

I can see that for much of your daily work that the online thing could work. Frankly it would probably work for 90% of the world. However for developers (includes but not limited to programmers, graphic artists, engineers, etc.) it still benefits them to have local systems and networks to handle their work load. PC Gamers are another category as the games they often play could not be fully transported over the network. They still need local storage to handle the content.

You guys are missing the point and apparently just trying to be more pedantic than the last poster. OF COURSE some OS needs to present the browser; the author is merely stating that it doesn’t matter WHICH OS you use. Does it really matter if you use Google Apps from IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera – on Windows, Max, Linux? Platform distinctions are becoming a matter of preference than requirement.

“But what about this one particular edge case???” Please…stop it. Obviously this model doesn’t fit everyone. No one is saying a browser is going to replace that one arcane DOS/Win9x/parallel port app – where did you read that? And yes, braniac, the web apps need to be hosted somewhere…great analysis – you must have a PhD! However, probably 80% of the population will be able to get 90% of what they need out of future (and some current) online apps.

I’m sure the Google suite is mentioned only because in many cases they have been involved in pushing interactive web content in new and exciting directions, and because this isn’t a recommendation but merely an example of how it might be accomplished.

Instead of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, try Zoho instead. Their Office plugin lets you store the documents online, but edit them in Word or Excel. Then if you get home, you can just log into Zoho and continue working on them online. They also integrate with Box.net and Omnidrive.

Their creator app lets you create DabbleDB/Access like applications online. They even have a Wiki application.

n.b. I don’t work for Zoho and they haven’t compensated me in any way other than making a great set of applications.

Hype like this makes me mad. Contrary to what you might like to believe, the Internet is neither ubiquitous nor reliable (and I mean reliable in the conventional sense, not the communications sense – i.e. it’ll be there when you need it).

Need to work on that document? Sorry, your ISP has scheduled maintenance (or worse, an unscheduled outage).

Aside from all that; leave all my data in the hands of some company, possibly located off-shore? No thanks.

As much as I respect what Google have done, they are still a public company and at the mercy of the market. If, tomorrow, they weren’t there, could you still meet that deadline?

Hi, my name is Average Reader! I skim your articles for about 5 minutes and come up with angry comebacks and “issues” which have already been addressed in the article itself! Then I leave a pissy message to mock you, when I’m really just advertising my own ignorance!

To continue…

d00d, did Google pay you?
omg what happens if there’s no internet connection!
You need an OS to run a browser, dumb@$$…
I’m a webdesiger, dipshit, I need Photoshop, this won’t work for me, retard…

Honestly, why can’t every single article you write be specifically addressed so as to be useful to every computer user on the planet? What is wrong with you???

To echo a comment above about Gmail’s search not finding “Benjamin” when searching for “Ben”. That one doesn’t irk me so bad as not finding “Ben’s” when searching for “Ben”, which is just plain annoying.

Also, I have over a terabyte of data between my pictures from the digital camera, my CDs ripped to mp3, and my DVDs ripped to avi. Until someone can reliably store huge amounts of data online and make it easy to retrieve my hard drives are not going anywhere (all 7 of them).

If all of your files are online why would you have a need for and “can’t live without” FireFTP?

That was Netscape’s argument back in 1997 — “The Browser is the Desktop”.

But times have changed and rich clients are making a comeback — meaning, that the OS, the real OS, has become more critical than ever.

Gaming for instance — I can’t do real time, high speed gaming, in a browser.

But what I need is perfect execution of video, audio, data updates, disk/memory management and so on.

No — the browser has always been retrograde. The future is more complicated, better performing, more diverse and object rich devices — requiring a superior OS such as Linux.

I see were you are coming from and for the most part, you are 100% correct. The problem is that there are some fundamental flaus in your thesis. For one, if you are storing all your files online, you are going to need an OS to contain those files as soon as you download them. (This rings especially true when it comes to MP3s and MP4s.) Even if it is a text based OS, an OS is needed to tell the drivers were to put and where to find those files. Now for text files, yes I can see how you could just put them on Google’s docs & Ssheets, but there in lies another problem. You are relying so heavily on Google. If Google were to simply up and vanish due to varied circustances you would be up a creek. A dirty feces filled creek, and you would have no paddle. Now, I am not going to sit here and submit that Google has any chance of just up and disappearing from the interweb, but there are other threats as well. Do you realize how many malicious attacks Google gets a day? Let me tell you, it is alot. And to sit around blindly assuming that one of those attacks won’t get in at least within the next couple years is ridiculous. So, someone breaks into googles servers and snatches your stuff, or completely wipes the servers memory. Then what? Are you able to back up files? Sure on another site, but you see if you are constantly backing up files on random sites the security of your sensitive information becomes more and more questionable. Chances are, you should just stick to a worry free text based OS (just something to help organize your files) and then keep working online.

But, I do like your view on the matter, very unique and handy.

“With all my files saved online, there’s no need to back up these files, which can be time-consuming and troublesome.” – while this may hold true for the big companies in the short term, there is no guarantee that these will be around come the next big burst of the bubble. How many people “lost” their MP3s after laboring to verify ownership of the original CDs with mp3.com (or whatever that site was?). Likewise, who’s to say that Google will guarantee to restore your data if there is a massive crash on their servers?

http://www.divshare.com offers unlimited online storage.
I frequently upload my file there.

Your proposal is interesting, and similar to my idea of a BIOS that simply loads a browser and connects to the Web OS of choice. It would work great for many, many people. I do not think the “My OS will beat up your OS debate” will die off any time in the conceivable future, however.
For starters, those Web OSs, and any other web apps for that matter, are hosted by machines running classical OSs, so the debate really just gets pushed into the realm of web application developers further from home users. Never really goes away.
It is almost like the prevailing notion that abstraction is the “way to go” in developing software applications. In the end, all that abstraction must boil down to the real nuts and bolts, somewhere, some how. The question really becomes “In whose hands do you want the majority of power?”

You have officially lost your mind. Let’s hope you don’t loose your network connection.

“Plus, if you like their great desktop software”

Looks like you require an OS there. ;)
One problem I have with Picasa is its reliance on the desktop app for majority of organization work. That’s why I use Flickr, it’s all online — and I can store my original size images there, too.

What happens when your internet connection packs up?
Even in the priveleged First World this happens.
What about those still toiling with dial up connections?
This debate reminds me so much of the proclamations in the mid 1990′s of the arrival of the “thin client” terminals and the end of history for locally storred apps.
It’s not going to happen, my internaet connection is inaccesable a couple of times a month, my Dell desktop has worked every day since I bought the current version 2 years ago.

Are people really willing to store their documents on someone else’s server? Emails to grandma are one thing, but if one balances one’s checkbook in Google Spreadsheet, should they not be concerned about privacy?

What about the privacy, hm?
And bandwidth.
And backups.
And customizations.

Very true points, but what about those who are gaming? I accept that you said these are your needs, but this is a common PC use.

Surely there are better non-Google products out there, too? Like WordPress, which you identified over Blogger.

I think you could get away without using Firefox, too. IE has plugins, and surely you can live without all of those FF ones?

Meh.

Keep drinking that kool aid.

Let me know I can play World of Warcraft on ‘Firefox OS’.

Great write up I will definitely use some of these in the future

too much Google. And, as you are a firefox fan, why did you not mention ajex13 http://us.ajax13.com/en/index.jsp

You should try Webconverger.com

It is basically the Firefox OS you described, derived from Debian.

Ric,

* does nothing for me in gmail search. Voll* does not find Volleyball.

Count yourself lucky.

WTF… ummm latency and crappy apps – not for me!

I am bored waiting for connection to get through my emails…Argh, NO! Network is down..How can I access the Internet…now, I could not do my work because everything is done online! Damn, I wish there are offline applications to that I can submit my work and sync later! Stupid!

This is absurd. The premise you don’t need an operating system. So OSX vs Windows vs Linux will be a moot point in the future. Then the whole article taslks about software, not an online OS replacement. You can’t use all of these cool online programs without an OS to boot up your computer and connect to these sites. The article was informative but misleading.

Well, thats exactly what Microsfot was trying to avoid when they extinguished Netscape.
Netscape knew applications could be accessed through the browser and storage as well, turning one of MS’s biggest advantages to nothing, since you could access the same apps through a browser whether it was one Linux, Mac or Windows or whatever.
The times finally here (not for games.. of course) and all MS did was give themselves several more years, and screw over all of us while we were held back technologically. I can only imagine what would be if that company hadn’t crushed almost every real innovator in the last 20 years for their convenience.

This is stupid. It might work for an average Joe who only uses the computer for word processing, email and surfing, but what about us who depend on certain specialized software for our work? Is there an online Java IDE? Or even an online compiler? Would I want to have to send all my source over the web constantly? What if Google one day decides to just quit? Not likely, but what if. All your documents are in the hands of someone else.

I like online apps, but I would never trust them to handle everything for me.

Good points for the frugal, minimalist lifestyle. Except for one minor point. Firefox (my favorite browser) is only a browser. It cannot be loaded onto a PC that does not have an operating system. No piece of software can. Now, you could load up FreeBSD, or Linux, if you still wanted to go with the Free stuff. Except that you can’t get on the internet to download these files unless you have a PC with internet access, which requires a browser to see anything, and, oh yeah, an OS so the browser will work.
You, and the other liberal commies that think MicroSoft, or any other “Big” company is evil by virtue of being successful really piss me off. You don’t think things through, you “emotionalize” everything! You have the ultimate sour grapes attitude, because you didn’t get rich off of it, you think you deserve the spoils of other peoples hard work. IF you worked hard you wouldn’t have time to have a “blog”, you might actually have time to spend with those six kids so they don’t end up like you. You sick freak.

Imagol4:
[QUOTE]You, and the other liberal commies that think MicroSoft, or any other “Big” company is evil by virtue of being successful really piss me off[/QUOTE]

Now let me try to guess whether:
1. you are 5 years old
2. you live under a rock on the moon.

(2) can’t be true because you’ve read (and responded to) this article – which implies you have access to the internet.

Therefore you must be all of 5 years old.

How do I come to that conclusion?

Here is some supporting evidence:
1. You obviously don’t know about Sybase and how Microsoft killed them
2. You obviously don’t know about OS/2 and what Microsoft did to IBM to kill OS/2
3. You obviously don’t know about Netscape and what Microsoft did to kill them – of course Microsoft didn’t count on Firefox (ha!)
4. You obviously missed the US DoJ anti-trust case against Microsoft – you might want to do a google search and read it to enlighten yourself before shooting your mouth off and ending up with your whole right foot in your mouth. But of course, since you’re all of 5 years old, we will forgive you for eating your shoe.
5. And you just missed Microsoft’s shenanigans in Massachussets.

However, to console yourself, all of this information is freely available on the internet from reputed sources (i.e. non-Microsoft sources who’ve never been known to lie or spread misinformation). And, you are living in times when Microsoft is pushing a sham of a standard called Office Open XML! So you have a good chance of witnessing some of their infamous shenanigans.

So now, would you like a candy, kiddo?

I found it quite interesting!

Thankx

also – try this: http://desktoptwo.com/

A bit off-topicish but to the person who said they can’t get WoW running on Linux… Try Crossover. It works brilliantly and I run WoW/TBC with no problems at all.

Iv just read about half the comments and Iv had enough…

The guy in the article makes some very good points. Yes we (ones in the know) all saw this coming years ago but I think its good to talk about because knowing something is coming and realising its here are two very different things.

Whether you agree or not I love the google apps, i constantly find myself using them all the time because Im nearly always online. Now I agree with the privacy thing and the out of business thing but seriously who are you going to trust. You have to trust someone these days, like someone pointed out about traditional mail just getting forwarded to you, its always going to be an issue.

At least google gives you some options. One of the most under-talked features of google web apps (all as far as i know) is that they allow you to use https!!

Yes I know its just your connection to the local server thats encrytped but hell thats enough. Yahoo and M$ dont offer this. Its just another example of who is taking this stuff seriously and who isn’t.

Who the hell is going to put all of their stuff in ZoHO. Dont get me wrong the lads know what they are doing but they are going after the big boy, google with nearly all of their stuff. What lies ahead for them and many other, acquisition or death!!! either way an uncertain future for you stuff..

Backing up emails – Gmail to local outlook. Forward with a filter all mail you get in gmail you a yahoo and live mail account. loggin to them about once a month and theres you backup done!

Tangent isn’t the word. Im out!!

I disagree with this article, as an Operating System’s main function is to provide a software layer in which applications can talk to the hardware. Firefox is an application, that works within the operating system; I do agree that now that applications have moved to the web, that the operating system is less of a factor.

Saying that a browser can be an operating system, is a statement of how the someone truely understands very little of what an operating system does.

Mainframes… Anyone???

Currently companies are wasting money with powerful computers for every employee who just need Word, Excel, Outlook, CRT, etc…

We are going back to the mainframe model. Internet may be part of it or not due to many constraints and a good example as many people have already said is security.

When you talk of privacy lost using Google and that’s why you wouldn’t consider the author’s approach, think again. There is so much information leaving your home PC about you each time you click in a browser it’s scary. Even if you block outbound traffic with a bi-directional firewall a lot of info about you getting out. The point: if you use the Internet you loose your privacy!

Sorry for the double post… meant to include a link to OBOE:

http://www.mp3tunes.com/

Enjoy!

All you say is true, if you want to depend on someone else to provide you with this software. Yes lets put everything on the web, lets right our messages or deepest thoughts. Yes let save our files,pictures, lives on the web. Yes where they can be scrutinized by anyone with the ability to do so. Or worse yet destroyed by that same ilk. Not to mention the eye of the government which increasingly spies on us in the name of home land security. Yes, Yes lets listen to what he has to say! YEA RIGHT!!!!

A solution to your MP3 problem could be http://www.pandora.com or http://www.last.fm

None are as good as old-fashioned MP3s, but they are simple, easy to use, and have a large library.

@Leo: Would you be able to calculate the average photo file size? I you use any modern digicam, yours will likely be 4 to 5 MB. Not?

Man.. you sure love Google, dont ya?! Not worried about privacy issues? Doesn’t take much for stuff to leak onto the internet, and with GOogle, its just a risk.. you take by trusting someone else.

As for browser, I agree… but there are tonnes of things you can do with MS Word… or OpenOffice for that matter. Google docs is still gonna be severely limited!

As far as online storage goes, you should check out mydatabus.com…5GB free storage, public file link generator, photo album creation/sharing, online file format conversion, facebook.com integration…it really is a one stop shop for file hosting/storing.

What happens when your ISP has some downtime (noooooo!)
Cheers,
Hobo :-)

While I see where your coming from and partially agree… I gotta say, try to get Firefox to access your boot sector or manage peripherals. Firefox is not an OS and I assume it never will be an OS. I’m actually surprised how many people are like “yea your right” I guess most people just don’t understand the difference between a client/browser (oh yea Opera blows Firefox out the water) and an operating system (go Linux!) Until you can have a (server side) version of Firefox running that can boot another machine over WAN and handle all interrupt requests and blah blah blah I’m rambling.

as u wish

The Firefox OS should be came with the Sunbird and Thunderbird.

Adding some more:

Gaming. You can play many Flash games with Firefox.
Movies. You can watch them in YouTube.

—————–
How you can do with FF shell?

and in case you are wondering… I’ve never spammed, I don’t do porn whatsoever, and I used to keep all my account logins in Google Sites, send files and craigslist postings to my gmail account, use google docs for everything i used to use office for, calendar for everything i used to use outlook for. I was a serious google evangelist and have even professionally installed google apps on several clients domains. One day my google sites went disabled for no reason, doing a search i came across the same thing for gmail users, docs users, calendar users, etc. i’ve been backing everything else up like crazy and about to put everything up on my own VPS via Open Source apps that accomplish the same things. I may keep the remaining google accounts open for posterity, but never anything mission critical again. Much more peace of mind then…

Cloudware is the Devil!
If I don’t have control over it–and with cloudware you control nothing–then I’m not using it. I have 3TB worth of hard drive space and I can envision needing more in the future. One small example of why web cloudware can’t replace installed software is in editing large raw images and/or video. Even the fastest internet isn’t fast enough to be used as swap space… and even if it was, the network would grind to a halt.

Programs and a hard drive won’t be obsolete for a loong time. In order to access everything online, people need to have a fast internet connection. And where I lived as a kid, those people are still on dial up. Also, think of the internet speed you would need to play games. If you are a gamer, you will never give up your hard drive and OS. And with having everything online, you don’t know who is looking through your stuff. While you can have people look at stuff on your hard drive, if you know anything about computers that won’t be happening. It was an interesting read, but those days of cloud computing are a long way off.

you should try feedly… simple the best

In a few years we will consider the OS brand on the same level as the spark plug brand in our car's engine. Remember DOS? it is still somewhere running under windows, and netbsd is running under OSX. Nobody cares. That is why microsoft is no longer important for innovations, they are a spark plug manufacturer now. Just a succesful and rich spark plug manufacturer.

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Obviously this was written before chrome/chromium cam out :p?