Google Chrome 31 Is Out: Web Payments, Portable Native Client 123
An anonymous reader writes "Google today released Chrome version 31 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The new version includes support for Web payments, Portable Native Client, and 25 security fixes. 'Under the hood, PNaCl works by compiling native C and C++ code to an intermediate representation, rather than architecture-specific representations as in Native Client. The LLVM-style bytecode is wrapped into a portable executable, which can be hosted on a web server like any other website asset. When the site is accessed, Chrome fetches and translates the portable executable into an architecture-specific machine code optimized directly for the underlying device. This translation approach means developers don’t need to recompile their applications multiple times to run across x86, ARM or MIPS devices.' You can update to the latest release now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome."
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a fallacy to think that 'native' equates to insecure.
Re:Security? (Score:3, Insightful)
Same way they do as JS.
That's not particularly reassuring.
Re:Keep pushing your tech on us, Google (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get this "Google's software isn't really open because they control the direction it goes in" bullshit. I'm not sure if it's stupid people or paid Microsoft plants.
If they're paying for the development they get to choose what goes in the their codebase. They release the source under an open source license, so be happy and shut the fuck up or fork it and try to out do them (which we all know you will fail at).
Fuck you.
Re:Viability (Score:4, Insightful)
Once Google has control of the UI we all use and the API, they get to say what applications run on it
Except that after Google proves out an idea (or while Google is proving out an idea), they also work with standards committees to help turn the new technologies into standard which all browsers can implement, and which any web app developers can use.
Don't forget that currently, all NaCL applications are approved by Google and are exclusively distributed by "Google Play".
Umm, that's not... oh, you already know that's not true.
You may say there are alternative markets, but those are fragmented and most are riddled with malware and pirated software. Anything commercially viable, apart from maybe Cydia is run and/or controlled by Google.
So what you're saying is that Google doesn't run and/or control everything. Agreed. And since all of this stuff is open source and will be standardized, Google can never run and/or control it completely. Of course, if they do such an excellent job that no one has any incentive to set up a competing system, it'll appear that they're in charge, but only in the same sense that Linus Torvalds runs and/or controls Linux. Yes, he does... but only as long as and to the extent his decisions and actions serve most everyone's interests. Open source is like that.
People that own an official Android device will in the near future have the ability to use all their Android apps on all their devices
Cite? I work for Google and I haven't heard this. It would seem to make sense, but I haven't heard of anything in that direction. And I don't see how it's related to NaCl, given that Android is a Java-based platform and it would be easier to use existing JVMs plus an appropriate set of libraries to support Android apps on other devices.
providing they run Google's Chrome, not some other browser that just happens to support NaCl
Uh, why will Chrome be required? And I'm still not clear how NaCl relates. You've lost me.
This will mean a very large domination of the application market for Google, rendering all other web browsers and end-user operating systems insignificant.
That would be a bad outcome for Google. Seriously. Not only would it offend the sensibilities of the 20+K engineers at Google (that's putting it mildly... I see torches and pitchforks at TGIF), it would put Google in a very tenuous position with respect to anti-trust regulators. Google has already been facing anti-trust investigations, and has largely beaten them all precisely because Google is careful not to lock users in.
I think we have a right to be worried here. It's not about the ability, but the viability of a fork. Even if it were technically superior, it'd still lose.
It would only lose as long as Google didn't actively exploit the control you're theorizing. As soon as they did, forks would spring up to compete. Heck, there's already at least one serious and successful fork of Android: Amazon's OS, which has a non-trivial fraction of the Android tablet market and which pretty much completely locks Google out.
(ObDisclaimer: I work for Google, but I don't speak for Google.)