Welcome to Spartan, Microsoft's persuasive argument for... Chrome Two years after its last browser strategy policy change in Windows 8, Microsoft is shifting the pieces around the board again. Microsoft last week unveiled Spartan, project codename of the browser for use with anything and everything running Windows 10. Spartan is for any Windows 10 device, no matter if its input mechanism be …
For Chrome in the enterprise, there's probably still some trust issues to get round, I think. The Chrome download page, talking about how Google copies your bookmarks etc to all devices, says "It’s your web. Take it with you". I read that as "It’s our web. Tell us everything you do".
A lot of corporate applications aren't terribly well designed, and do things like put account numbers in URLs and so on. That's not so much of a problem if nothing leaves the network perimeter. It's more of a problem when someone in Payroll bookmarks their page in the in-house accounting application, and it's stored in the Googleplex, which is then synced to their phone, and that phone is then left behind on the underground one day...
It's more of a problem when someone in Payroll bookmarks their page in the in-house accounting application, and it's stored in the Googleplex, which is then synced to their phone, and that phone is then left behind on the underground one day...
To be fair, how is that specific to Google?
And why is it the fault of whatever syncing service you use that your company uses systems that are so insecure?
To be fair, how is that specific to Google?
Start Chrome, you are asked to "sign in to Google". Start IE, you are not asked to "sign in to Microsoft". Google is the only browser publisher that wants to know who you are from the outset.
It's not the fault of a syncing service if an internal system is insecure (and I never said it was) - but the fact that a syncing service is built in to the product makes a breach more likely in that case.
No, you just sign in to Microsoft when you start the computer
I don't - I just log into the corporate domain, which I do trust, since it pays my salary!
Must be one of those people that just clicks OK or Next without reading that it is possible not to use a MS account to set up a PC just as it always has been.
"Start Chrome, you are asked to "sign in to Google"."
No, you aren't. Samsung S5 Mini. Just turned it on. Started Chrome. It's reloading the page I last looked at with it a few days ago (I usually use the stock browser).
No asking to log in. There might be an option somewhere to log in to sync favourites and such from another version (like the Windows version?) but I only have Chrome on the phone so no need to that. And as no need for that, no need to sign in.
"Google is the only browser publisher that wants to know who you are from the outset."
Except for when Opera wanted you to (optionally) log in to do more or less the exact same thing - sharing content from one browser session to another... I think Firefox can (optionally) do that as well these days.
I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't jumped on the bandwagon here. Then we could have all sorts of fun, like "looking at porno sites at home before bed? well, okay, let's just sync all of that onto your work computer..." ;)
"Start Chrome, you are asked to "sign in to Google". Start IE, you are not asked to "sign in to Microsoft". Google is the only browser publisher that wants to know who you are from the outset."
Microsoft asks you to sign in to their public cloud based authentication system to get in to the goddamned operating system. And they've started tying core system functions to that public cloud identity, too! Not to mention they stream every search you make on your local computer/local network to Bing.
Sorry mate, but Microsoft is far more insidious and in to tracking your every move than Google.
Edit: yes, you don't have to sign in to Microsoft's public cloud account to use the OS...but you certainly don't have to sign into chrome to use it either. Both, however, require you to hand over your privacy in order to make all the features work as intended, not just a subset. The difference is that Google wants you to sign into specific services (such as a browser, or IM client) whereas Microsoft wants your privacy just for the OS itself.
Yes very true on most accounts, and they should not be the default on any service IMO.
But saying Microsoft is more insidious is a bit far they are as bad as each other. Microsoft just have more users on their OS, I bet Chrome OS needs this too. I've never tried Chrome OS so would need verification.
ChromeOS, yes. Android...no. But ChromeOS *IS* just Google's web services wrapped in a bundle. So it makes perfect sense you'd have to log in. Android doesn't require me to have a Google account attached unless I want to use Google services...but I can gleefully use non-Google services. Cyanogenmod, Kindle Fire, etc...lots of Android stuff that doesn't require Google.
And both of those are different again from a full-bore Windows OS, which is designed not for mobile, not for cloud services, but for workstation services. To be an enterprise OS. For fixed or semi-mobile (notebook) systems.
Sorry mate, but Microsoft is more insidious. If only because they are "as bad as Google", but put billions of dollars into smearing Google and telling the world "love us because we're not creepy like them." Except they are. Especially if you happen to be a French journalist using Hotmail...
Every day. And it's a damned annoyance that every time I setup a new user or migrate an existing user that I have to hover over them to make sure they click on "Skip" the first time they open Chrome. Even more of a PITA when an update somehow resets it and they inadvertently log into the data slurp.
You put your left arm in,
Your left arm out:
In, out, in, out.
You shake it all about.
You do the hokey cokey,
And you turn around.
That's what it's all about!
Whoa, hokey cokey, cokey
Whoa, hokey cokey, cokey
Whoa, hokey cokey, cokey
Knees bent arms stretch,
Ra! ra! ra!
Jesus, I actually cannot believe that these articles are somehow getting worse - clearly when you hit bottom, you keep on digging.
Okay.
1. "modern" browser. Nice try at making it look like it only works with Metro/Modern. Well done. Nobody bought it because they all call themselves modern browsers. These days "modern" means "supports (some of) HTML5".
2. Web Devs have to develop for two browsers ZOMG WORLD ENDS except, er... no they don't. Given that Spartan runs Trident and Chakra (the IE rendering and JavaScript engines) it is Internet Explorer as far as development goes. Except for plug-in development which old IE didn't support at all so you'd hardly be testing it, would you?
3. Chrome is a piece of shit. It has built-in spyware, it renders text and graphics incredibly badly, it is slow and it's a big fat memory hog. I could load down FireFox with plugins and it'd still be quicker and more usable than Chrome.
I am a Firefox user. I will not be switching to Spartan. This non-story should have a "SPONSORED BY GOOGLE" label on it.
I'm not sure Chrome is so fast any more. It seems to be suffering the same bloat as all the others. It was only fast when it was new and unencumbered with legacy code. According to task manager, each of my current Chrome tabs is taking anywhere between 67-230Mb. I have 14 instances and 6 of them are well north of 100Mb. These days, chrome uses the vast majority of my resources and chugs along as slowly as Firefox or IE ever did.
All versions of Chrome have some sort of memory leak. I leave my laptop on and Chrome up for weeks on end. Slowly all the Chrome tabs start growing. I used to order them by memory in task managed and kill them in descending order - it was interesting to see which sites were the biggest hoggers.
Restart Chome, and all tabs drop back to <50Mb
Firefox is no angel when it comes to memory usage, Firefox for years was well known for it's memory leaks.
But to be fair, it is slowly getting better now. It's still a resource hog however, always has been, but even so, it's a great browser in my personal opinion.
To be clear: I'm not bashing Firefox, I have used it for a while now since version 1.5, I'm just saying it how it is. Firefox was and is known for high memory usage.
If you're running a Windows 8.1 tablet (especially a 1Gb RAM one), your choice is IE or nothing unless you want to squint at a 7-inch desktop.
Firefox doesn't work in Metro at all, Chrome fakes it by turning the tablet into a ChromeTab. You then hit the 'no extensions in Metro IE' rule so AdBlock is out, so in my case the choice was a Kindle Fire HDX.
I think the whole point is, that is will be a Microsoft browser that you don't have to hack around.
It is supposed to be standards compliant and should therefore not need any hacking to get it to render correctly... Although on mobile it will probably mean de-hacking all of those non-standard, Chrome-only extensions to HTML and CSS to get the page working properly.
that is will be a Microsoft browser that you don't have to hack around.
I've been hearing that oxymoron on every release.
I enjoy the fact that there are competing browsers, as it encourages innovation and we don't get the IE6 stagnation, but it's just a shame that ~15% of viewers use a browser that doesn't support technologies from the past two years.
>It is supposed to be standards compliant and should therefore not need any hacking to get it to render correctly
So it won't work with office365 then?
So now I have chrome for web browsing.
New IE for office365 and sharepoint
Old IE for all the legacy stuff form when IE integration was the once and future way.
Being a born cynic, I have a long-held belief that the only reason Chrome's usage is increasing is Google's persistence in drive-by downloads in conjunction with Adobe's evil empire, amongst others. I frequently find members of my family or friends using Chrome who were entirely unaware that they were, they clicked on a link in an email and the default browser opened
The last thing a company sysadmin likes is a browser like Chrome designed from ground up to exfiltrate informations running on all his or her systems. Mozilla is a far better alternative - just I can't understand why Mozilla refuses to play better with Windows (i.e., using its certificate store).
IE can be somewhat locked down and configured using group policies. Chrome support this as well, but Mozilla requires add-ons.
As far as I know, Spartan is a new engine designed to get rid of some old IE legacy stuff, and this is good news. Getting rid of ActiveX and BHO makes it a far more secure engine - but there's a lot of old stuff out there that wouldn't work without. Take Dell iDRAC - to run the remote console you can choose between ActiveX or having Java enabled in the browser - and you really don't know what is worst.
Anyway if Spartan and IE are compatible enough but for some specific support (ActiveX on one side, some rarely used newer web technologies on the other), I guess they will overlap enough most user won't mind what engine is being running at a given time - nor most web developers.
Take Dell iDRAC - to run the remote console you can choose between ActiveX or having Java enabled in the browser - and you really don't know what is worst.
You should try Cisco's servers. They need both Flash and Java.
I switched to Chrome from IE because I needed a quick browser but as others have mentioned it has become slower and slower. Google also seems intent on morping it into a Google portal so that all your activities take place within the Google Chrome environment. I find this creepy given their reputation for monitoring and moniterizing.
It might be time for something new.
At least Chrome uses IE's proxy settings. Firefox on the other hand is a total pain to support in an enterprise, having to edit files encrypt them and copy them over to the client. Saying that we pretty much insist on IE unless you have a good reason to need Chrome.
"At least Chrome uses IE's proxy settings. Firefox on the other hand is a total pain to support in an enterprise, having to edit files encrypt them and copy them over to the client."
You are in desperate need of Proxy Auto Config. http://bit.ly/1yJlLX6
Chrome generally seems to work better with sites "designed for IE" (i.e. company internal) than firefox.
I normally stick them all on and use FF for internet, Chrome for internal corporate. I hate the single search/url box, but sometime it just renders drop-down menus and so forth more clearly. I'm guessing it was designed to tolerate IE incompatibilities.
And I find it reassuring that FF will not use system certs. Really no reason to compromise good browser (and if I wanted to I can do this myself). The only trusted browser on the work PC (though I can see some admins having problem with this).
Where I work, we have a directive to be generally browser agnostic from the IT Support Services side of things. In practice it means we're installing IE10, current Firefox, and current Chrome. IE is locked down by Group policies. Neither Firefox nor Chrome are. Sometimes this has been a good thing. For example someone recently decreed we needed to fix the Poodle vulnerability by disabling SSL 3.0 in IE. At which point nearly all of our https connections fell over, including email. Chrome and Firefox provided a workaround for email, the business application sites that used SSL and IE, not so much. This persisted for the better part of the day until they decided to change course and disable another part of the SSL stack that was vulnerable. At which point a whole other set of needed sites fell over. But eventually sanity prevailed and were now back to all sites working but being vulnerable to all currently open MS SSL vulnerabilities.
A couple of years ago when we were still standardized on IE7, Chrome was effectively required. You see, when the project to migrate the hideously old email system (I believe some Oracle/Sun program, but they're another group and I don't know the actual details) to Exchange fell over, the powers that be decided our new mail system would be a purchased Gmail option. And they were pushing then Google Docs program. Which might read documents in IE7, but there was no way in hell to edit them and Firefox was an 80/20 shot at things working properly on that day. So Chrome is now standard.
Yeah, I know. You started with "sensible". But I live in the real world and have never visited this mythical place of which you speak.
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