Re: Predictable but not acceptable

On the assumption that at least one hardware vendor is going to make an ultra-netbook -touchscreen widget of some sort... I just want one of these without WOA on it and the associated bootloader restrictions.

As much of a failure as I expect WOA to be... I do think this could be a good thing from a hardware standpoint.

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

> it is just not possible on Android to choose any search engine other than Google

I just went to www.bing.com on my android device and it works fine...

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

I have installed Dolphin as my default browser (after trying and not liking firefox on android). No worries on that front

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

Really? May want to actually use Android before making claims about what it does or does not do. I use other browsers on it all the time including Firefox (Dolphin is currently my default browser). I can turn off cookies in all the browser on Android that I have including Androids browser. I can even change to bing or yahoo search but why would I want to change from Google?

Any other lies you want to make up?

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

Someone disliked my reply? Must be because I was to harsh. Either that or Bob18 did not like the fact that I pointed out that his entire comment was wrong and he disliked that. Or maybe someone just dislikes the truth that Android can do all that. It still makes me laugh, which ever it is.

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

Opera Mobile is my default but Maxthon is surprisingly good.

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

@Barry: I didn't realise that anyone except you could get the award, it must be quite a while since someone other than you has won it...

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

"This is just more astroturfing BS from Microsoft's PR dep't."

Actually if you bother to look at the guy's posting history, he seems to be more of a very badly informed Apple fan.

Or maybe that's part of Ballmer's master plan!

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

"Oh, and my ROM is..."

Hate to say this, but this immediately discounts everything you've said.

Standard options please. My mum recently got an Android phone with her contract, but if I said "you can root it and install Cyanogenmod" her answer would be something like "I understood everything up to the word 'can'."

Still, it's not like the stock ROM won't allow you to install Firefox. Or Opera. Or Dolphin. Hell, I even have MX Player Pro for my videos, and I'm looking for a better music app because Google Play Music is desperately awful shit.

Desperately awful replaceable shit, I must reiterate.

Re: Come on, el Reg...

"technically competent writers with real-world experience of technology"

You are realising, I assume, that you were woefully misled? I'm sorry, my friend.

Re: Come on, el Reg...

With music hall comedy due Lewis&Orlowski in editor positions what do you expect?

I miss the old reg, where cutting mockery came from people who knew about what they were reporting. The new reg, where unwavering belief trumps observable reality and cheap insults stand in for understanding their target - just seems petty and irrelevant. Certainly not a useful news source any more.

Re: Errm, what did they expect?

Yep the bookies wouldn't even give me odds on it since they thought it was a safe bet!

Re: Errm, what did they expect?

W8 and WOA are not the same product. W8 may bomb while WOA is a great success... or theoretically vice versa but that is looking very, very, very unlikely.

Re: W8 and WoA are not the same product

I think I agree, but Microsoft profoundly disagree. They've pretty much bet the farm on convergence between desktop and tablet OS, just as Intel did with IA-64.

Re: "...Chrome-maker Google has thrown its weight behind Mozilla."

It's a linux distro with a internet browser as the "gui" or the part that does most of the work.

You might be able to make your own linux distro with nothing but IE or Firefox on it. I'm sure Google would be fine to open up their APIs to you to hook into their servers and run the google apps trough Firefox etc. They did the same with Android -> Java, so I should think they would let you do FirefoxOS -> ChromeOS.

Re: "...Chrome-maker Google has thrown its weight behind Mozilla."

ChromeOS _is_ a browser. That is like asking "how many browsers will run on IE?"

A more relevant question could be "How many browsers will run on a machine that can run ChromeOS?" The answer is many because a machine that can run ChromeOS can boot many different OSes that can have many browsers.

How many other OSes can a WindowsRT machine boot? NONE.

In order to boot WindowsRT it must have a secure boot that cannot be turned off. If you buy a WinRT machine you are stuck with it.

Re: Serious Question

It goes a lot deeper than just the browser.

MS were slow on the WWW uptake, but jumped in with both feet when Bill Gates realised how central it would become to PC users experience of the OS. The plan with IE was then to use the browser as a lever to prevent other OSs being considered as an option.

Essentially, if every user needed 'the internet' and 'the internet' could be made to only work properly on IE, then since IE is only available on Windows, Windows would force out *all* competition as a matter of course. IE was made a permanent part of Windows and given exclusive access to Windows-only technologies such as ActiveX to achieve that advantage.

The fact so many business and government PC are still stuck on long-obsolete versions of IE is a testament to how close MS got to achieving their ultimate goal of permanent lock-in.

Re: Serious Question

Users and businesses are idiots, they don't see the lockin before it's WAY too late.

Apple are playing that game now, and Apple users are seemingly too thick to work it out.

Re: Serious Question

It's more about user experience, probably. I think we all know that browsers and OS are becoming ever more linked, to the point that in some cases (ChromeOS) they actually are the same thing. MS had Windows Active Desktop once upon a time which was an early step down this road (wow - do they look prescient now!).

Anyway, with OS and browser becoming ever more entwined, IE10 is gradually becoming an extension of the OS. And on ARM that is even more so given that WOA lacks the combo-Win32 and Metro API access that the desktop version does. So basically, either MS give up the whole sandboxed, more limited API model they planned to use in WOA for installable applications, or they cast themselves on the other side of it and say that nobody including themselves, gets to have a closely integrated OS-browser model. At which point they get pummelled by groups like Google and Apple who have no objection to doing this sort of close integration.

Incidentally, after a little digging I found a few references to what the Firefox crew feel is missing. Apparently they wont be able to spawn separate processes, which they use for things like sandboxing plugins, and making memory writable (directly, I presume) which they use for improving Javascript performance.

It is bad that there is less choice. But at the same time, I can see why Windows, on a tightly controlled device like a tablet (remember, we're only talking about Windows on Arm, here) want to prevent installable Apps that spawn multiple processes at will and directly fiddle with the memory. Essentially, they trust themselves to do that, but not to let any old random App writer to have that sort of power. Are Firefox "any old random App writer"? Well, if not, how do you say who is?

Re: Serious Question

> MS were slow on the WWW uptake

Not only that, but with the original Win95 MS tried to build its own network (the original MSN Classic) that did not talk to the internet unless you bought the later Plus! pack.

Re: Serious Question

Microsoft want you to use IE so they retain control. They know full well it's capable of replacing a lot of their functionality which they don't want. The idea of the OS just being a bit of invisible software behind your browser scares them.

Just look at it now, webgl is out and pretty much accepted by everyone except microsoft because it makes it easier to develop for multiple operating systems unlike directx.

That's why they want you using IE and because of webgl on its own I wouldn't be surprised if they at least make it a pain to get other browsers on future versions of windows to discourage people.

Re: Deja vu ?

Well No Jimmy, cos I still could install Netscape on a Win95/98/NT box. I can't on an ARM device.

Re: Deja vu ?

but you couldn't *un*install IE4 ...

Re: Wow.

"Has anyone actual evidence that IE on ARM will call win32 APIs in "Classic" mode?"

It would be madness to do so, as you rightly point out - this is a great opportunity to lose Win32 forever.

So, based on past history of technology at MS, what should we expect to happen?

It would have been madness to *increase* the amount of kernel mode code in NT purely to make it "faster" vs Win98. And so on.

ps

was Wow meant to read WoW, as in Windows on Windows? "Windows on Windows - commonly referred to by its acronym WOW or WoW - is a software component of 32-bit versions of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems that provides limited support for running legacy Win16 applications - applications written for Windows 3.x".

Re: Wow.

"Wow" was just my reaction at the concept. I can't take credit for the unintentional pun, fitting though it is.

As for what we might expect to happen, expectations are not evidence. Mozilla is not claiming that Microsoft is likely to do this, but that it is in fact doing so. For such a definitive claim, I'd like to see definitive evidence.

Re: Wow.

"this is a great opportunity to lose Win32 forever."

A great opportunity for who, exactly?

*You*, dear user, have been able to lose Win32 forever for many years now. Funnily enough, even though it costs more than the alternatives, most end-users have stuck with it. This is probably because they've spent more on apps than on the OS and half their stuff hasn't got a non-Win32 version for any amount of money.

Microsoft, too, are surely large enough to be able to lose Win32 whenever they like. In the last decade, they've reproduced most of the functionality in the .NET universe *and* started to create a third platform with this WinRT thingy. Even if they didn't have Mongolian hordes at their beck and call, most of what we think of as Win32 is a user-level environment on top of a fairly well-defined NT kernel that isn't terribly different (in terms of feature set) from the Linux kernel.

So both you and Microsoft could drop Win32 anytime you (or they) like, and that's how it has been for at least a decade. The evidence suggests that neither party sees this as a great opportunity.

Re: I feel sorry for the people not capable of running Linux

Hah hah. I work for MS and have been hearing that for years. The other day, I installed the latest Ubuntu release on an old laptop. Once I had managed to stop laughing, I slept very easily that night.