Is future web based OS?

[jeyaganesh]

Hi,
What do you think about future of the OS? Will it be just web based OS like Chrome OS? Will traditional OS survive?

[emigrant]

i think it depends on the spread of internet to rural areas in the future.
i see still several "'developed' third world countries" doesnt have an affordable fast internet.

[Invincible23]

Hi,
What do you think about future of the OS? Will it be just web based OS like Chrome OS? Will traditional OS survive?

Most people dont want to store their precious data in the cloud, so until that changes traditional OS are going to be the norm while web based OS will garner a niche market

[madnessjack]

I’m with Google. They’ll be an OS for your games console (like there are today), an OS for your NetBook or “WebStation” (Google), one for you phone (Google, Apple etc) and so on and so forth. Currently, I’m planning on having Ubuntu twice on my machine, one for music recording and production, and one for web development. I’d like to have Chrome OS as a third for when I’m not working. So we're getting all these different OSes for different purposes. It's logical.

Chrome OS is not like Windows at all. It’s like what people use windows for 90% of the time.

[amitabhishek]

Is web OS == cloud computing?

[kreggz]

to all those people who don't like to store their stuff in a cloud, do you use any kind of hosted webmail, facebook, msn? - then you already you data is already in the *cloud*. The Cloud is a buzz word for a bunch of servers hosted by a third party in a datacentre it's not really anything special.

[dirtylobster]

I don't know if the world is ready for Chrome OS yet but web based operating systems are definitely the future in my opinion. They're not going to replace traditional OS's but are going to be the most practical solution for most users.

[Paqman]

They both have advantages and disadvantages, so I don't see why we'd move to either one exclusively. Using the web makes sense for smaller less powerful devices like netbooks and phones, but I don't think the traditional high-powered desktop machine is going anywhere soon.

[ZankerH]

No, the "cloud" is 100% proprietary restricted BS that infringes on your software freedom and privacy rights. And a dumb marketing buzzword for a concept that's been around for decades. It's just "catching on" (read: IT startups are jumping on the bandwagon) because Google decided it's an easy way to expand their nope-still-not-evil empire from internet searches to everything you do on your PC. I absolutely refuse to use any online services that require a registration to store my data or god forbid even run my computer for me, besides the bare necessities (an internet service provider and a mail server). This should be common sense reallly, you just can't trust the internet with your information.

[RabbitWho]

In the future you'll keep everything personal on a pen-drive or something similar. Your whole OS and everything you'd normally keep in your hard drive will be there.. maybe it will be backed up online, but more likely in a little box that your bank (or someone similar) takes care of for you, it will be in sync with your pen-drive of course (but only when you tell it to with your password, so if someone steals your pen-drive they can't ruin your life).
Computers will be almost empty and just waiting for someone to come and "Jack on" or "Jack in" or "Jack up" I don't know. Certainly not "off"

[madnessjack]

@ZankerH: that's fair enough but i don't give a hoot where my data is. I'll probably back the odd thing up on pens and my own servers but while Google offers to look after it they can be my guest.

@RabbitWho (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=894702): Interesting but this wouldn't work for me. I don't want to physically have my data with me, cos i'd probably loose it. to just log in from anywhere and access it does have an appeal.

[pookiebear]

I would rather not have any "data"
To give an example :
What did we have 50 years ago?
Typewriters, pens, and pencils and cash.
Work had filing cabinet rooms.
phones plugged into the wall.
Stuff still got done.


Another example.
I support many servers.
over 95% of the data on there has been there for years and has not been touched since it was put on there.


To go along with this I would say for the OS market it is like a seesaw.
every 10 years or so there is a shift from desktop to server and terminal. then back to desktop. They just call it different things to keep it fresh. I don't care where in the shift we are at the moment as long as I can get my paycheck, so I can buy motorcycle parts.

[madnessjack]

This "cloud" stuff is all new to boys and girls at home during their leisure time. It is in that sense an innovation.

[forrestcupp]

Like I've said before, they'll have to make some major progress to infrastructure and offer mindblowingly fast internet connections for free to everyone in the world before they can just do away with the traditional OS.

That notion doesn't mesh really well with the current trend of ISP's desiring to put caps on bandwidth and data usage. So there will be room for both. Some people don't need to use computers for anything major. A lot of people have needs that the cloud can't meet.

[emigrant]

Like I've said before, they'll have to make some major progress to infrastructure and offer mindblowingly fast internet connections for free to everyone in the world before they can just do away with the traditional OS.

That notion doesn't mesh really well with the current trend of ISP's desiring to put caps on bandwidth and data usage. So there will be room for both. Some people don't need to use computers for anything major. A lot of people have needs that the cloud can't meet.

+1
(I was trying hard bring out what u said in my english :-))

[Psumi]

I am sorry but, a web based Operating System is not for me at all. If they were the only ones around though, I would have to force myself to use them, sadly.

It costs me about 60 USD a month for 5 MBps cable Internet, I don't think that it would work well in my area of the United States.

[AlexZaim]

It will start with a mixture ,and in the more distant future, your pc may became a gygantic 100GHz comp for multiple users. But that's too futuristic to be too sure of.

[LowSky]

web based OSes will only work once the whole world has cheap/free/tax based standardized high speed wifi.

Otherwise it will be stuck on small tablets, kiosks, and netbook like devices where people with extra money pay the telco's to get them online.

[sdowney717]

the future is os on a chip! upgradeable just like a bios upgrade and infinitely adaptable.
each individual pc unit will have the capability of using any number of os's perhaps even concurrently. your data will be carried with you at all times and you will simply plug into any machine anywhere and your personal preference os will be shown and your data. I can even see someday where your personal data will be encoded directly inside your person, Perhaps simply touching the device and entering a passcode and the data will stream back and forth. But i think this is far into the future, at least hundred or more years.

[Psumi]

the future is os on a chip! upgradeable just like a bios upgrade and infinitely adaptable.
each individual pc unit will have the capability of using any number of os's perhaps even concurrently. your data will be carried with you at all times and you will simply plug into any machine anywhere and your personal preference os will be shown and your data. I can even see someday where your personal data will be encoded directly inside your person, Perhaps simply touching the device and entering a passcode and the data will stream back and forth. But i think this is far into the future, at least hundred or more years.

Windows 7 can be embedded (to a chip that is.)

[LowSky]

the future is os on a chip! upgradeable just like a bios upgrade and infinitely adaptable.
each individual pc unit will have the capability of using any number of os's perhaps even concurrently. your data will be carried with you at all times and you will simply plug into any machine anywhere and your personal preference os will be shown and your data.

We already have this
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

[Tibuda]

We already have this
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

and this
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[aysiu]

No, the "cloud" is 100% proprietary restricted BS that infringes on your software freedom and privacy rights. And a dumb marketing buzzword for a concept that's been around for decades. It's just "catching on" (read: IT startups are jumping on the bandwagon) because Google decided it's an easy way to expand their nope-still-not-evil empire from internet searches to everything you do on your PC. I absolutely refuse to use any online services that require a registration to store my data or god forbid even run my computer for me, besides the bare necessities (an internet service provider and a mail server). This should be common sense reallly, you just can't trust the internet with your information. I don't get it.

So Google can't be trusted, but your ISP and mail host can be? What makes them so trustworthy?

[lykwydchykyn]

If it is, I sure hope someone comes up with some better tools (read: languages, APIs, and most of all CLIENTS) to create applications in. I hate having to write half my app in PHP (or some other server-side language), half in Javascript (passed to the client as strings), never mind having to juggle around the HTML and CSS to get it to work in multiple browsers.

It's like we have all these beautiful, easy options for client-side programming, and we have to throw all that away to hack together stuff in this mishmash of kludges called 'web programming'.

[Tibuda]

I don't get it.

So Google can't be trusted, but your ISP and mail host can be? What makes them so trustworthy?

He run his own server in his basement.


(...) But, of course, it all relies on the server, and the best email server for anyone is still the one you run in your own basement. No worries about encryption, data retention and transparent deletion that way.

[aysiu]

He run his own server in his basement. I guess.

What about the ISP?

I think some of these privacy-paranoid folks don't realize how much of their privacy is violated all the time. Do they not go into stores that have cameras? Do they not use cookies in their web browsers? Do they never check books out from a library?

Is the server in a basement of some log cabin in the woods far from any other human?

You can seek a little bit to minimize privacy violations, but there is no 100% privacy or even anything close unless you live an isolated existence and never use the internet.

Think your emails are private because your mail server is in your basement? So that means you send email to only friends and family who also have mail servers in their basements? No. Probably you send emails to their GMail or Yahoo accounts, and so your sent emails are stored on the Google or Yahoo servers.

[Tibuda]

...

Yeah, there's no such a thing as privacy. People (including me) trust even more important stuff than information to banks.

[aysiu]

Yeah, there's no such a thing as privacy. People (including me) trust even more important stuff than information to banks.
The other thing to keep in mind is that these corporations that have your information aren't interested in your personal information per se. They aren't trying to get your deep, dark secrets or blackmail you.

They don't have time to look at each individual user. Individual users hold no profit for them. Aggregates hold profit. What demographic can we target? What are people's search habits in general?

If the government really wants to know your personal stuff, they'll get a search warrant and turn your whole life upside down, including the mail server in your basement.

[ve4cib]

I think the obvious answer here is "both". Clearly enough people are pushing the "cloud bandwagon" that it's not likely to go away. And for some data (e-mail, shared documents, calendars, and the like) storing them on the cloud just makes sense. Why bother storing your music and podcasts on your mobile *and* on your PC if you can simply store that on the cloud and have easy access to it anywhere? (Assuming you have a decent data plan for your mobile, of course.)

Cloud computing frankly makes sense for a lot of those kinds of "I want to access the same data from multiple places" and "multiple people have to be able to read/edit this data" problems. It's just taking shared folders to the next logical level.

And for those worried about putting your data onto third-party servers due to privacy issues, there's this wonderful thing called "encryption". Store only encrypted data in the cloud, and keep your private keys on the devices from which you access your cloud data.

That having been said I think anyone who says that traditional, local-storage/local-application based computers are going out the door is fooling themselves. For high-security, or highly-confidential data (police, government, (para-)military, and medical, just to make a few) having a disconnected computer with its own stand-alone storage and applications is the obvious way to go.

Programs that require low-latency (gaming for example) will also probably be best-run from local storage, pending radical improvements in network speeds.

Finally, there's the hybrid, "local clouds" middle-ground that's likely to emerge. Anyone with shared drives at home is essentially already doing that to some extent; you set up your own "home cloud" or "office cloud" that is accessible from your LAN, but not visible to the outside.

For those dedicated enthusiasts I see a great market for "home cloud" or "fog" servers in the coming years. It allows you to still have complete control over your data, while still giving you some of the multi-device, multi-user capabilities of the cloud.

So in the end we'll see three levels at which users can use their applications and data:

1- Local data, local applications (traditional OS)
2- "Fog" computing (multiple small, locked-down clouds, confined to specific regions/devices)
3- The Big Cloud

[Xog]

these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

[emigrant]

I guess.

What about the ISP?

I think some of these privacy-paranoid folks don't realize how much of their privacy is violated all the time. Do they not go into stores that have cameras? Do they not use cookies in their web browsers? Do they never check books out from a library?

Is the server in a basement of some log cabin in the woods far from any other human?

You can seek a little bit to minimize privacy violations, but there is no 100% privacy or even anything close unless you live an isolated existence and never use the internet.

Think your emails are private because your mail server is in your basement? So that means you send email to only friends and family who also have mail servers in their basements? No. Probably you send emails to their GMail or Yahoo accounts, and so your sent emails are stored on the Google or Yahoo servers.

sorry if my question is naive,
what if they transfer encrypted messages?

[Tibuda]

sorry if my question is naive,
what if they transfer encrypted messages?

Then there's no difference between Gmail and the basement server.

[aysiu]

sorry if my question is naive,
what if they transfer encrypted messages?
Where are they transferring those messages to?

If the person you send the email to is not using an encrypted connection to read your message, your message is now in plain text. And if that recipient forwards your message unencrypted, it's also in plain text.

Not everything is under your control, especially if you use the internet to interact with other people.

[emigrant]

Where are they transferring those messages to?

If the person you send the email to is not using an encrypted connection to read your message, your message is now in plain text. And if that recipient forwards your message unencrypted, it's also in plain text.

Not everything is under your control, especially if you use the internet to interact with other people.

no no let me be clear.
the sender uses a desktop based encryption program and encrypts the message using the recivers public key. and sends the encrypted message to the reciver (so i believe the stored data in the gmail/yahoo server is encrypted and is no use to them) and the reciver decrypts the message from his desktop program.

is it clear?

[emigrant]

@ danielrmt (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=702969) plz see post#34

[Irihapeti]

Funny how people want total net privacy until they get hacked. Then they want to know how to track the $#%^& down.

[Wiebelhaus]

Is web OS == cloud computing?

Yes 100%

[NCLI]

I'm quite certain it will be some, for us, unimaginable OS, running on implants in our brains, or maybe our brains will be exchanged with silicon-based alternatives.

Anyway, web-based OS will, at most, be a phase, and the traditional OS will definitely still be there.