An old Netbook and living in a browser

My old netbook (Asus T91 MT) is getting old. Though I installed Windows 8 (upgraded from Windows 7), the experience on it far from stellar. My 2007 desktop (which is also upgraded to Windows 8), handles things much better. The Windows 8 experience on this desktop machine is really pleasing. And now with the new Twitter app, I am more often in the new Windows 8 mode than the desktop mode. It is just so better for twitter and internet browsing (with IE10). I occasionally use Firefox for browsing, but dislike Chrome, because of earlier experiences. When I need to do some real work (outside the browser), there is no other option but to go to desktop (which I frequently need when using Word / Excel or programming or connecting to my remote terminal using Putty).

My netbook has pretty low configuration in comparison to my desktop. But the worse part being that due to low screen resolution, the new Windows 8 apps are not supported. Which is not essentially a problem, as the only reason I used my netbook was as a secondary device for Internet (although these days I prefer using my Lumia). But being not able to use the wonderful "metro mode IE10" is a dampener.

So, this weekend I decided to do some experiments: Turn my netbook into doing only one thing, i.e. Web browsing. The first option was to remove all the Windows 8 apps, including uninstalling IE. Well, but before uninstalling IE I downloaded Chrome, and began the experiment with "chromebook" on an old hardware using a Windows kernel (not the default Linux kernel).

The Chrome looks great and integrated finely with the Windows shell, but the hardware tweaks make it unusable on old hardware.

As soon as started using Chrome, I had multiple issues: gtalk didn't work, youtube didn't work. Now I was quite disappointed to see that Google's own product didn't work with its own browser. After searching and tweaking a bit in the advanced settings, I got gtalk working. But youtube had simply too many issues. Then the next issue was basic browsing had a problem: may a times the webpages simply didn't load. I disabled all gpu related acceleration, thinking this would solve things a bit, it did, but still the experiences was far from what I would expect from a great browser (albeit on a dated hardware).

My next experiment was to try the next opensource browser: Firefox. So essentially I made a "Firefox book". Most of the things went of smoothly, until I started writing this post. For some reason the typing speed in Firefox turns out to be pretty bad for my reasonably powered netbook.

Firefox on my Netbook is an 'OK' experience. There are problems: touch events don't work, typing is painfully slow.

Another not so good thing about Firefox is its poor integration with touch events, make it unusable in tablet mode.

So finally I switched back to IE10. And IE10 is simply the best Windows browser on any hardware. It simply works. I don't have to worry about any incompatibility (such as touch events not working) or slow speed, even on my pretty old hardware.

The IEBook: That is what I have got now, with the vlc player for offline videos.

So at the end of this experiment, I have a new product: the IEBook, on a pretty low cost dated hardware, something that I would instead have expected from opensource browser and Linux. Ironical, but I guess the proprietary GMA 500 gpu is the reason for this role reversal. May be someone can try similar experiments on their old 'netbooks', and let me know in the comments section of your experiences. There is one drawback to IEBook though: it doesn't provide as seamless experience with Google services as a Chromebook would.





Missing link in ChromeOS?

Well, as the whole world tries to figure out who exactly will be using the Google ChromeOS (as is probably the case with Google Wave), this some how reminds me of Sun Microsystems days when they were releasing Jini and Jxta (which are surprisingly still highly active). There is one thing common between these two events, thinking ahead in time. While ideas of Sun were too ahead of time, Google might have got it just at right time, well may be…

There is one big missing link with Google ChromeOS; a dirt cheap (or even free) internet connection that is fast. If you do a comparison with traditional Operating Systems, this what is basically your RAM and Hard disk (they are extremely cheap to upgrade, as compared to the central processing unit) are supposed to substitute for. Google is trying to make a shift here, move the storage out, so that you need not worry about local failures (at this point I am completely neglecting all the privacy concerns). RAM still plays a crucial role, but then the OS is lean and mean, and the apps that run on that would also probably be of similar type (and possibly constrained too).

In fact, idea wise ChromeOS is bringing in nothing new. If you open up a bit this is exactly what was there in Windows 98 – IE integrated tightly into the OS, to the extent that there is not much differentiation between an OS and a browser. However, it is important to note that the design principles are totally different … and Google “assures” them to be safe.

Coming back to the “missing link”. I think this kind of model can only succeed if there is always connected device. This would probably mean this won’t be mobile. Mobile networks as of now are in no way great to provide good QoS while on move. Another issue is that the network should be absurdly fast, and cheap at the same time. Building this infrastructure from ground up for a company is simply going to take ages. However, if the experiments with providing internet access via powerlines would succeed, this would be the place where ChromeOS can win a majority market share… only time will tell where this is headed.

For me, I want complete control over all my digital content, and don’t really see myself using such a dumb device (probably ever dumb than my mobile phone!). Though, if ChromeOS catches on, I could imagine a world filled with computer (ill)literates who cannot do any thing without Google.

Google Chrome: Simply terrific :)

And finally they have it here! Google just released a beta version of their browser called Chrome for Vista and XP. And I am already loving this so much that I have stopped using the IE8 Beta 2, with immediate effect and am using this as my default browser now.

This is the best ever design of the Tabbed UI I have ever seen... On the tablet integration stuff for which Firefox and Opera failed, Chrome also fails, but its simply too tempting to dump this fresh and lightweight browser. I will be installing this on my MiLeap too :)

Update: Most of my frequently visited sites work great with Chrome. However one thing I miss is the superb RSS reader like the one available with IE... so for the mean time IE8 beta 2 not dumped :)

Update2: (See the screen shot), its got some serious tools for Web App developoers and Task Manager and a Memory meter, note IE8 beta 2 and Chrome beta memory usage ;)