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Google published a "Chrome browser" app in the Windows Store on Tuesday, but it simply opened up a Google Chrome download page in the default Windows browser. Most users would then have been able to download and install the Chrome browser, except for the minority of Windows 10 S users who are restricted to downloading Windows Store apps which must use the EdgeHTML rendering engine rather than Blink. Microsoft was not amused at the stunt and removed the "app" from its Store later that day:
Google published a Chrome app in the Windows Store earlier today, which just directed users to a download link to install the browser. Microsoft isn't impressed with Google's obvious snub of the Windows Store, and it's taking action. "We have removed the Google Chrome Installer App from Microsoft Store, as it violates our Microsoft Store policies," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.
Citing the need to ensure apps "provide unique and distinct value," Microsoft says "we welcome Google to build a Microsoft Store browser app compliant with our Microsoft Store policies." That's an invitation that Google is unlikely to accept. There are many reasons Google won't likely bring Chrome to the Windows Store, but the primary reason is probably related to Microsoft's Windows 10 S restrictions. Windows Store apps that browse the web must use HTML and JavaScript engines provided by Windows 10, and Google's Chrome browser uses its own Blink rendering engine. Google would have to create a special Chrome app that would adhere to Microsoft's Store policies.
Most Windows 10 machines don't run Windows 10 S, so Google probably won't create a special version just to get its browser listed in the Windows Store. Google can't just package its existing desktop app into a Centennial Windows Store app, either. Microsoft is explicit about any store apps having to use the Edge rendering engine.
Related: Microsoft Adds Store App-Only Restriction as Option in Windows 10
New Windows 10 S Only Runs Software From Windows Store
Microsoft Knows Windows is Obsolete. Here's a Sneak Peek at Its Replacement.
First ARM Snapdragon-Based Windows 10 S Systems Announced
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:59PM (9 children)
I would have thought that it would be permissible for Google to publish its wares on the Microsoft Store.
It's not like Microsoft bothered with an internet explorer for android. and if they did then fine advertise it on the play station network or whatever its called for free installation like any other program.
I guess if the restrictions are technological in order to create a lock-in, then they are both guilty.
and really I dont like how so many things require a seperate validated login with real name info and all of that to just download a free application. it used to be ftp sites and then http sites that just let you download stuff was a thing.
maybe the lack of net neutrality will usher in an age of not even being able to leave the AOL network and there will be no internet? count my blessings i guess.
i cant even use dialup anymore because of AT&Ts changes to fiber. there were BGP issues a few weeks ago that affected local calling and I dont even have voip on my mainline. there will be no way to escape the personalized cloud due to the fencing put up, so enjoy the humor while you can.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:22PM (5 children)
It may take more time than you have patience for, but things will change.
Once upon a time, PCs could add great value to people's lives. Simplify things like General Journal / Ledger and Accounts Receivable / Payable. And automate tedious repetitive Payrolls. Even VisiCalc spreadsheets caused Apple IIs to appear on corporate desktops because the total system cost was within many mangler's purchasing authority -- without having to even go through the mainframe "computer center" guys (before God invented words like IT).
Next, dialup came along. No, I don't mean PPP or SLIP. I don't even mean AOL. I mean CompuServe.
Then AOL. Then Internet.
The value was there, and so people adapted to it. They had to learn crazy weird computer things. Terms like CONFIG.SYS. (Or how to watch a Mac happy face and the icon parade at the bottom of the screen until a desktop appeared.)
The same could happen again.
Geeks will devise more and better ways of disguising all traffic. If you have any kind of connectivity at all, it will be enough. All traffic will be encrypted. What ports you connect to simply won't matter. Or alternately, everything will be HTTPS or SSH. (And it is possible to accept both HTTPS and SSH on the same port! [ostechnix.com]) In short ISPs will know less and less about what you are connecting to. Extremely widespread use of TOR might become a thing. Major tech companies might start offering free TOR nodes as part of a way to be protected. At first FTP sites, and Web sites were operated to provide a service at the cost of the owner. Anonymity might also be offered this way, at first, if circumstances warrant. Just like the PC, the dialup and the internet and even open source were long under the radar of most people, services providing freedom might start out this way too until they are just too big to stop. This may or may not prove true of digital currencies as well.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday December 20 2017, @05:25PM (4 children)
Or conversely, ISPs may effectively ban encrypted traffic by not zero rating it and setting low caps with expensive overage.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:04PM (3 children)
yeah
i've already been told by AT&T uverse support people that 'only pirates use vpns'
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:18PM (1 child)
Yep, only pirates. Pirates and small businesses. But you didn't get the $500/month small business connection, did you, you pirate?
</sarcasm>
Well, I'm not being sarcastic about the part where VPNs will be completely banned unless you have the small business package, which will be prohibitively expensive.
The part that's really going to blow my mind, though, will be when all of this reaches its absurd conclusion, we wind up back at AOL keywords (except they end in .com), and the only way you'll be able to access the web is by connecting to a proxy run by your ISP, which will only connect you to the websites on the internet package you've purchased. All other traffic is dropped.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 21 2017, @07:26PM
That would be an interesting battle...a lot of large corporations use VPNs for employees working from home or on call. The ISPs will have to have some way to handle that at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:43AM
Thus we can conclude that AT&T are be one of those companies that don't allow their employees to work from home, and in addition they don't consider the employees of other companies that do allow working from home to be viable customers.
(Score: 1) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
>> I would have thought that it would be permissible for Google to publish its wares on the Microsoft Store.
It is. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all publish apps in each other's stores. The problem in this case is that Google broke one of the rules.
For Browsers, Apple's rules say that you have to use the Safari components WebKit and JavaScript Core. Microsoft's say you have to use the Edge components. Not Edge itself, but the underlying rendering engine. Anyone can make a browser on either platform within the boundaries of those restrictions, and Google publishes Chrome for Safari on the iStore.
... but that's not what Google did for the Windows store. Instead of building a Metro version of Chrome that is distributed that way they made an app for downloading the full non-store version. That breaks a rule. I genuinely don't know why; they aren't usually a company that half-asses this sort of thing. I wish they published a real app version of Chrome, because I have customers that would like to have it available as a .appx in their Windows Store for Business to work PCs.
(Full Disclosure: I work for Microsoft as a PFE supporting Enterprise customers. I'm not involved with marketing or the Windows Store and this isn't paid shilling. I 3 Google and use a bunch of their kit including Blogger, YouTube, Gmail, Groups, and occasionally search because I haven't memorized the bing equivalent of inurl: )
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:27PM
And that right there is sufficient cause to avoid both platforms like the plague. Spending money to be treated like this? Please see a psychologist, you have severe self-esteem issues if you can accept being treated like this.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by radu on Friday December 22 2017, @09:37AM
everything related to windows 10, including windows 10 itself, is funny