Google, I Was Kidding... Honest!

Last year, I published a widely unread set of what I thought were humorous predictions for the technology world in 2007.  One of those items titled "AJAX 2.0" stated that Google would create a technology that makes it possible for web applications to access the local resources on the user computer, thereby recreating ActiveX.  This was an attempt at a joke aimed at the fervor with which the development industry jumped on the AJAX bandwagon after the technology had been around for years. 

However, I just read a blog post about Google's latest attempt claw its way out of the Internet and onto your desktop called Google "Gears" and sure enough its remarkably similar to what I described, in concept if not in implementation.  Hopefully, and given that this was released months ago and I'm just now hearing about it, the developer community will think twice before jumping on this technology and sending us back into the bad old days of browser based infectious diseases in the form of executable scripts.

 

6 Comments

  • 80% of my consulting business is helping people gather up disaparate data that is out of synch from multiple systems. This move seems to not only download functionality, but also data and it seems like it's going to be a nightmare (or dream for Integrators). It sounds like everything against central, server side programming thoughts. Let's see where this goes. Perhaps the user tolerance for bugs will increase in the future.

  • I think they're pretty different - Google Gears is just a local resource server which enables AJAX applications to work offline. It doesn't install executable binaries the way ActiveX worked, and doesn't allow any additional access beyond what existing javascript could already do, so I don't see how this would enable infectious code.

  • Yeah, you are either spreading MS FUD or you don't understand Google Gears... It's more akin to cookies than to ActiveX, i.e. it merely stores data on your computer.

  • Actually, I did pay attention. The problem (IMO) isn't simply what it allows the Javascript to do, which is more than just store data, but in that it adds scripting features through a browser extension. This browser extension doesn't use any security beyond it's "intentions" to protect malicious scripts from wreaking havoc on your machine. No policy based security (beyond limiting scripts to be from the same site), no CAS, nada. And to make matters less secure its open source so any wholes that may exist are wide open to the public or a malicious developer could add his own features to his version.

    Just because nobody seems to have found a malicious use for it doesn't mean they won't.

  • Did anybody else get a kick out of this pipe dream?

    "Perhaps the user tolerance for bugs will increase in the future."

    ROFLMAO.

  • Ummm, Give me a sprint or verizon broadband connection instead. Disconnected stinks.

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