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Comment by robertlagrant

2 years ago

> Google really hasn't launched a decent in-house product since Gmail

What about Chrome? And Chromebooks?

Sorry if this was a joke and I didn't spot it. Chrome was based on WebKit which was itself based on KHTML if memory serves. Chromebooks are based on a version of that outside engine running on top of Linux which they also didn't create.

  • It's not a joke. Just because they didn't write everything from scratch (Chromebooks also are made with hard disks that Google didn't create from directly mining raw materials and performing all intermediate manufacturing stages) doesn't mean they haven't released successful products that they didn't just buy in.

  • They used the KDE-derived HTML renderer, sure, but they wrote the whole Javascript runtime from scratch, which was what gave it the speed they used as a selling point.

Chromebooks are worse version of the netbooks from 2008, which ran an actual desktop OS. Chromebooks are OLPCs for the rich world, designed with vendor lock-in built in. They eventually end up at discount wholesale lots if not landfills because how quickly they go obsolete.