If we ever did return (remember Unix) to the dumb terminal, just imagine what these big companies would harvest from you then?

I picked up a new ASUS low end notebook it also has the dual-boot but I just boot into Windows 7 some things die hard I guess.

It is quite interesting how the market is moving to a simple client model and everything in the cloud. I’m still not sold on cloud based services though for some things or remote storage, given the examples of the SideKick complete data wipe, or the Google Gmail uptime issues. Unfortunately my viewpoint is probably in the minority so I fully expect the slow progression towards the dumb client.

Windows 7 is a huge step forward. IE8 is a huge step backward. The fact that you recognize this is a step to more of a non-partisian blog posting.

Chrome is much faster on all of the systems that I’ve tried. It does not run with a Mac (or run well using one of the translators) and it seems to crash alot. Where they are going in the right direction is a thin browser that can do the basic functions. This allows the user to take advantage of web services (like Hotmail, gmail, Office Online, me.com for example). These systems are popular because you don’t have to locally store your data.

My wife bought a HP netbook with Windows 7 on it. The thing is wonderful, but interestingly enough, she rarely boots into Win7. It has a thin Linux option pre-installed that basically boot you to a web browser. It takes about eight seconds, and the thing absolutely FLYS when you are using Hotmail and surfing the net. Silverlight and Flash both work perfectly. If she needs to get into more detail (Excel or Word) she can either use Office Online or boot to the Win 7 for a local copy.

Your feelings about protecting your identity is interesting. What do you think that damned “Malicious software removal tool” is doing? I’ve had legitimate copies of XP that I purchased get zapped by this thing. And when I turn it on, all of a sudden my spam triples. Clearly someone is using this tool and Microsoft’s auto-update process has something to do with it. I stopped the auto-updates and used a clever hack to disable the malicious software removal tool, and the spam ceased.

Nick, everybody is harvesting your information. Web sites announce that there are opportunities in “insert your town here” that they are getting directly from your web identity. If you fully embrace the netbook / web service / SAAS approach, your identity will be stored remotely and companies are going to take advantage of it. Rather then a myopic focus just on Google, perhaps it would be appropriate to draw attention to the fact that everybody is harvesting information.

The opportunity is for a thin browser that is secure. If Google, Firefox or Microsoft could come up with a thin browser with just the basic functions, then it would really be an advantage. Without the massive overhead of a bunch of plug-ins, the thing would scream. Errors would be less likely (as well as chances to hack it) because the code would be bare bones. While Google may have an interesting start down this path, my guess is that they will start loading it up with a bunch of unnecessary garbage… and you will have Firefox Version 2 by Google.

It is sure nice to have the extremely thin HP Netbook experience for these simple, web-based needs.