Do you have any evidence to back that claim up?

There are a number of features in Chrome that optionally talk to Google. But you can change them all if you prefer. Do you have any proof that it "phones home" in any hidden way? It should be quite easy to prove; Wireshark is all you need.

FWIW, I know some of the guys who started the Chrome project. Actually, they didn't start Chrome, they started V8. The point was to prove that Javascript engines could be orders of magnitude faster than they were, and to push the rest of the industry to get better, so Google's apps would be able to do more, faster. The rest of Chrome was just to show off V8. Then it became successful, both at pushing Javascript engines to get better, and as a popular browser, and Google started to use it as a test bed for other ideas about how to make the web "platform" better. Security improvements like certificate pinning. Performance (and security) improvements like SPDY and QUIC. UI simplifications like the omnibox (which geeks like to hate, but non-geeks love). Better development tools (though Firebug was and is quite good). And so on.

I don't think "better tracking of users" has ever been a goal, stated or unstated, of the Chrome project. And, seriously, why would it? It's not like the normal web standards don't offer everything that's required for whatever tracking anyone would like to do.

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Why are you a cheap jerk and not paying a subscription? http://slashdot.org/subscribe....

Yeah, because that straw-man attack sure has something to do with running out of storage space...

I like the cut of your jib, anon. We should hang out.

/but not as friends... because of reasons.

As if there was any doubt?

I've had more than 90GB of music for over a decade. Then there are pictures, and books, and if this thing is supposed to be a bit of my own personal entertainment while I'm away from a proper desktop computer or my own entertainment system, movies, TV shows, and all sorts of other things that I don't want to have to stream in order to use.

One can only hope that things will get better.

Trial and error, I expect. Look at what other sites do. I realize that this isn't a very good answer. There isn't a good answer, just bad answers that are still better than passwords. Classic OpenID isn't the answer because users don't know how to use it and many RPs don't trust random providers. But as a practical matter providing login with, say, Google, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL will give better than 95% of your users the ability to log on with better security than the password-based model you'd build, and do it just by clicking a couple of buttons.

If you find that your user base tends to have an account with some other provider (no, I can't tell you how to find out who your users are or what they use), then add that.

You're assuming that the end owner of the safe even has access to the Windows Shell in a meaningful way. I expect they've replaced the shell with something of their own devising.

I also expect that they spent as little as possible on making the computer-side of the device and didn't even consider the digital security aspects of their choices. Pretty stupid for a security company, but it wouldn't be the first time that such decisions have been made.

As usual, I prefer to blame the victims (us).

On a desktop personal computer, it would never occur to you to think "Oh, I just assume I'll get software maintenance from my ISP," and if anyone ever actually said that then you would point your finger at them and laugh and their over-the-top stupidity.

But change the form factor of the personal computer to handheld and suddenly we don't do the pointing and laughing. On the very face of it, it's JUST AS STUPID. So WTF?

Users are not exercising their common sense. They simply aren't. You can make excuses for not using common sense and explain why we did this very obviously stupid thing, but don't pretend it's not happening. Every morning you're getting up and putting a "kick me" sign on your back. You know that you're doing it and you know what consequences will invariably flow from it.

"I don't have any other signs to put on my back! All the signs on the market say 'kick me!'"

"Just because I wear a 'kick me' sign that doesn't mean anyone really has license to kick me! They shouldn't be doing that to me!"

Ok, go on and say those things. You even have some valid points, and the things you're saying might even be technically correct. But that doesn't mean you don't sound stupid, because you don't have not getting kicked in your requirements! WTF, people?!

Stop thinking of handhelds as some weird special case where ALL your experiences with software maintenance magically don't apply! THAT'S STUPID! So yeah, I'm a victim-blamer. You know when you buy your PC from your ISP or from a manufacturer who has a history of preventing maintenance, what's going to happen. And when people pretend they don't know the invariable consequences of buying PCs from ISPs, the stupidity takes on a flavor of dishonesty. Mmmm, yum!

I think that's part of the point, lots of people want different things in their phones, but very few manufacturers are respecting those wants.

I want storage expansion and dual-SIM. I wouldn't mind front-mounted speakers. I actually want a real, physical keyboard but I know that's simply not in the cards. I want about double the battery capacity compared to most phones, with a removable battery. I want the LTE bands for my carrier in my area to all be supported. I want a camera capable of about 5MP pictures as I have a real camera that I use when I want ultra high quality photos.

It's really the removal of the memory expansion that upsets me. They're doing it to force consumers to buy new phones in a couple of years instead of simply adding more torage capacity to their existing phones.

FPGA can also have backdoors.

When the services go down, you can't log in to the relying sites. Luckily, core infrastructure like the account systems is a very high priority for the engineers, and the big providers have plenty of resources to keep them up -- and they do. My bank's site is down far, far more often than Google's auth servers, for example. How much more often? I don't know... I've never seen Google's auth servers down.

Pick the top several and you'll cover nearly everyone. For the tiny percentage of users that remains, you have to either offer password auth (which means all of the work and risks of maintaining a password system, but at least when you screw it up only a tiny percentage of your users will be affected) or push them to get an account with one of the providers you support.

Sigh... Coal is only useful for base load. The spool up time for coal is too slow for peaking.
Natural gas is ideal for peaking since you can use it in gas turbine plants for peaking since the spool up time is so fast.
I showed you references do you have any data at all to back up what you are saying?
France may or may not use natural gas for base load but many nations do since it is so cheap and clean.
I would say that the engineers in France are knowledgeable and I would also bet that they would agree with what I am saying. Too bad it is the political parties that want to cut nuclear.