Upgrade or die: Apple's re-invention of the version ratchet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rongarret.info/2016/01/upgrade-or-die-apples-diabolical-re.html <comment><USER2> > Microsoft implemented it back in their glory days (irony intended) by > changing the file formats in new versions of the Office suite so that > documents created by newer versions of Office could not be read by older > versions, thus forcing everyone to upgrade to the newer version in order to > share data.

In fact, Microsoft released updates for older versions of Office (back to Word 2000, apparently!) which allowed them to read the new formats [1].

[1] [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-a- Word-2007-do...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-a- Word-2007-document-in-an-earlier-version-of- Word-8FE47805-64A9-4CC5-A115-B148625FE043)

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the fundamental differences between pre-2007 and Office 2007 document formats. I tend to think that the format change wasn't a forced deprecation of older software, but rather just a simple business case. Simplify maintenance and support, and create an open-ish standard to avoid competition + support industry.

<comment><USER4> the old binary formats for office were the collected history of 20 years of software development, and even Microsoft had trouble with consistent implementation - at least OOXML had a digestible easy to use standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >When Apple introduced El Cap, it deprecated iPhoto in favor of Photos. Photos is missing a crucial piece of functionality: the ability to export an album as a web page. Apple wants you to share your photos using iCloud. Well, I don't want to use iCloud. I run my own server, and I want to share my photos there.

I'm frequently bothered by the shockingly anti-competitive nature of software today. Walled gardens and lock-in are pretty terrifying. If you want to continue to control your data, you can't trade control of it away to a software company for convenience and a shiny user interface.

My collection of music managed by beets[1] (and properly id3 tagged) will never be inaccessible to me because all of the data formats are open and standard. If I were using iTunes, perhaps that would someday be untrue.

I'm not a big photos person - do any awesome FOSS photo management programs exist?

[1] [https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/guides/main.html](https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/guides/main.html)

<comment><USER6> > If I were using iTunes, perhaps that would someday be untrue.

That's simply not true. The iTunes store sells DRM-free AAC, a documented format. You can transcode it into literally any other format, if you don't like AAC. Ripped CDs are ripped to the format of your choice.

Only the Apple Music streaming service uses DRM - and buying a DRM-free version of any track is literally one click away.

I can think of many things to criticise Apple for, but lock-in of your music is not one of them.

<comment><USER7> In fairness, Apple used to encode most of the music they sold with FairPlay. Many people probably assume they still do.

<comment><USER8> That was over 7 years ago. How is it "fair" that people don't know?

<comment><USER7> Because why would they know? Unless they saw it in a news article, most people probably never heard about the change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >You will upgrade because all of your data will be in iCloud and all of your finances will be in Apple Pay, and you will have no choice: you will upgrade or die.

You can download all of your iCloud data from the web client, and Apple Pay doesn't involve the cloud at all. It's all stored and encrypted locally and you have to re-add your cards with every new device. (I don't even think they persist over backups?)

>Even if Apple doesn't implement this strategy, they could, and that to me is cause for concern. Personally, I don't want the only thing standing in the way of being coerced in this way to buy things I don't want to be the continued benevolence of the largest corporation in the world. I want an escape hatch to keep Apple in check. And right now, I don't see one.

Yes, and Microsoft could do the same. Will either of them actually do so? I doubt it, but I suppose it's possible on an infinite timeline. Keep in mind that Apple needs a platform for their own developers to use, and for app developers, and closing the Mac would make that very difficult. Apple also knows how many of its customers are developers and they wouldn't just throw that away for questionable gains. Lock-in is fragile because eventually you get users using your stuff because they have to instead of because they want to, which is never a good situation.

>And the tools are set up so that you can only build for supported version of the OS.

Near as I can tell, this is false. I can set my deployment target all the way back to OS X 10.4. Will this not work?

<comment><USER10> I went from iPhone to Android and back again to iPhone. I had no troubles at all with either transition.

Tech journalism can be so dramatic sometimes.

<comment><USER11> No problems with iMessage screwing you over when switching from Apple to Android? If you ever participate in any group mms messages its borderline impossible to escape apples ecosystem without serious drawbacks.

If you switch to android and want to still receive group mms from friends, every member of the group mms that has an iPhone has to delete the entire thread and start a new thread. Not only that, they each need to add you or another non ios member as the first person in their new mms.

Pretty ridiculous and irresponsible if you ask me.

<comment><USER9> iMessage is free, SMS is not. That's the tradeoff. iMessage is also encrypted. How do you propose adding those benefits to SMS without any cost to the user?

Exactly. iMessage exists because SMS sucks, not just because they don't want you leaving. Same reason for the green bubbles. They know you'll berate your Android friends into switching because of them.

<comment><USER12> SMS are free in the US on all but the lowest of the low end plans. If you are paying for them you likely don't have a data plan to use with iMessage anyways, or a prohbitively expensive one.

Ideally something like Signal would take off. Its free, cross-platform, encrypted, and supports more or less everything that SMS/MMS does without actually using those protocols.

That being said, aside from encryption, I think SMS really doesn't suck. What messaging system exists on virtually every phone manufactured in the past 15 years, is a built in feature, isn't tied to a country, carrier, or platform, doesn't require data service, and costs nothing or next to it?

<comment><USER9> When iMessage was created SMS wasn't free on almost every data plan. That's a huge part of why it exists. I say it sucks because they charge for it at all when it doesn't actually cost them anything to provide and they aren't doing a heckuva lot of R&D work on SMS. It's also slower than iMessage and doesn't support delivery confirmations or read receipts.

Signal is great. It would be awesome if more people used Signal. But iMessage is the next best thing IMO and it has what really matters: users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _This sounds like a positive development, but it 's actually an indication > of something quite ominous that most people don't realize: for several years > now, Apple has been deploying a strategy straight out of Microsoft's Big > Book of Dirty Tricks which I am hereby dubbing the version ratchet. A > version ratchet is a software deployment strategy that forces you to upgrade > even if you don't want to._

Nothing dirty about it. If you "don't want to" just use an OS vendor that doesn't force you. Or you can continue using your old OS on your old Mac. It's not like it will stop working altogether -- people use Amiga computers still with 1990-era OS/WorkbenchS from what I hear.

The alternative to what Apple does is slower OS upgrade cycles and/or devoting resources to 5 and 10 year old OSes. Which we had with MS -- 15+ years of XP (and a decade of IE6 dominance), holding IT back.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Or you can continue using your old OS on your old Mac

No, that's the whole point. That _used_ to be possible, but it isn't any more (or soon won't be).

<comment><USER13> Continue to run doesn't mean you get free OS updates for life.

<comment><AUTHOR> What on earth leads you to think that I expect free OS updates for life?

<comment><USER7> The way I read this, you're not asking for OS upgrades for life, but you are asking for service support for life. You want to be able to use your old OS on your old Mac, but you also want your old software to keep running even if it depends on external services (which are not unchanging). Is that correct? If so, this is not meaningfully different than expecting upgrades for life. This is expecting perpetual backwards compatibility. If anything, lifetime upgrades is easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> > you are asking for service support for life

No. What I'm asking for is to not have _arbitrary_ restrictions imposed on me if I try to maintain old software beyond its service life.

For example: I have a legally licensed copy of Snow Leopard. I would like to be able to run it on a VM, but I can't because the license doesn't allow it. (Yes, I know I can run Snow Leopard Server on a VM -- and I do -- but Snow Leopard Server is not quite the same as Snow Leopard.)

I also have a legally licensed copy of Mavericks, but I have no way of doing a clean install of Mavericks since it has been pulled from the App Store. (Yes, I am told that some people have Mavericks in their purchased tab in the App Store. But I don't, probably because I bought a machine that had it already installed.) Likewise for iPhoto.

I would also like to be able to install a new version of an application while keeping the old version. Or at the very least I would like to be able to roll back to an old version if I don't like the new version for some reason. With the App Store, I can't do any of these things.

<comment><USER7> I don't disagree with any of that, but that all seems unrelated to "version ratchet". VM restrictions have nothing to do with being pushed to upgrade. The inability to do a clean install of Mavericks kind of does, but that seems like a crappy oversight rather than an intentional push

Same for the app rollback scenario. That seems less an intention to push upgrades and more of a lack of investment in exposing older versions. I suspect that many app authors are happy with this one, though, because it reduces their support costs because the number of old installs can only decrease over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _> The only way you can run Lion nowadays is if you find a working machine that has Lion installed on it._

No. If you've previously purchased OS X Lion, you can still download it via the App Store, but it won't be included in your list of purchased items by default.

To fix this, choose the "View My Account" command from the "Store" menu, and click the "Manage" link next to the "Hidden Purchases" field. You'll now be able to unhide each hidden item by clicking the appropriate "Unhide" button.

<comment><USER15> 3 clicks to do just that?

<comment><USER16> Really?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the term "version ratcheting". It captures the essence of a particularly insidious disease that is currently plaguing our industry.

There are several other variations that are starting to become widespread as well. A lot of professional software, the kind of stuff that costs 4+ figures for a permanent licence, is seriously defective when first shipped and then receives updates, perhaps via some proprietary tool. What happens if you need to reinstall it but the updates are no longer available, or the update files are available but the tool no longer functions to install them as you could before?

A lot of professional software also requires some form of activation, and may provide a related tool to migrate a licence from one PC to another. Again, what happens if you have a properly purchased copy and want to use it according to your agreement but the developers have turned off the lights on the activation server?

I suspect laws are going to have to change before too long to keep up with the real relationships involved in modern software. Normal commercial agreements between a purchaser and a vendor don't really cut it in 2016, because the third party -- the software developer -- has a much bigger role in the ongoing nature of how the software works. Turning a blind eye to defective software has worked reasonably well in practice as long as we had the gentleman's agreement that developers would provide free updates to correct the serious flaws anyway, but increasingly that is no longer the case or the updates come with strings attached.

In an age of DRM, activation, automatic updates, dependence on remote systems, and the like, it might be necessary to start imposing statutory requirements on vendors _and_ original developers responsible for software, to ensure that users can continue to enjoy what they were actually agreeing to pay for in the first place or receive suitable compensation. It might also be necessary to enforce minimum periods of support for permanent licences, and to limit the kinds of lock-in that can be applied with temporary licences or online components, in order to follow the same basic principles of consumer protection and fair competition as other fields.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm also really purturbed by apple's 'version ratchet' (great term btw). In my case it's the infuriation caused by the 'notifications' to upgrade ... Which you CANT DISMISS! It's either install, or 'remind me later': tonight..tomorrow, but explicitly not 'never for this version'. I've turned off notifications altogether on Yosemite. Ios9 is the icing on the cake.

<comment><USER19> What about security vulnerabilities that get fixed in those updates? You don't want those?

This got us Chinese bot nets on outdated XP machines...

<comment><USER20> This is exactly the issue. It is irresponsible for a vendor not to nudge users toward upgrading when older versions no longer make sense to support.

<comment><USER18> 'Nudging' me to update from Yosemite to El Capitan is just annoying. It's one iteration!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a logical consequence of non-free software. I'd add that even in the free software case, there's a non-zero cost to supporting legacy software as first-class citizens, to the point where it often just doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER4> Its a logical consequence of resource limits, technical debt is expensive, and must be resolved eventually. There is a reason that support for GTK 1.x applications vanished over time, as well as ones that needed old compilers, tied to old library version, and old versions of glibc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So basically the cloud model removes power from the consumer. Nothing new here, but a good reminder.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've ended up using third party apps that aren't sold through the app store. More and more developers are getting sick of apples shit, and a lot of good- enough alternatives exist out there that you can have a decent setup without dealing with it.

The app store is such a clusterfuck anyway, I hardly ever open it except by accident.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure if you can get your hands on the App/DMG version of Lion, it's possible to create an ISO, or at least a bootable thumbdrive. That's what the Hackintosh folk do.

<comment><USER25> kat.cr have torrents of all the old Mac OSs

<comment><USER26> Is there a list of known-good hashes for official Mac installers?

<comment><USER27> There is now.

[https://github.com/notpeter/apple-installer- checksums](https://github.com/notpeter/apple-installer-checksums)

<comment><USER26> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "And nowadays everything is in the app store, including the developer tools. And the tools are set up so that you can only build for supported version of the OS. It is still possible to use XCode to build an application for Snow Leopard because you can still get an old XCode install DVD and an old Snow Leopard install DVD, and if you get Snow Leopard Server you can even run it on a VM. So no matter what Apple does, you can run Snow Leopard forever if you want to."

Sigh. That makes me very happy.

It also makes me very happy that I saved, into cold storage, every single .iso and .pkg and ... everything ... that I ever downloaded from the apple developers site. The old apple dev resources/download site was too good to be true - you knew it was going to go away.

<comment><USER29> You can download the newest Xcode et al without the App Store, from here:

[https://developer.apple.com/downloads/](https://developer.apple.com/downloads/)

(Edit: You can download Xcode all the way back to Xcode 2.3 from 2006)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> On the positive side, a quicker upgrade curve helps developers iterate faster, and improves software quality as a whole. Our team is much more effective when we know we only have to support the latest 2-3 releases of our app, and we can simply prompt anyone using anything older to upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER31> They day I no longer want to use Apple's latest stable versions of software is the day I'll start thinking about migrating away.

Also, this is why I invest my free time into pushing open source forward, so it can displace the few closed source things I still use/depend on.

</comment><comment><USER15> Another good example is exporting Notes files from iPad. You HAVE to have 10.9 OS X on your laptop. With all those engineers on payroll they can't allow exporting to older OS?

</comment><comment><USER32> I just don't understand why people cling to the old version of software (barring some crazy malfeasance by the developer or something..). I've got all of my apps on auto upgrade. Also, as an app developer, this is an endless pain in my ass.

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, I'm "clinging" to Mavericks because nothing beyond it will run iPhoto. Also, I really hate the new "flat look."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> >That's fair enough; you can't expect OS vendors to support ancient hardware forever.

The direct Microsoft criticism and definition of 'ancient hardware' seems entirely... Apple reality distortion filter

<comment><USER34> _you can 't expect OS vendors to support ancient hardware forever_

That's funny, because that's pretty much what I've been experiencing with Ubuntu during the last decade.

Not only do I really OWN my hardware and get to decide WHEN and IF I want to spend money for a new machine or not, but the hardware support gets even more complete with every passing month.

To sum it up, time is on YOUR side, not on some company's side.</comment></comment>


Best ultrabook for linux? [April 2013 edition] - <AUTHOR> What would you recommend? What do you use? Do you know of something interesting about to be released?
Please, do not recommend me to use Windows or Mac OS, we are not discussing this right now. I am specifically interested to find a nice ultrabook to use for programming on linux.
Yes, I am aware of the most popular things like the Dell Linux Ultrabook and the Chromebook Pixel (and I might choose one of them). But yet, someone might know of something better.
So here are the rules:
1. It's OK if it comes with another OS, as long as it's not very hard to install linux. The hardware must work well with linux. Some minor exceptions are acceptable (eg - not working fingerprint reader)
2. Full HD or better.
3. SSD
4. Keyboard of great quality.
5. Good battery life. <comment><USER2> I currently run Ubuntu on a 2008 MacBook (runs near flawlessly) and a 2012 top of the line Dell Latitude (buggy as hell).

A lot of the responses here are along the lines of "I think you should look at this laptop", not "I have personally run this laptop and it works great."

I bring this up because my experience with the Dell which is otherwise the best laptop I have ever used and technically meets all the right specs has been dreadful.

My advice is to seek out answers from people who have actually done what you are trying to do and get some real world feedback. Also, if all else fails, I believe the shear volume of technically inclined people who own an Apple laptop compared to products from other companies should be taken into consideration.

Good luck and make sure whatever you get has a solid return policy!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, good points. Of course I value most answers from people with actual experience. But I'm also happy with answers of the kind like "see, manufacturer X is going to release model Y in 2 months"...

Same observations about Dell, except for the cheap class (which I don't want) which is extremely good for its price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would totally recommend the X1 Carbon - though it's a while since it was released so maybe there is something recent that trumps it. Build quality is top notch - AFAIK it has the only trackpad and keyboard that can compete with the MBA (Asus Zenbook - I've heard - falls down on the track pad front, despite more pixels). SSD is fast. And it charges in 30 mins to full charge, which I didn't care for when I bought it but is really really useful. I would recommend the i5/8GB RAM version. And Linux works great on it. I'm running Ubuntu.

The X1 is insanely portable. The extra bit of real estate the 14 inch screen provides is great for everyday work. Ya, I loves it!

<comment><USER4> Downsides: doesn't have full HD, and you can't upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB without paying for many other additions that you don't need.

<comment><USER3> Agree with you on the full HD front.

As I said, I'd go for the 8GB out of the box. This means you can only get an i5 processor (there isn't enough space for an i7 + 8GB in the machine). But all these processors are type U anyway so they're wayyy slower than i5/i7 series - so i5U vs i7U prob isn't a factor.

But ya, moar pixels is always good :)

<comment><USER5> I have an X1 carbon with both i7 and 8gb ram. Perhaps this restriction only applies to older models? Mine is the newer model with 1600x900 display.

<comment><USER3> Interesting to know. My i5/8GB RAM X1 also has the 1600x900 display. Perhaps as you say there's newer internals. But cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dell just released their native-linux-running XPS:

[http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- lapt...](http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz)

1080p screen and you can assume the hardware works with linux.

<comment><USER7> No NVIDIA or ATI card? How is the graphics performance?

<comment><USER8> After my current experiences running linux on a laptop with an optimus enabled graphics card I can safely say that I am never again going to buy a laptop with discrete graphics to run linux. It's been a pain getting Bumblebee to work (optimus drivers), and even with it working certain parts of the hardware are still closed off, thanks to limited driver support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Have a look at the Zenbook UX32VD, <http://zenbook.asus.com/zenbook/?c=prime_ux32>

It's full HD 1080p IPS screen, switchable intel HD/ nvidia graphics, expandable RAM and HD. I've had one since November and find the keyboard and build quality to be excellent.

Since I bought it I've upgraded the HD to a SSD and add a additional 8gb for ram to bring it up to 10gb total.

Linux compatibility seems good <http://www.linlap.com/asus_ux32vd>

<comment><USER4> Also consider the UX32A [edit: I meant UX31A], which doesn't have switchable graphics (which don't work well under Linux anyway), has an SSD instead of an HDD (good), doesn't have upgradable RAM (bad), and is cheaper. Same screen on both.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I can't seem to find a machine with these specs. Especially I can't find one with Full HD screen. Maybe because I am searching in European stores... (where I live)

On the other hand, I found a UX32VD with 2x256 GB SSDs. This is a little too much. Also I don't need the nVidia graphics card.

But in general, the Zenbook is probably my current favourite.

<comment><USER4> My mistake -- that should be UX31A.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Macbook Airs (or 13" MBP Retina) is (in my experience) the nicest choice for an ultrabook.

\- Installing Linux is really easy

\- Macbook Air isnt' full hd, but the retina is obviously better than full hd

\- they've all got SSDs

\- Macbook keyboards are amazing

\- my air will last for about 8-9 hours of light use (vim etc) between charges

<comment><USER11> Does it really work that long with Linux? I have the 13" Air(2012 Ivy Bridge model) and while on Mac OS and only using Eclipse/XCode for work I never get it past 6 hours mark.

But in any case, I honestly don't see many reasons why would I install Linux on it in favour of Mac OS. I can see why would I swap Windows for Linux,but I find myself able to do 99% of linux stuff on MacOS just fine. It's got the terminal, it's got mostly the same tools, so why?

<comment><USER12> It's really a preference thing. I have the opposite feeling, i.e. why keep OS X when you can run Arch?

As for battery life, Linux can very _greatly_ depending on settings and distro. Don't expect to beat Mac OS without any configuration/tweaking, but if you go far enough you can get match it or do better.

<comment><USER13> Someone that thinks like me! I'm not alone!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I did quite a bit of research for a new ultrabook. I am a software consultant and needed a hardware update. One of the surprising things I found was that most of the ultrabooks do not have dedicated home and end keys which I regularly use for coding. I finally came across the Lenovo Yoga book, it was almost high-def, had all of the keyboard keys including home and end, however as soon as I got the laptop out of the box, the keyboard had different "flex" in different areas of the keyboard. When typing "0" in the upper right the whole keyboard actually moved. This was disappointing as 3 other Yogas I tried had the exact same problem.

I returned the Yoga and found the Acer S7 (It does not have home and end keys, but it has dedicated page up and page down) which I plan to remap to home and end. (The base Acer ultrabook does not have these).

I have been quite impressed with the S7, the screen is incredible, keyboard is nice. Battery life is not excellent, but that is not a show stopper since the longest of my in-person meetings are less than a few hours.

Good luck! Finding just the right "ultrathin" ultrabook for development can be a little tricky right now.

This laptop was not in any of the big-box retailers in my town, so I had to get it on Amazon. Below is the affiliate link. If you care, just copy out the asin... [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AVYPLPY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AVYPLPY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AVYPLPY&linkCode=as2&tag=bnc010-20)

<comment><USER15> Hope it works out for you - this is purely anecdotal, but anyone I know who's owned an Acer laptop (n = ~6) has had it break on them within a year and a half or so.

<comment><USER14> I should have added that to my post, I waited this long because I learned a few years ago never to buy the first-model revision. (I had a bad first-year redesign Honda Accord of all cars and will never make that mistake again) I saw the same thing on the first-gen ultrabooks (pre Asus Ultrabook Prime). (It seems the manufacturers were rushing to play catch-up with Apple).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Whatever you do, DO NOT get an ultrabook with a discrete graphics card to run Linux. As someone else said, it's a pain in the ass, and it actually ruined my Dell XPS 15 that managed to live just long enough to get out of warranty.

I had been running bumblebee for months, and yes, you can install it and make it work and get almost as much battery life out of linux as you get on windows. That said, bumblebee is error prone, sometimes doesn't survive kernel upgrades, etc. Several times I installed basic Ubuntu updates only to find bumblebee was disabled and my battery life gone to hell.

Sounds like an easy fix (just turn bumblebee back on), but in my experience, laptops aren't made to absorb the heat from a discrete graphics card all the time. I'm 90% sure that's why my Dell XPS 15 bit the dust after just a year, due to a shoddy implementation in powering the Nvidia card up on demand.

In my case, I just bought a new system to replace my Dell XPS15, and opted for a 13" Macbook Pro running OSX. If I wasn't running OSX, I'd probably go with an ASUS, again without the discrete card. Get a nice display, with an ultrabook, I think that's extremely important.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm considering getting the Pixel and running Linux on it, but am extremely annoyed by the lack of upgradable storage.

The $250 Samsung ARM Chromebook has USB3 (~100MB/s) and a fast (~50MB/s) SD card controller. The $1300 Pixel only has USB2 and a slow (USB2) SD card controller and no real PCIe slots, which means that you can never get more than ~17MB/s when trying to increase the tiny internal storage.

<comment><USER17> Honestly, the $250 ARM Chromebook is among the very best things you could do for development (in my opinion). I can use ChromeOS for when I'm not doing anything hardcore and then just open a chroot jail (via crouton <https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton>) with a full xubuntu/xmonad install when I really want to get cracking. Both open so quickly it's almost disorienting, either from start or from sleep. It's the same size and weight as a Macbook Air and the battery life is outstanding (I've come quite close to the 9 hr mark when I'm not listening to music on speakers). The only downside, at least for the purposes of this question, is that it isn't fully HD, or rather isn't 1080p which is what I assume the OP meant. Still, I'd say that this is by far the best computing investment I've ever made, and I'm happier with this than I am with the $1000 laptop I got 6 months ago.

<comment><USER4> It's 1366x768, which is the worst resolution available on modern laptops. The resolution makes it unusable for development, in my opinion. (I have one too.)

<comment><USER18> If Samsung makes this model laptop with a high res display, I will happily buy it as my next machine. The wife has the current model and loves it, but the screen is not quite up to scratch. Otherwise, a brilliant little device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm very happy with my Samsung Series 9.

Different marketing people mean different things by "full HD", so I'm not sure if it meets your specs, but 1600×900 is decent enough for me on that size; and it really, really is a gorgeous display.

Battery-wise, when I was travelling and had wifi/bluetooth off, low screen backlight, etc, it was pushing 9 hours.

<comment><USER20> I'd agree with that. I actually prefer the keyboard on my backup laptop (An x121e Thinkpad), but yeah, love the Samsung's screen. Battery life isn't brilliant at 5-6 hours though. I miss my old Samsung x360 which used to give me closer to 8.

Ubuntu installed just fine on the S9. Everything seemed to work OOTB. But ended up reverting to Win7 for a contract I was working on while travelling.

The new 1080P Series 9 would be okay, but I'd be sorely tempted on a Chromebook Pixel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My favorite options are the Air (11 / 13) and Thinkpad x220.

Other options include Thinkpad x230 (newer than the x220) but worse keyboard, x1 Carbon, Dell XPS, Chromebook Pixel, Asus and Samsung.

I ended up buying both an Air 11 (my own money) and a x220 (my employer). Both machines are really well supported under Linux (most hardware is Intel). The only drawback is their low resolution screen, which IMHO is not a dealbreaker given how small they are.

I manage to achieve 5-6W in both, which leads to stunning battery peformance. This requires some powertop monitoring and some simple tweaks.

x220 is great because it is serviceable, has an IPS screen, a full keyboard, a non-ULV processor, better connectivity, and a more sturdy design.

The Air has a much better touchpad, is more silent, and comes with a blazing fast SSD from Toshiba (64 or 128 versions).

<comment><USER22> I personally would get an Air over a x220 after having used the x220 for the last 6 months. The x220 is my fourth Thinkpad over the years, and it looks just like the X30 I got 10 years ago.

And honestly, the design has not kept up with the times. For its weight class, it's pretty big, thick and clumsy. The trackpad is atrocious (that's not a problem if you like trackpoints, but my fingers end up hurting after an hour of using them). I also found the x220 quite slow, and the fan spends a lot of time running even with just basic browsing. Battery life is decent though, it probably won't break just by you looking at it sideways, and the keyboard is good - its a classic Thinkpad. But next to a modern Ultrabook it looks quite dated.

However, if I were to spend my own money, the Dell XPS 13 Ubuntu edition looks appealing. I haven't had a chance to try it though.

<comment><USER23> I've had the new XPS for about 2 weeks now. It's nice and light, good screen. Worked with Ubuntu out of the box except hibernate -- which ran into some problems with encrypted swap before it could work (could be my fault for saying Yes to encrypted home dir when setting up the preloaded Ubuntu). I gave up on the trackpad though (maybe it can be tweaked to be usable), and am using a mouse. I never liked the trackpad on my previous laptop (some kind of netbook) nor the trackpad or the red thingy on the solid Thinkpad T42.

With an i7, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD it's nice and fast. Suspend, hibernate are quick. Sound is decent.

I tried an Asus zenbook and the Samsung series 9 in a store, and was not happy about the keyboard. I think the Dell XPS keyboard is nice. Not as nice as on my 2005 Thinkpad, but the XPS is far lighter and thinner.

Here in Denmark it was hard to find a good selection of laptops to try in store. My other alternative was the X1 carbon... but I really wanted something that worked with Ubuntu out of the box with 100% guarantee.

Overall, it feels solid and sleek yet light (1.4 kg or so). It fits into the same tiny Victorinox laptop bag that my 2009 10" netbook fit into, yet it is much more powerful (of course, also 3x the price).

I found one wifi hotspot that the Ubuntu or wifi hardware mysteriously refused to connect to, where I had to connect via my Galaxy S3 phone and share the connection via the USB port (which worked pretty well).

While the screen is nice, I've increased the font size to "Large" in Ubuntu's universal access settings, and have zoomed in on several web pages with Chrome. So I'm not yet sure about the benefit of the high resolution screen (Linus Torvalds however swears to his Pixel and its 2560x1440 or so screen).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This decision is purely a function of cost, portability, features. And you might have to compromise on something, be prepared.

My choice: Asus Ultrabooks.

In my case, I couldn't afford a Macbook Air, (I badly wanted a MAC, I couldn't buy with my budget, but just somehow managed to get an ASUS Ultrabook with EMI's)

About Asus Ultrabooks--

Compared to MAC's:

\- They are much much cheaper, ( almost half the price) not compromising on the build quality, comes with Aluminium Chassis.

\- Has 24GB SSD, Hybrid storage with 750GB HDD( you can configure SSD, and install important apps)

\- Excellent MAC like Keyboards.

\- Suggestion: Get an 8GB extra RAM, everything works smooth.

\- Finally excellent battery life, 4hrs guaranteed with 4cells, if you are looking more get 8cells, but pay extra.

Good luck. :)

<comment><USER25> (Pedant alert)

MAC => <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address>

Mac => <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh>

<comment><USER26> That was completely unnecessary. There's no reason to think that it's a reference to the former in such a context.

<comment><USER25> True, but there's also no need to capitalize it. It's a shortened version of Macintosh, not an acronym.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I recommend buying a piece-of-shit Dell and putting an aftermarket SSD + memory in there. Personally, I develop on cheap Dell slammed full of RAM running a Linux VM inside of Windows. I know the 'cool' kids aren't into Dell and Windows and all that but you can get a faster machine for less money if you stay away from Apple.

Unless you are running a server, there is no reason to be running Linux directly on your hardware. You can, of course, but it's not a good idea.

I'm not a Mac fanboy so take that for what you will. I look at these fanboy 'bro' developers running around with overpriced hardware and laugh. You might not have the same reaction.

<comment><USER28> Same - windows offers reliability, especially when your hardware drivers get forgotten when they no longer work with updated software and updated kernel down the road.

I run CLI Arch Linux in a VM and use samba for shared folders. Usually I just end up coding right in the SSH terminal. You also develop good habits when it comes to deploying to a production environment, plus capable of managing multiple environments and keeping them separate.

Edit: BUT, for Ultra Books, I am looking at buying an Asus Zenbook Touch UX31A with an i5. Top quality build and nice keyboard, has great reviews. The Dell XPS ultrabook looks good too, but doesn't have the same quality as the Asus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I really like the x1 Carbon. Nice and light, touch screen is optional and Lenovo is pretty good with Linux support.

<comment><AUTHOR> At least in European stores, I can't find one with more than 1600x900 pixels. That's too old nowadays.

<comment><USER30> Have you actually used a 14" laptop with a 1600x900 screen? When I got the X1 Carbon, I was worried that I was giving up a higher resolution screen in order to get a ThinkPad ultrabook. But I've found that even 1600x900 is actually too high a resolution for me, without scaling. For example, I've got HN scaled right now to 125%. A friend of mine has an ASUS ultrabook (the Zenbook Prime UX31A) with a 1080p screen and it was impossible to read anything on it, the text was so tiny.

You can read about my experiences with the X1 Carbon here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375>

I'm typing on that same laptop right now and loving it.

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment I type this from a T410 with 1600x900 resolution. I want better.

<comment><USER31> T400@1440x900 here, one word: MORE!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I got an HP EliteBook Folio 9470m at work (not my personal choice), but I though I should share my impressions.

I was genuinely impressed by the fact that this is the only ultrabook I've seen with a _swappable_ battery. Yes!

The ultrabook in itself is fine, and the build quality is excellent. 8gb of ram, 256gb SSD, HD4000 graphics. I wasn't able to boot the latest ubuntu with EFI, but "hibrid" boot works just fine. Basically there's not a lot of hardware variation in terms of ultrabooks, so everything works more or less correctly. I was personally able to work for 5 hours on the battery (I'm a developer, so you can imagine my workload as slightly higher than average browsing).

I do have some remarks:

\- The keyboard is generally good enough, but I've always found HP keyboards to be sloppy compared to ThinkPads, and this is also true for this ultrabook. \- The touchpad is ok (synaptics), but the touchpad _buttons_ are crap, like all HP I've ever used. HP doesn't seem to get buttons. When you hear the click it doesn't mean you have clicked. Wake-up HP, I've been using elitebooks since the '90 and this _HAS NOT_ changed! \- Not a fan of the "nipple" in the middle of the keyboard, wastes space for the key. \- Useless fingerprint scanner, like most HPs.

Both points are moot if you are fine with HPs in general, since this is absolutely equal to any other HP elitebook.

\- Some problems with the latest iwlwifi driver (some panics during network scanning in the last weeks), though _hardly_ an HP-only problem.

Comes preloaded with Windows 8, which was easy to zap. Run-time on battery between linux/win8 was equal after for me, contrarily to what other people mention. I used windows 8 for about two weeks (to give it a spin), using Visual Studio, etc. 5 hours of work on battery is the longest I've ever had so far for a laptop. Being able to have a spare battery is a big plus.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've had an Asus Zenbook Prime (1920x1080, 256GB SSD) for about half a year now and am generally very happy with it. I run Debian testing (with Linux 3.7.1 at the moment) and as far as I know everything works.

Compared to my girlfriend's Mcbook Air I have to charge the battery much more often, but I'm not sure if that's the hardware or the OS. Another minor nitpick is the rather high fan speeds it prefers, even with low temperatures. This makes a noticeable noise in a quiet environment (I don't hear the Air).

Keyboard is not great but ok (better than that of the older Zenbook), I love the screen (this resolution is new for me) and wrt size/weight/form factor/price it's pretty much equivalent to a Macbook Air.

As I said, I'm happy with it, and would probably buy it again. The only other model that made me just a tiny bit jealous is my colleague's Lenovo X1 Carbon, but it's quite expensive and wasn't available half a year ago.

HTH.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'll have to add in my vote for the Zenbook Prime UX32VD. I use it as my work laptop and it's awesome. Go for the UX32VD over the UX31A. The UX32VD comes with a 24gb SSD (which I use for my Ubuntu install) and a 500gb HDD (used for a Windows 7 install and the /home directory of my linux install). The benefit is that you can easily swap out the HDD for a SSD and you can also upgrade the RAM to 10gb. The UX31A and Macbook Air both have soldered, non-upgradeable RAM.

I've heard people mention the fan noise but I honestly don't notice it. The one thing I'll say isn't that great is battery life. Due to the discrete GPU, I get about 3 hours of battery life. There are some things you can do to turn off the GPU, such as installing Bumblebee.

Check this out: <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime>

<comment><USER35> Based on the good reviews, I got a Zenbook Prime (UX31A).

I really didn't like the keyboard. Shift-insert, normally a right-hand-only operation, became a both-hands operation (I had to hit Fn with my left hand). There were other keyboard layout problems, and I just didn't like the feel. My typos went way up.

I ended up selling it and getting a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> After being loyal to ASUS for many years, I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad x230 in January. I like it, but there are some things to nitpick: [https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/PR4efB7D...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/PR4efB7D4ev)

I wrote about the decision process that led me to choose that model: [https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P6BH)

And earlier, I wrote about why I gave up on getting an ASUS machine. (TLDR: Windows 8 refused to dual-boot. I felt ripped-off but too weary to fight it into working.) [https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/jfDVKGyx...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/jfDVKGyxxgd)

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been really happy with my laptop from System76 (<https://www.system76.com/laptops/>).

Although I got the Gazelle for more horse power, the Lemur seems like it would fit your needs: <https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemu4>

<comment><USER38> The ultrabook spec is loose enough to be meaningless, but even so I find it hard to believe that a 3cm+ thick brick would qualify. Also, a 1366x768 screen is probably not what the OP meant by HD...

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thinkpad T430, +1600x900HD screen upgrade +All function keys are compatible with all major distros of linux +Best keyboard on a 14-13 inch I have used +Upgradeable battery lasts 8-9 hours(in text editors/browsing the web)

Avoid System76 if you need battery life, which was the main reason I chose the T430 over the Gazelle

<comment><USER40> I'll second the T430 series. I've had good luck with the T430u with the base configuration and ubuntu. Ubuntu installation was simple using a bootable USB drive and the latest Ubuntu desktop.

The screen on the T430u is not full HD, but cheaper than the regular T430 though.

I believe an SSD is available as an upgrade, but I suspect doing the upgrade yourself would be easy. I upgraded the RAM to 8 GB, which was an easy upgrade following the manual. The hard drive looks to be similarly easy to upgrade.

The keyboard is acceptable and I have found that I have adapted to it quickly.

I haven't pushed the battery life, but I would estimate 4-5 hours with web browsing and the screen brightness up.

<comment><USER39> I too upgraded the ram, just have to find one with the same timing on Amazon and pop it in(4gb stick). And as for the SSD I got myne on Newegg for $85 (128gb Samsung 840) also very simple to put in, remove a screw pull out the old and mount the new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Saw this in an interview with Cory Doctorow. His information regarding Thinkpad warranty is excellent.

[http://lifehacker.com/5993401/im-cory-doctorow-and-this- is-h...](http://lifehacker.com/5993401/im-cory-doctorow-and-this-is-how-i- work)

</comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone have a good timeline for the release/availability of the next iteration of Intel CPU's?

"Mobile" as much or more so than "desktop/server".

At this time of year, this factor is a major point for me in making a decision about when and what to purchase.

</comment><comment><USER43> How about Lenovo IDEAPAD U510 ? I own U310, not the best performance but keyboard is amazing and price is very low compared to competition. ...and it looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> 15+ inches is too big. My 14 inch ThinkPad is too big. Now I want something more compact

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> While I don't have one, I've been researching the NP740U3E.

</comment><comment><USER45> What about Novatech nFinity <http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/?s=3> ? They do sell w/out Windows installed.

</comment><comment><USER46> Chromebook Pixel. It's all about the display.

</comment><comment><USER47> lenovo x220 for me - I got a new one for £500 from ebay with 16gb memory.

Then installed a 2nd HDD (msata) to run linux.

Only problem is not full HD.

</comment><comment><USER48> Please, let us know which one you chose</comment>


Facebook Loses Much Face In Secret Smear On Google - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/12/facebook-loses-much-face-in-secret-smear-on-google/ <comment><USER3> A key saying I provide all my clients with in regards to corporate culture and behaviours: a fish rots from the head.

Usually this means things like 'if the boss is ten minutes late to every meeting, staff will assume it's acceptable for everyone to be ten minutes late to a meeting'.

Given Zuckerbeg's reputation for sneaky behaviour and this example of his PR team, I now have an excellent example to share in the future: 'If the boss uses sneaky, underhanded and/or arrogant methods to launch 'his' business, staff will assume it's acceptable for them to use sneaky underhanded and/or arrogant methods to promote it'.

<comment><USER4> > I now have an excellent example to share in the future

Your comment intuitively seems correct, and I'm inclined to agree with you. But I can't help but wonder if you just end up picking examples that support this claim. Most examples of corporate wrong-doing probably can't be correlated with traits of their CEO (they're just mistakes made by inept, or possibly malicious, individuals or groups).

Statistically, some percentage of corporate wrong-doing _will_ correlate to some event in the CEO's past. I'm not sure that necessarily means that we can point to those cases as proof that a fish rots from the head.

<comment><USER5> Saying that the "head" has to be the CEO is taking it too far.

In most large companies, you are only aware of the behaviour of the two levels of management above you. If you see your boss or your bosses boss behave in a certain way, you will think that this behaviour is acceptable.

For example, the CEO of some bank might be very long-term, risk free, investement oriented, but if the boss of the trading desk only cares about the next paycheck and is willing to take risks to get his bonus, chances are all the traders will do whatever it takes to get good results without more than a year ahead.

<comment><USER6> That actually seems counter-intuitive, to me.

I work in a company of about 140k people and I'm far more aware of the CEO than I am my boss or his boss. I don't even know who my boss' boss is or what he does, but I hear about the CEO on a regular basis (beyond just showing up in movies). It seems to me that in a large company, you're aware of your boss and the figureheads and everywhere in-between those two levels are given the gift of obfuscation.

<comment><USER7> I can't help myself trying to figure out what 140K-employee company has a moviestar CEO. Nevermind.

<comment><USER8> Oracle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder what the ex googlers who moved to FaceBook think of such slimy tactics. Might be interesting to hear the perspective of someone who moved from a company that (at least) professes an adherence to "Don't be evil" to a company that apparently has no problems with jumping into the slime. If I worked for Facebook, I'd be ashamed of my employer today (and would probably protest and then get fired!).

And, as someone said above, _Facebook_ professing a concern for abuse of privacy is a bit much to swallow.

<comment><USER10> It's not like this is the first evil thing Facebook has done.... there might be some who might argue that yanking around Facebook's defaults about users' privacy settings was far worse than using a PR sock puppet.

Personally, I think using (or perhaps we should say, trying to use) a PR sock puppet was cowardly, and trying to bash a competing product by spreading anonymous innuendoes was crass. But not all would agree with me. Some might even say that anything which is not illegal, is OK in our capitalistic society. And as far as I know, no laws were broken. That being said, I am _so_ glad I don't work at Facebook.

<comment><USER11> Just because something is legal doesn't forbid you from thinking it's cowardly or crass. Facebook are free to do distasteful things, but - and here's the important part - we are free to condemn them for doing so. Forbidding us from sharing our opinions because "hey, it's legal" is a self-defeating argument.

<comment><USER12> To take this to the extreme, bestiality was legal in Florida up until this week.

<comment><USER13> My old friend Pig-Fucker, from Deltona, FL, must be very sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good ol' Arrington... he's got the courage to call em out. To really stick it to the big guys. It takes guts to say "No More!" to the corrupt and the wicked, even when such a stance might cost you personally.

I was going to comment as such on his blog...

...but I don't have a facebook account. ;)

<comment><USER15> Wait a minute – this story broke on a blog, and then got picked up by the Daily Beast, and then by Arrington. I guess you could give Arrington credit for spreading this story to his audience, but he doesn't deserve credit for calling Facebook out in the first place.

<comment><USER16> I think your sarcasm meter may need some tuning. ;)

<comment><USER15> HN comments are usually so earnest, that I turn my sarcasm meter off here. It goes back on as soon as I leave. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kudos to Christopher Soghoian[1] for releasing the email[2] instead of accepting the offer for cash + high-profile smear publication.

It makes you wonder about the existing op-eds slamming social circles[3,4,5]

       [1] http://www.dubfire.net/
       [2] http://pastebin.com/zaeTeJeJ
       [3] http://www.switched.com/2010/08/09/google-shows-off-how-well-it-knows-your-social-circle/
       [4] http://marketing.about.com/b/2011/03/31/google-wants-you-to-1.htm
       [5] http://librarianbyday.net/2010/03/30/googles-social-circle-social-search-may-not-violate-any-privacy-laws-but-it-gives-me-the-creeps/

<comment><USER18> Shit, it was Christopher Soghoian? Whoever thought that he would participate in a pay-for-editorial job should be fired. Actually, they have almost certainly already been fired. He's practically built a career on exposing corporate bullshit. If they bothered to read his wikipedia page, they'd note that he has a history of releasing private corporate correspondance that is sent to him: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Soghoian>

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't it be sweet if they _did_ know about his reputation and specifically sent this to him so that Facebook _would_ be found out.

Cool - this idea is being downvoted, maybe you misunderstood my point? If an employee of facebook specifically sought to submit this to this particular reporter knowing that it may result in exposure of this plan to the world...

I hate being downvoted without an explanation. What is wrong with this idea?

<comment><USER20> The mail wasn't sent by a Facebook employee, it was sent by a PR firm. You know, someone who, by definition, would not do that.

<comment><USER19> You are correct, though the scenario could still be true in that the PR firm could feign naivete in knowing that the reporter would do this, if so - <USER2> brilliant play...

<comment><USER21> But hasn't the PR firm lost their face too? If the PR had an intent (expose FB's tactics), I wonder if they could have done it differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 From the Daily Beast article:

 _First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google's attempts to use Facebook data in its own social- networking service._

So, just to get this straight: Facebook resents that Google use's "Facebook data" in Social Circles, when I as the user have to explicitly allow Google to import my Facebook connections? Shouldn't the user get a say in how their data is used and who uses it?

<comment><USER22> Actually, you don't explicitly allow Google to import the data. Google does the following:

a) scrape Facebook.com; b) notice that someone named "Roderick Evans" on Facebook is friends with someone named "Danielle Benson" on Facebook; c) notice that someone named Roderick Evans' GMail account has someone named Danielle Benson in his contacts; d) they're done. Your permission is not part of the process.

Your Facebook identity is now associated with your Google profile, and your Google profile gets associated connecting edges, without your permission or notice. If by some miracle you swing by your Google profile, and you notice that your Quora/Twitter/MySpace/Facebook accounts have all suddenly been connected, you can sever them, but I received no notice of the connection beforehand.

At least, that was how it worked for me before I deleted my Google profile. It's described in more flowery terms here: [http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer...](http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=1142745)

<comment> brown9-2 Doesn't the Facebook user need to allow their connections to be publicly accessed via the Graph API in order for it to be scrape-able in the first place?

The main point here is that Google isn't doing anything with the "Facebook data" that the original user of that data (who actually owns it, let's be fair about that) hasn't approved of in one way or another.

<comment><USER23> Not sure about the Graph API, but your name, your profile picture, and your contact list are all fully public information and you can't control their visibility.

<comment> brown9-2 Are you sure about that? How does one access this info?

If I go to [http://graph.facebook.com/<myusername>](http://graph.facebook.com/<myusername>), the only data that is visible is:

      {
        "id": "...",
        "name": "...",
        "first_name": "...",
        "last_name": "...",
        "username": "...",
        "gender": "male",
        "locale": "en_US"
      }

<comment><USER24> <https://graph.facebook.com/michaelfairley/picture?type=large> for the picture.

Friends can be accessed similarly, but require an access token (_any_ access token, not just the user's that you're inspecting.

More details at Facebook's API docs: <https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/>

<comment><USER7> Wow. I am shocked that information I explicitly block to users (such as profile picture) are publicly available through a simple URL trick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Color me perplexed by Facebook's move here. Not only is the blowback from this effort bad PR, but I fail to see what FB stood to gain from this in the first place. Generating a bunch of bad publicity and calling attention to Google's alleged invasions of privacy is just going to bring scrutiny down upon FB eventually -- regardless of whether or not this plot ever came to light.

I mean, did they think it would be a tremendous leap of the imagination for the court of public opinion and/or regulators to ask themselves "Hey, so Google is sketchy on user data...hmm...I wonder what other company might have a boatload of such data?"

<comment><USER6> For there to be negative-PR blowback on this, the user-base will have to pull their heads out of their asses and stop playing FarmVille for five minutes. Even then, chances are they'll shrug and go back to harvesting self-esteem from their facebook "friends".

<comment><USER25> I think Farmville reveals a lot about the human condition. I'm totally serious. What it basically tells us is that, if left to their own devices, most people will just waste whatever time they've got. If Facebook or Farmville weren't around, it would be something else. Remember annoying email mass-forwards from your relatives and their friends? That's the kind of stuff that's no longer plaguing us _because Farmville is keeping those folks occupied_. And for that, in a strange and perverse way, I'm thankful for its existence.

<comment><USER26> For me, those annoying mass-forwards have just moved to Facebook. "Repost this on your wall if you hate cancer!" Ugh.

<comment><USER27> They have also moved to text messages. It is rather amusing seeing the necessary mechanics of that type of meme distilled down to so few characters. No room to waste buttering up your emotions. No, they get right down to things like "Fwd to 10 people or BAD LUCK is on you tonight!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, just wow!

I wonder how employees feel about it - is it just business as usual? For that matter, I wonder how would-be investors feel about it.

Google defeated competition from Microsoft and Yahoo with innovation and hard work, not with slimy tactics. They dazzled the world by being open, provocative, fast and effective, forward-thinking, pushing web apps to their limits, giving customers what they wanted.

Is this it? Is Facebook the next Google? How depressing.

<comment><USER29> Facebook is the next, I don't know, Oracle probably. Google is the next Google.

<comment><USER30> It's funny you say that, because if there are two tech companies I despise, it is Oracle and Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> this should be the up-voted article <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539932> not that - non informative - opinion piece from techcrunch.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think this will smack of the Streisand Effect (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>) over time. Facebook trying to call attention to privacy concerns over Google will, inevitably, as this piece exemplifies, call attention to their own privacy concerns. And the stigma of this hypocritical stance will also call attention to the overall maturity and sensibility of Facebook, as well.

Then again, the kind of people who are most likely to be affected by this entire affair are also the kind of people who already know this information about both companies. So maybe this will have little overall effect?

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't think what Facebook did was unethical. It's certainly legal. They catch a lot of flack over privacy issues and they want to remind the media about their competitors' privacy issues and influence them to cover those more, so that they don't look as bad in comparison. That sort of work is done by PR firms, so they hired one to do it. In fact, they may not have even asked the PR firm to do it; the PR firm may have acted independently as part of their service.

As for the PR firm's offering to help write an article... Well, I would call it bad/unethical journalism if such an article were published as reporting. If it were published on some opinion page or like a tech blog, that would be fine.

<comment><USER34> I agree. Supposedly part of what they were doing was "urging [news organizations] to investigate claims that Google was invading people's privacy." With a company as big and powerful as Google, there should always be people looking at this. If it happens to a reporter persuaded by a PR firm paid by a competitor, I don't we why that is necessarily a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Not sure what the big deal is here. Big companies run negative PR campaigns against other companies ALL the time -- running negative PR campaigns is a very common strategy in the large market. But I supposed they usually run try to run them in secret, so it is a bit unfortunate that they got caught.

If anything an article like this makes me lose face for techcrunch, who acts like this kind of PR tactic has never happened before.

If you don't believe me read Toxic Sludge, which is a book about the PR industry.

<comment><USER36> It also makes you wonder when you are reading this story somewhere if Google has their PR agency running it as a negative PR campaign against Facebook.

<comment><USER37> I guarantee you that Google is running it as a negative PR campaign against Facebook. There's no way someone would sabotage their relationship with Facebook when they're paying the bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Don't know what will come out of this but good that Chris Soghoian published the email exchange.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm so surprised! I always considered Facebook really honest, upright and trustworthy - a reflection of their founder.

</comment><comment><USER40> When I hear "Facebook," I immediately think of Zuckerberg. I'm guessing a lot of the reporters out there are making the same correlation. I wonder, though, is this something he knew about (or, rather, did he know about a PR campaign but not of this nature)? It seems a bit out of character for a guy who has been portrayed as being a very calm and calculated person. I wonder if this was just a bit of activity in the PR room that didn't get to the top before it was released...

</comment><comment><USER41> PR types are always dancing on the shadiness line. Sometimes I get suspicious about the comments on HN when negative stories about certain companies come out.

</comment><comment><USER42> The only chink in Google's armor is privacy so facebook had no other option. But as the saying goes - The sun cannot call the stove hot.

<comment><USER43> That's an interesting variation of the saying. If you don't mind my asking, is that translated from a different language, and if so, what language?

<comment><USER42> I made it up :)

Kettle calling the pot black did not have enough impact for this context for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does this mean that they are actually worried about whatever Google do/doing on social? Could be a big morale boost to the Google team

</comment><comment><USER45> How is the PR firm linked to Facebook?

<comment><USER46> Facebook employed them. Both sides have "confessed". See the Daily Beast article - [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- stories/2011-05-12/fa...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google/) [and they give credit to USA Today - <http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-05-06-google_n.htm>]

FB complaining about privacy abuses just broke my irony meter.

<comment><USER45> Thanks. I scanned the article and couldn't find it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> EDIT: I know you are all downvoting me because I open with "I was an intern", expecting some fuzzy comment in Facebook's defense. No, someone asked what Facebook thinks about this, and I offered my views: I am as confused as the rest of you. I hope the PR firm gets fired, and whoever instructed the PR firm to try this. Give me a break, guys. Stop with the Facebook hate.

I was an intern at Facebook last summer, so I had a great time there. Color me naive, but I don't feel the executives' personalities were "sneaky," probably because I interacted with them in person. I didn't see anything that suggested they would endorse this type of tactic.

With that said, I'd like to believe that it was all a misunderstanding, that perhaps this John guy isn't really affiliated with Facebook (his email is @bm.com), or that this was the mistake of an individual. I sincerely hope that it wasn't an organizational effort to smear Google, because I don't see why they'd need to.

When I was at Facebook, they were supremely confident about being able to snip Google's entry, that they would demoralize Google and make them cry. After all, I was in a sea of brilliant engineers, many of whom understand Google intimately through years of service, and we just needed sheer engineering and better products to win.

Perhaps Facebook just thought it was unfair that it was getting all of the negative light on privacy and wanted to share the blame with someone. But I really don't know, and I'm waiting for an official answer.

I really hope it's good, because I am surprised by this maneuver, to say the least. Maybe the answer is "Google does this too!" But then I would just be doubly disappointed.

<comment><USER48> You think Facebook would ever tell an intern about secret negative PR campaigns?

<comment><USER47> The company was very open internally. Everything a full timer knew, an intern could easily find out.

<comment><USER49> You think the'd tell the full-timers about secret smear campaigns against competitors?

<comment><USER47> Like I said, everything was open. You can't keep a secret at Facebook. Facebook isn't run like Apple--very different.

<comment><USER48> So now that Facebook admitted it, you're still sticking to your story? wtf

<comment><USER47> I don't have any story, except a reaction of disbelief... Plus, I can't edit the original post anyway in light of new revelations.

The point is, as an ex-intern, I am surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> How this will affect Facebook? If you pretend that Facebook is a car, this will probably be a scratch. Like how people wont give up a car for a scratch, they probably wont give up Facebook.

The general idea that I got about the management of Facebook is that they are a very confident bunch of guys who know what they are doing- since they have spurned many offers to buy them out. This story however kind of conflicts with the idea I had.

<comment><USER51> They were fools to let this out in public. Not because of Facebook users but because of developers.

Trying to win not through technical superiority but through FUD spread by cutouts is emblematic of the worst moves of Microsoft. Yes, short-sighted leadership at the top is responsible for many of their current woes.

But also, when tech companies make moves that lack integrity, the best workers head for the exits. They have the least to lose because they can work anywhere. The threshold is lower to act on the courage of their convictions. And high integrity and great work go together.

Top college hires (perhaps the most idealistic and with the least to lose) hear about this stuff and just don't apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Facebook should raise more money so it can higher better (quieter) PR.

</comment><comment><USER53> _I have no idea how the Facebook PR team thought that they'd avoid being caught doing this._

Perhaps Facebook's managers think themselves exempt from the changing privacy norms they keep telling us to accept?

</comment><comment> ryan-allen So, since Facebook has lost much face are they now just book?

</comment><comment><USER54> The "Any disclosure or dissemination in whatever form, by another other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited" is laughable.

</comment><comment><USER55> take a guess. how many facebook "likes" this article is going to get?

</comment><comment><USER42> Where is the link to Facebook in those emails? What am I missing?

<comment><USER56> You need to read the Daily Beast article, here: <http://bit.ly/koiEPd>

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I guess the PR agency was way naive on beliving that won't spilled over them!

</comment><comment><USER58> Pot calling the Kettle Black.

</comment><comment><USER59> They are too young of a company to be pulling this sort of seedy stuff.

Also 'privacy'?! I hope the irony isn't lost on anyone. It wasn't very well thought-out, as when a net privacy panic starts spreading like wildfire through the media the consequences in political grandstanding and potential legislative action would hurt them as well.

So they come out of this looking like data-locking propaganda spreading assholes. Good job!

Referenced article: [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- stories/2011-05-12/fa...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google)

<comment><USER60> _They are too young of a company to be pulling this sort of seedy stuff._

Is there a time in a company's existence when it's "ok" to do something like this?

<comment><USER61> I don't think it was meant to be "ok" but more in line with the last ditch effort. Older companies might feel as though they have pulled all the stops and this is their last effort to make an impact.

I am not saying it is okay, just trying to shine some light on what I think yanw meant.

<comment><USER62> >Last ditch effort.

It could also be a 'We're the establishment, we don't care what others think now' vibe, instead of a last ditch effort that causes some companies to use seedy tactics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I hope facebook has a good excuse for this. A note from Zuck saying "we apologize" won't suffice.

<comment><USER64> Apology (i.e. admission of guilt) or good excuse are both acceptable, it's the bad excuses that are the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Noone will care in 1 week. Billions of ppl will continue to use Facebook, and 90% of them will not even know about this news. Nothing to see here, just tech boys making a huge commotion over very little

</comment><comment><USER66> I see no difference, or impact on my life, between this Google/Facebook billionaire's catfight and any Twitter-borne beef between two or more millionaire celebritainers.

</comment><comment><USER67> #faceplant

</comment><comment><USER68> Who cares? Facebook is a generic company. Google is a generic company. If they spy on each, smash each other, etc, it changes nothing. Neither for you nor for your startup or anything.

Personifying these companies and then writing gossip stories about them is turning what should be real business into some kind of pseudo-fashion magazine.

Just as little as I care for Snookie kissing JWoww, do I care about Facebook spying on google. The impact of this is minimally negligible in the world of real business, and something like this is just pointless gossip.

<comment><USER69> Honestly, I'm shocked my the downvotes being levied against all of these "who cares" type posts.

How much face is _really_ being lost by Facebook? The audience of Facebook users that will read about the "negative PR campaign" will be infantesimally small (compared to their near 500 million accounts).

Then compare that infantesimally small number of users to the percentage who didn't already know that Facebook was dodgy as hell.

The relative impact of this discovery, while interesting, makes no difference in anything (save as being direct proof of Facebook's "Be Evil" corporate policy).

Anyways.

I'm happy to take it on the chin in terms of downvotes here too, but the way I see it there's nothing here that will impact anything.

<comment><USER70> Note that at least in France, this made the front page on the website of all major newspaper (Le Monde, Liberation, etc.). It's probably the same in many european country where Facebook is sometimes struggling to keep a clean image.

<comment><USER69> Look at me and my Ethnocentricity! How true that there are other cultures where these services are still trying to get traction and expose's like this one can have an actual impact.

Thanks for pointing that out :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Doesn't seem very secret to me. If it was secret people wouldn't know about it. A secret smear is a whisper, not a newspaper article. Furthermore its not a smear if its true. So, 2 lies in the headline. I clicked on the link to verify that it had no information, as things with 2 obvious lies in the headline are wont to do. I have verified that there is no information at the link.

</comment><comment><USER72> Are we just assuming that "an unnamed client" is Facebook, because DUH, who else? Or am I missing a piece of this story?

<comment><USER73> According to the Daily Beast article linked from the Techcrunch article, Facebook admitted it: "Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google's attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service."

That seems like kind of a weird statement from a "Facebook spokesman" so I assume we are going to get some additional statements about this.

<comment><USER74> "[L]ater, learning that Facebook had come clean, the Burson spokesman wrote back and confirmed it."

Top of page 2 of the original article.</comment></comment></comment>