> ChromeOS is a very competent, fast, and easy-to-use operating system.

It also locks you into the cloud services of an advertising company that loves harvesting your data to help find new ways to sell you things.

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suriya-ganesh 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I see this too often. But, realistically users do not care about the harvesting as it is unseen and behind the scenes. Most people just want get stuff done in a competent, fast and easy-to-use operating system.

>It also locks you into the cloud services of an advertising company

this is pretty much any company these days. microsoft is guilty of the same.

	▲	turtlebits an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Until your google account gets locked for some unknown reason and you there is 0 support and recourse. And now you can't even log into your own computer.
	▲	shimman 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Users absolutely care, what a terrible comment. Users have ZERO choice. Tech companies are not regulated, tech companies abuse their monopolies at their users detriment, and tech companies do not have consumer councils to help mitigate these issues. What it actually appears to be is we have a market where undemocratic business leaders are deciding the direction of technology in a country that only seems to benefit them and not the population. What a terrible mindset to have and I sincerely hope you never have any capacity to yield power in your life.
	▲	Forgeties79 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>But, realistically users do not care about the harvesting as it is unseen and behind the scenes. Like them I think I am also surprised not because that isn't the case, but because it's wild to see that take on HN, which skews way more towards privacy/owning your compute.

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jeroenhd 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So does Windows. macOS locks you into a company that hoovers up your data but pinky promises not to sell it and will fight tooth and nail to have prevent others from doing the exact same thing on their operating system.

If you care about privacy, Linux and BSDs are the only options, but actually good out-of-the-box Linux laptops are few and far between.

Except for Chromebooks, of course.

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retired 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Big difference is that you can use macOS without a user account. Can't do that with Windows without some hidden terminal magic.

	▲	sneezychl 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		MacOS doesn't have to force it, users will gladly sign into their iCloud account. Virtually nobody uses the Windows Store, but the Mac App Store is a necessity given how restricted 3rd party apps are on macOS now.

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toast0 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apparently you can create a local account on a chrome device [1], although I can't vouch for the process; otherwise cloud auth is tied to Google, yes. You could use a guest account for everything, if your really want; but then you lose out on persistence.

But as long as you accept that everything you do is in a browser; which is reality for the vast majority of computer users, there's no real lock-in. You can just as easily use the browser version of Microsoft Office as the browser version of Google Docs.

You're certainly locked into Google for the browser and for updates, unless you do a lot of work. But it's been a while since it was common to get commercial OS updates from a 3rd party.

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/how-use-chromebook-without-go...

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noprocrasted 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s no better than Windows (without a lot of effort and a constant game of cat and mouse only achievable by technical users). At least Google’s cloud services tend to actually be good, if you made peace with the tracking and privacy concerns.

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serf an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

wild that we're talking about which OS locks you up more w.r.t an apple product.