judging by the amount of code? What kind of metric is that?

The vision of the browser as the OS is huge.

It might be huge but it's all more than a bit scary coming from Google. Also I question the adoption rate of something like this. All my stuff in the cloud == EVIL as far I'm concerned.

Some people were saying the same thing about computers 30 or 40 years ago. Most of the gloom & doom did not come to fruition. Google, or any other cloud service provider, has a huge financial incentive to keep your data safe and private. Ultimately it's a personal choice. Paper files didn't disappear when the computer was popularized for example. Desktop apps won't disappear either. A company that simply chooses to offer a service that some people do want is not EVIL in my opinion.

The only things I still keep local on my drive:

music my family pictures my email, contacts and calendar work files

If you imagine a tablet/netbook with GoogleOS, I'm still scared to death of losing the network. There is some talk of offline storage, but the details are super-fuzzy.

On a plane: where is my music or my videos? At my grandparents' place, where Interent is still not quite reliable In the middle of visiting Death Valley

have a look at dropbox. It's not an either/or decision. You can have both.

"All my stuff in the cloud == EVIL as far I'm concerned."

How is storing data in a certain place EVIL?

How is "the cloud" a certain place?

you're making my point for me. If it isn't a certain place, then how can it possibly be evil?

Because those who control the cloud can potentially see or mess with your stuff.

a lot of our stuff can be seen anyway. Anything that currently goes over the internet. Doing email on the cloud isn't much different from sending an email from outlook.

Second, you can encrypt things in the cloud

Also if you have the data in the cloud, you no longer have direct control of it. So what if it goes down. What if they get hacked? This is why the US keeps uber-top secret stuff disconnected from the internet.

" So what if it goes down. What if they get hacked?"

For most people, this is more likely to happen to their local pc!

"This is why the US keeps uber-top secret stuff disconnected from the internet."

Are you suggesting that people not connect their computer to the internet? Otherwise, I have no idea what point you are making.

> Are you suggesting that people not connect their computer to the internet? Otherwise, I have no idea what point you are making.

No. I'm saying that being connected to the internet has inherent risks. Being in the internet 24/7 like the cloud would obviously have as much, or more, risks.

>For most people, this is more likely to happen to their local pc!

Statistically speaking, maybe. But we all think that we can keep our data and stuff safer than other people can. At least people have control over something on their computers. Plus, by putting our data in more places, we increase the risk of it being stolen. You will probably already have a local copy. Keeping it in the cloud just adds another point of failure.

It's simply an enhancement to the way we use computers. But regular OSs will always have their place. I'm not sure it's so huge that it's what we will all migrate to though.