Chrome, Android, and Samsung

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 27, 2024

• Russell Coker ☛ Russell Coker: Convergence vs Transference

  I previously wrote a blog post titled Considering Convergence [1] about the possible ways of using a phone as a laptop. While I still believe what I wrote there I’m now considering the possibility of ease of movement of work in progress as a way of addressing some of the same issues.

  Currently the expected use is that if you have web pages open on Chrome on Android it’s possible to instruct Chrome on the desktop to open the same page if both instances of Chrome are signed in to the same GMail account. It’s also possible to view the Chrome history with CTRL-H, select “tabs from other devices” and load things that were loaded on other devices some time ago. This is very minimal support for moving work between devices and I think we can do better.

  Firstly for web browsing the Chrome functionality is barely adequate. It requires having a heavyweight login process on all browsers that includes sharing stored passwords etc which isn’t desirable. There are many cases where moving work is desired without sharing such things, one example is using a personal device to research something for work. Also the Chrome method of sending web pages is slow and unreliable and the viewing history method gets all closed tabs when the common case is “get the currently open tabs from one browser window” without wanting the dozens of web pages that turned out not to be interesting and were closed. This could be done with browser plugins to allow functionality similar to KDE Connect for sending tabs and also the option of emailing a list of URLs or a JSON file that could be processed by a browser plugin on the receiving end. I can send email between my home and work addresses faster than the Chrome share to another device function can send a URL.

• IT Wire ☛ The Age's Tim Biggs has a huge conflict of interest when it comes to Samsung

  But it appears that Biggs has a good reason for that: a major conflict of interest.

  Yes, he reports regularly on Samsung devices – and it does not take a great deal of intelligence to figure out that were he to write about Samsung in an article about lithium-ion battery fires, then that august company would not exactly be forthcoming when it came to doling out devices to Biggs for review or any other like task.

  It is always good to consider how these conflicts of interest will play out – especially when there are nosy people around to raise them in public.

• Dedoimedo ☛ Samsung A54 long-term usage report 4

  Here's a review and report 4 of my Samsung A54 mid-range smartphone long-term usage, including fix for broken thumbnails in Gallery, annoying applications and settings, problems with display brightness, performance, heating, battery life, and more. Enjoy, try to.