Chromebook Expiration Date, Repair Issues 'Bad For People and Planet' - Slashdot
source link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/04/19/210229/chromebook-expiration-date-repair-issues-bad-for-people-and-planet
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Chromebook Expiration Date, Repair Issues 'Bad For People and Planet'
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"The 31 million Chromebooks sold globally in the first year of the pandemic represent approximately 9 million tons of CO2e emissions," the report says. "Doubling the life of just Chromebooks sold in 2020 could cut emissions equivalent to taking 900,000 cars off the road for a year, more than the number of cars registered in Mississippi." The report says that excluding additional maintenance costs, longer lasting Chromebooks could save taxpayers as much as $1.8 billion dollars in hardware replacement expenses.
The US PIRG said it wants: Google to extend its ChromeOS update policy beyond current device expiration dates; hardware makers to make parts more available so their devices can be repaired; and hardware designs that enable easier part replacement and service. [...] According to US PIRG, making an average laptop releases 580 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, amounting to 77 percent of the total carbon impact of the device during its lifetime. Thus, the 31 million Chromebooks sold during the first year of the pandemic represent about 8.9 million tons of CO2e emissions. "We think that Google should extend the automatic update expiration to 10 years after launch date," said Lucas Gutterman, who leads US PIRG's Designed to Last campaign. "There's just no reason why we should be throwing away a computer that still is otherwise functional just because it passes a certain date."
"We're asking Google to use their leadership among the OEMs to design the devices to last, to make some of the changes that we list, to have them be more easily repairable by actually producing spare parts that folks can buy at reasonable prices," he added. "And to design with modularity and repair in mind, so that you can, for example, use the plastic bezel on one Chromebook on the next version, rather than having to buy a whole new set of spare parts just because a clip has changed."
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If there's one thing you can count on from Google, it's the notoriously short lifespan of everything they produce. Software, hardware, services, you name it.
IMO even Google's bread and butter, its search engine, has in many ways outlived its usefulness. The way it just arbitrarily ignores or silently replaces your search terms is downright infuriating. Yesterday I was looking for documentation on a certain keypad, and I couldn't find shit because it quietly figured "oh you really meant keyboard, so we'll search for that instead without telling you."
That whole company has gone to shit.
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Not sure which google site you're using, but Google doesn't substitute keywords without a warning that it did so right above the top search result.
"Showing results for keyboard"
"Search instead for keypad"Let me guess, you were so desperate to scroll down the search results you didn't bother reading what was searched for.
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It does include variations of the search terms however, without any obvious way to avoid it.
For example, searching for "deposed [google.com]" includes "depose" in the search results, meaning all of the results on the first page for me are about definitions for either "deposed" or (mainly) "depose".
If I include "deposed" in quotation marks, the results are slightly different - still mostly definitions for either "deposed" or "depose", but now I have two results for a recent news article about someone being deposed. I have to actually go to the second page for it to become about people being deposed.
With these results, there is no "showing results for..." either, and the only option you get is "Overview", "Similar and opposite words", or "Usage examples".
Google is literally acting as a dictionary first rather than a search engine.
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Google search supports Boolean operators. Use NOT or - sign in-front of the keyword. Learn how to use it before complaining it doesn't do what you want it to do.
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Since their search uses data relationships, they normalize word forms. Depose and deposed are the same word in their system.
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If you don't understand why variable tense should be included in search results then it sounds like you could really use a dictionary. This is one of Google's better features and has literally existed like this for 2 decades.
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It depends on your exact search terms, but you don't always get that. Furthermore, it'll also just drop keywords from your search and the only way you find out is by doing exactly what you're "guessing" I'm doing, because they only mention it next to individual search results NOT at the top of the page. Literally the only way to get exactly what you want, and make sure nothing at all gets dropped, is to surround every word in quotes.
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It's bad because most chromebooks are simply under-spec'ed PCs. They're cheap PCs capable of running a browser and that's it, but for a lot uses, that's all they need to do.
How long can a modern midrange PC do this simple task? I'm sure at least 10 years if not more
Sure, you can hack them to do it - it's not hard, but they make it inconvenient, and really, there's no reason to.
My Chromebook expired years ago, but it's still useful with an i5 and 4GB of RAM. Sure it won't be fast fast fast, but I'm sre it ca
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5-8yr seems pretty fair IMO. Based on the last 8yrs we can see that In that time you will have 2 new 802.11 standards release; USB went from 3.0 to 3.2Gen2 and adopted USB-C; Flash was ripped out of the browsers; HTML-5 went mainstream; and most sites only want to do TlS 1.2 and 1.3. Now google might be able to eek modern ciphers and encryption out of an 8yo laptop but their hands are tied when it comes to hardware changes. One should also consider schools, the main point in the article. Schools must meed e
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To be fair, very few manufacturers support their laptops for more than 8 years, or even more than the 5 years minimum that Google does. Try getting replacement parts for a 6 year old HP or Dell.
Often they lock things like the WiFi card down so you can't just put a generic replacement in too. It's a legal requirement for having really good antennas - they have to make sure the user can't install a card that would exceed the legal power limits.
Google should do better of course. But is this Google hardware? Mo
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Often they lock things like the WiFi card down so you can't just put a generic replacement in too. It's a legal requirement for having really good antennas - they have to make sure the user can't install a card that would exceed the legal power limits.
I'm sceptical of that claim: regulations certainly don't specify that it should be impossible to violate the rules given arbitrary user modification. Nothing prevents users from putting an illegal USB wifi dongle into a USB port, and the manufacturer won't be
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The theory is that any USB dongles on sale in the country will be legal, but of course these days you can just order one off AliExpress.
Actually I just had a new router sent over because I'm switching ISP. I wasn't going to use it but I took a look anyway, and it lets you select WiFi channel 13 on 2.4GHz, which is not allowed in the UK. Wondering if I can be bothered to email them about it.
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Do you mean 14? Because AFAIK 13 is perfectly legal in the UK. I've used many WiFi APs over the years and none of them have ever disallowed 13 after selecting UK. The most you get is a warning that says 13 overlaps with 11 and you should use 1, 6 or 11 ideally, but since they all went "intelligent auto" many years ago setting a hard channel is not usually recommended unless you're having specific issues.
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Yeah I think you are right, 14 is the problem one. My mistake.
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Wouldn't the same theory apply to wifi cards though?
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The card and the antennas are separate. In a dongle you get both, in a laptop the antennas are usually wires that go around the screen. They want the antennas to be as good as possible for reception, but that means they can also potentially radiate too much energy if a high power card is connected to them.
There are other issues too like the number of antennas in MIMO configuration. Beam forming can exceed the maximum power limit if the card isn't configured to respect it.
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i know there are a few distros that focus on education
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I know that's what everyone here is thinking (though the OS on a Chromebook is already Linux) you obviously are forgetting that schools don't have the kind of people with the skill set to do this. Most don't even have a dedicated IT person and instead rely on third parties like Google to take care of things like this so they don't have to.
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Yeah, but google has tainted their builds with datamining & adware/spyware, there are linux distros easier to install than windows now
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I still have my C64, Amiga 1000, Amiga 3000, too many IBM Thinkpads, and way too many SGI boxes (including an R12k O2 and maxxed out Tezro). I get so much enjoyment from them. I have 3 desks/workstations in my home dedicated to old computer environments in my "lab" which is just a big hobby room. I find that enjoy learning to code in new-to-me languages on older systems. I also love the flavor of the old Micros. I am horrified by people tossing their old laptops and machines just because of OS update issues. Hopefully, Chromebooks can still run BSD or Linux.
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What we need here is a class action lawsuit... All customers vs Google.
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That's a great way of achieving nothing. Not only does this only enrich lawyers but it's also not one Google would lose. They will just rightfully point to competitors and replacement programs for hardware in corporations, schools, and how long iPads last as evidence that they are doing what is expected of industry.
It's shitty, but that's the sad fact. Schools and companies were replacing devices every 5 years long before Google introduced the idea of an OS with a use-by date, and long before MS started updating Windows on a cadence faster than a decade.
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Most PCs from ~2006 and forward can still be upgraded and installed with Windows 10 and even Windows 11 (if easy requirements bypass is used), and still make competent office/internet systems. These Google and Apple computers that are designed to go in the trash can after a handful of years are disgusting and insulting.
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Why are you spuriously throwing Apple in there? They're not mentioned in the story, and my 2015 MacBook Pro is eligible to update to an OS still receiving security updates.
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Because we're talking about schools and no schools use MacBook Pros, they use iPads and your 2015 iPad is definitely not eligible for an update to the latest OS nor is it receiving security updates.
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The iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation) was released in November 2015 and is still supported by the latest iPadOS (16.4). Source [apple.com]. In addition, the iPad Air 2 (released October 2014) and the iPad Mini 4 (released September 2015) still receive regular security updates via iPadOS 15. Three further models, released as early as November 2013, still receive occasional security updates, the last released in January 2023.
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It's more than 7 years old. That makes it "vintage" meaning Apple won't fix it even if you pay them the click is already ticking for Monterrey to stop getting security updates.
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Apple has been criticized quite a bit for that kind of thing.
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Microsoft will end public support for Windows 10 on May 14, 2024.
Windows 11 only supports PCs that have specific requirements that have only been widely available since mid-2016 (such as TPM 2.0).
Between 2010 and 2016, there were 300 million PCs sold per year, or a total of 2 billion PCs sold, most of them with Windows.
Probably half of these PCs still work perfectly. If they are properly optimized, their power is still more than enough for most home uses: browsing, watching videos, reading emails, playing s -
From 2006? How exactly do you define a "competent office/internet" system so that it can include such a dinosaur? "Can run Lynx and Word 2003"?
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Mypal and New Moon are good attempts and there were efforts like Classilla and TenFourFox for Mac users, but imagine going furtther and having one of the latest Chromium, Gecko or Webkit browsers running on 20-30 year old devices that are continuously fixed under the right to repair, under Windows as far back as 95 or MacOS as far back as System7. The big problem on x86 is the requirement for SSE2 and SSE3, which while can boost performance on compatible devices, unfairly excludes processors without. AMD made such processors as late as 2007, which is only 16 years old. Many Slashdotters drive cars older than that. With all the unemployed programmers out there why not put your skills to the common good and let us use our old hardware and operating systems. Also Apple should be required to let people update Safari on so called "obsolete" [apple.com] iPhones and iPads.
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Uah, no thanks. I'm not keen to go back to the days of Windows XP where software development on such a long cadence eventually completely outclassed the hardware and computers started running like molasses. Running new software on ancient hardware is what gave computers in the late 00s a reputation for being slow and painful to use.
Hard pass. I still have an older computer here that does run the latest Chrome, and no I don't do it, 2 tabs open and the entire thing grinds to a halt.
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Computers from the 2000's were still seeing leaps and bounds of single-threaded performance improvements every year. Those times are over. My current PC is 11 years old and still runs modern stuff just fine.
What makes everything slow is the 5MB JavaScript frameworks that power all the damned ads and telemetry, doing 200 round trips over the network. Fuck that noise.
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the latest Chromium, Gecko or Webkit browsers running on 20-30 year old devices that are continuously fixed under the right to repair, under Windows as far back as 95 or MacOS as far back as System7
This is a silly goal. Even if we had browsers that could do it, websites themselves wouldn't run on those machines. You'd have all kinds of timeouts happening as the hardware tries to compile the fifty or so JS libraries that underpin it's UI model.
The big problem on x86 is the requirement for SSE2 and SSE3, which while can boost performance on compatible devices, unfairly excludes processors without
Because you need big wide data buckets with fast pipelines to optimize a lot of JS engines, do HTTP/3 requests with multiplexed QUIC. On ARM you need their NEON [arm.com] or SVE [arm.com]. Unless the website in question does HTTP/1 non-TLS 1.3 and is REALLY light on javascript, you just don't have enough horsepower to render a website. I mean, you have just as good a chance to run Crysis on a Power Mac 8100 from 1995. I mean, I don't know how to break it to people, but modern websites take a shit ton of power to actually render. This isn't Geocities anymore.
With all the unemployed programmers out there why not put your skills to the common good and let us use our old hardware and operating systems
What profit motive is there in this? Nobody is really going to work on it. Hell, Microsoft stopped trying to write a browser and they make all kinds of money. Writing an HTML5 compliant web browser is a massive undertaking second to maybe writing an entire OS kernel with all the bells and whistles. HTML5 has a LOT of things that it provides. And for the people who'd do it, just to enjoy things, everyone bitches at them for removing their XUL plugin stuff, so not many people like working on it in their freetime because the community is toxic as hell. And many more have moved on to greener pastures like Gopher (yes there's groups still writing new server and clients for that protocol), [Titan/Spartan/Gemini] (Sort of like a Gopher 2.0), and Finger (All the craze in the really nerdy community) and so forth. The Web is for the corporations now, there's little to no joy in doing anything in it.
Also Apple should be required to let people update Safari on so called "obsolete" iPhones and iPads
Why? Don't buy their shit. That's how we solve this. We're not going to pressure companies to write code they don't want to write, so fuck it. Just don't buy their shit. We keep allowing Google and Apple to have the monopolies they have. We're the cause of the shit we're all here bemoaning. And the fact of the matter is this. Most people, like a very significant majority of people on this planet, do not agree with you on this point. They want the latest shiny, they want to have the most up-to-date, up to date. It's a status thing that's stuck in their heads and yapping "facts and logic" isn't going to persuade them otherwise. NOW, maybe in another five years of soaring inflation people will actually stop their rapacious consumerism and might want to actually want to hold on to things for long term time frames. I get it, us here at Slashdot, we love holding on to things for 20 - 30 years. It's almost a badge of honor. But most people are not like that.
Web browsers need a ton of horse power to run and old ass hardware is going to struggle big time trying to keep up. It's literally a lack of transistors and you cannot software update that. And if you try at add-on carding your way to add hardware acceleration for TLS1.3, for multiplexed HTTP, etc... You're just doing a modern CPU with way more extra steps. And people don't like old and busted. Hell they don't like things that
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I don't agree with that, or at least not convinced. For me at least its not the most shinny but its you don't even know what is good, what is going to last how are you even supposed to tell. Its not that I can find a device or anything that tells me it will last 20 years. All the readily available information I have is its cheap, and its shinny so what am I going to choose based on.
You might choose on brand name, but that doesn't work now either since there are too many exact same products that simply have
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What the hell are you talking about?
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Why?
Because forced obsolescence is bad for the environment. I don't buy Apple crap but that doesn't stop other people from generating a shit ton of unnecessary e-waste. Thankfully we have people who make laws finally putting an end to this shit. Apple will be required to allow side loading, so finally they will have a good, privacy respecting browser that won't mysteriously run out of security updates at the point Apple have decided it wants more money from you and to hell with the e-waste.
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Dude, web sites barely run on modern browsers. I can't believe how much stuff I encounter that barely works on Firefox, let alone my daily driver, PaleMoon.
What really needs to happen is for the web development community to have a Renaissance and stop building sites with 5MB of JavaScript. In that case, a 20-year-old browser should work just fine. My own web site still works just fine in IE7, and that's without me giving a toss to specifically support it.
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The label says it's past its "Best by" date, but can you tell the difference?
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If I remember correctly (and unless they changed this) the support removed after 5-8 years is for the OS. The browser (which is the really important thing on a Chromebook) continues to get updates forever and ever until the hardware can't support it anymore (which is going to be a while, most likely).
Meanwhile, I am also wondering why Google is catching heat about this, since before Chromebooks there was basically nothing like them available at all (and certainly not at that price). Selling cheap computers
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Nope. "The browser is the OS." My Ace C731 from September 2017 reached "end of life" last fall and no longer receives browser updates, despite being perfectly serviceable.
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My wife's C720 reached its EOL in 2019 (released 2013). I put Linux on it and it works as a a hi-fi interface in my living room now. It's pretty slow for web browsing, but that haswell celeron is a dog (and 2gb RAM) but works for what we use it for. That's one big issue with reusing these, at least the older ones. The specs when they were released were the absolute low end, so they just aren't very future-proof.
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I'd love to just have Hardware As A Service. At least then I'd know if I'm "buying" a 3 year device, a 5 year device, or...
As it is, you have to see when your favorite phone/tablet/laptop model was introduced and make guesses about the future corporate whim.
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I'd love to just have Hardware As A Service.
It's called renting or hiring depending on which dialect of English you speak.
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They're mostly used by schoolkids. Are they really going to survive 10 years?
Maybe if schools keep repairing them, but over 10 years that will cost more than buying a new (and better) laptop.
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I think the answer is held in the battery. Li-Ion or Li-Po packs are good for around 1000 cycles so plan for maybe 3-4 years of regular use. Newer formulations are coming but they're starting out in EVs first. They can go 5000-10000 cycles. The rest of the stuff lasts almost indefinitely, if you over-provision the flash storage to extend the wear-leveling abilities.
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Even if they survive physically, of how much use is a ten-year-old computer? Would it be capable of performing the tasks students are being taught? Is a ten-year-old machine even worth storing in a closet?
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The average American produces 3kg of trash a day. These chrome pads might seem like a waste of something that was expensive and might have a use but it is not an environmental disaster. If anything this story shows that the green virtue signaling crowd can't do math.
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Support costs money. Stocking obsolete parts costs money. Glue is the cheapest way to assemble a product. Sure Google can "fix" all these issues but don't expect the same price-point.
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That's fine - so after EOL, open it up and let community maintain it. Don't just tell me to take a hike.
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don't come off the shelf and cost so much up front?
Sustainment clauses in the contracts. It turns out that committing to make spare parts that keep something operational for decades ain't cheap.
It sounds like what the school districts want is something that takes advantage of COTS by letting commercial sales pay for software and hardware development but also something that is a locked down and fixed design that can be sustained and repaired for decades plus.
The military has yet to figure out how to do this
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If support and longevity evaluation weren't part of the original acquisition process, then who's to blame?
Or is their vendor not honoring whatever contract was signed originally?
I agree making laptops that are short lasting and unrepairable is unethical, but for the schools to complain now sounds like trying to point the blame away from themselves. They should have known this, and they probably did.
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As a technology director in a public K-12 who manages a fleet of over 1200 Chromebooks annually, I find these complaints baseless and not reflective of real-world experience. Let me break it down for you.
Google stops providing updates after five to eight years.
Google did stop providing updates to Chromebooks after five years. Now every new Chromebook on the market that I've seen has an eight-year lifespan after its debut. And "expired" Chromebooks still work; they don't self-destruct, they just don't update. Theoretically, you could use a brand new Chromebook today for up-to ten years. (If you buy older models with older processors, -then- you get less life. The end-of-life date on a Chromebook is determined mainly by its processor's release date, not the Chromebook sale-date.)
""We think that Google should extend the automatic update expiration to 10 years after launch date,..There's just no reason why we should be throwing away a computer that still is otherwise functional just because it passes a certain date."
Come to my office and look at what happens to a Chromebook after four years of use by students. Very, very few would last an entire ten years. Four years of wear-and-tear is plenty for a Chromebook. At our school, we go through all Chromebooks that are returned after four years, and sort the best from the rest, and keep those for two more years in the classroom as spares, as well as for state testing.
Also, by year-5 of a Chromebook's life, the batteries are terrible.
Chromebooks don't last as long as they should, because...device repairability is hindered by the scarcity of spare parts and repair-thwarting designs.
Now this is just utter BS. Chromebooks are very repairable. My district alone replaces about 70 broken LCD screens a year, which accounts for 90% of all repairs. In fact, we gutted over 200 LCD screens from our old Dell 3120's and are still using them to replace broken screens in our newer 3100's. If that's not repairability, then what the hell is?
Chromebooks have five parts that account for practically all the repairs: the LCD, the keyboard, the battery, the casing, and the motherboard. The only thing that's practically not repairable is the motherboard...but it's certainly replaceable, and I've replaced plenty of them.
The US PIRG said it wants: Google to extend its ChromeOS update policy beyond current device expiration dates; hardware makers to make parts more available so their devices can be repaired; and hardware designs that enable easier part replacement and service.
Conditions 2 & 3 already exist, because the hardware manufacturers have made it possible. Google has practically no say in the matter. (Google was responsible for leading manufacturers to adopt USB-C for charging.) Other than that, it's left to the computer manufacturers.
"The 31 million Chromebooks sold globally in the first year of the pandemic represent approximately 9 million tons of CO2e emissions,"
Oh, you want to blame Google for global warming? Why don't you blame the entire tech industry for manufacturing this kind of waste instead? Or blame the school boards that decide for districts to buy these machines? Or why don't you blame all the people that keep buying new technology to begin with, as they keep upgrading? Would it be better if we were all instead using 386 desktops running DOS and using Lotus 1-2-3 for word processing?
These demands are just stupidity at their finest.
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Many of the old Chromebooks leave being still enrolled and are "unlockable".
I have to get them on eBay, exploit their firmware, install an open source BIOS, then install the ChromeOS for PC's.
It's silly. They're still fine for underprivileged kids who appreciate the gift.
In-house they're fine Debian machines too. Keep your security zones separate.
Google should charge a license fee for each enrolled machine to align incentives for the environment. But that's not good for their profits so they won't. It wo
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I use my old Lenovo Chromebook daily sine I put Linux on it (gallium with a lengthy firmware hack to get it installed).
MS had a program where they'd sign content for 3rd party developers.. why can't Google do it for firmware to load alternate OS to their devices? I would love to be able to upgrade me Leno Chromebook to another off-lease educational model. (I like big bezels). Those models have great reliability, sturdy construction, plenty of used and new parts on ebay, and amazing battery life.
So,
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First off, PRIG is a sack of jerks who throw a thin facade of science over a partisan agenda; pretending their own extremist policy interests are the public's.
Second, the typical enterprise hardware cycle is 4-5 years for workstations, 5-6 for servers. The basic, Moore's Law-driven, lifecycle is 5 years. After 6 years, it isn't worth repairing. 10-year-old hardware is worthless.
So, what is the PRIG saying? Google is bad for recognizing reality and basing their support policies on it? That our kids should all be using decade-old hardware? That what schools buy should cost more to fund an already absurd ten-year lifecycle?
Nonsense.
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