What makes you an expert on what makes a feature a gimmick? You have no idea of how other people use and optimize their productivity workflows around the use of this "gimmick". Your opinion is far from "objective" .
Split screen done well would be a killer feature for me. Last time I looked Edge support was ok, but not great. But what kills Edge for me as a daily driver is the basic usability in managing bookmarks and tabs. It's stop and go for every basic operation like dragging objects while Firefox is simply a continuous flow. Firefox is invisible, Edge just gets in the way all the time.
Otherwise Edge is not bad at all. Chrome without MV2 is dead to me.
People spend a lot of time in the web browser. So yes, they want to have a comfortable experience with it. And those features are deal breakers for a lot of people. So stating that they are not killing features is just unreasonable at best and ignorant at worst.
It does makes the difference to people who use browsers for something more than reading HN or Reddit. That's the point. What arguments do you expect? Specific use cases for every feature each browser has? That's a different discussion completely.
It is all a gimmick but as long as people are switching to a chromium based browser and not Firefox I'm happy. With that said, I don't know how anyone would trust a small team to build them a secure and safe browser. Chrome is so battle tested at this point and Google puts a lot of resources in maintaining it, they stand to lose a lot more given their scale.
Chromebooks provide separate logins for personal and Workspace/GSuite accounts.
As for what happens if your Chromebook is stolen and you've not selected the option to lock it when the lid is closed, Workspace/GSuite accounts can be remote wiped, personal ones cannot. Perhaps with the upcoming Workspace Individual plan, remote wiping of personal accounts will be possible too.
Password managers such as 1Password and Bitwarden can save and fill in TOTP codes. Maybe not perfect security but a big win for convenience and loss prevention.
I have received advice from way to many people to not use your password manager as a 2nd factor be ause 1) It's actually become the only point if failure (your pw getting hacked). 2) Both factors protected and saved on the same spot
1Password in particular encrypts your vault with your master password and importantly an additional 128 bit secret key that is meant to be kept somewhere physically (e.g. in your safe). This key is needed the first time your vault is decrypted (e.g. a new device)
An attacker would need to have access to all of the following:
a) your encrypted vault
b) your master password
c) an 128-bit secret key
in order for the fears you've outlaid to be realised.
Really the only attack vector I can see is a physically compromised device (brute forcing is out of the question). In which case, they'd still need to somehow know your Master password and you're no more vulnerable considering your OTP is likely to be in an application on your phone anyway.
Since your own computer will typically have the vault unlocked, you don't need a+b+c. You can suffice with a circa 2000s Sony Music cd. Or any driveby malware, or malvertisement, etc.
Using the 2nd factor on another device as the first means attackers need to either compromise 2 devices, or compromise a single point higher up in the hierarchy (e.g., your google account).
If there’s malware on your PC that has complete access to your system memory you are screwed in every single way possible. I’m perfectly comfortable with having my OTP coupled with my passwords given this is the only real attack vector and requires an actively unlocked vault to expose secrets.
If this is the case, what’s stopping the malware from adding a key logger and MITMing your input to your bank’s website, Gmail or Coinbase?
Which would allow real world identity to be discovered, in the event of malware is there a possibility of prosecution eg for something related to recklessly causing damage (through inaction/action)?
Scaling the same pixel density up to 13" and 15" yields 1614x908 and 1862x1047, respectively. So that's equivalent to arguing that there's no need for a better-than-1080p screen on even 15" laptops. Certainly many people are satisfied with 1080p, but there's a reason that modern high-end laptops offer (much) higher-resolution displays.
In five years of running a Chromebook dev mode, I've never had that happen but just in case Crouton has a backup feature to save a gzip of your chroot onto a SD card etc.
Sub $200 Chromebooks with decent keyboards: Dell 11 (2014 & 2015 models), Asus C202SA, and maybe the Lenovo educational models. At higher prices, of course, you have many choices: both Pixels, Lenovo and HP 13" and the Acer 14 for Work (all last year), the new Asus C302SA.
