Agreed. I think he crossed the line way beyond being skeptical about Google, and into partisan politics level biased reporting against Google. E.g. his coverage of passkey was so bad - misleading half truths and outright incorrect claims - that made a subsequent article on the passkey by another Ars reporter look completely opposite from what he wrote.
Isn't that much like how reporting of Microsoft during the 90s wasn't "sceptical", but just calling the pot black? At a certain point — i.e. given enough history — it's a given that a company acts against your best interests. I don't see judging a company on their actions as bias.
Google is a corporation that does terrible things. That's not bias, it's observation.
Having said all that, what were his half truths and incorrect claims on passkey? genuinely interested to educate myself.
is the article. The title is already misleading - Google doesn't support passwordless account, and there is no way to get a passkey only account. So factually incorrect title. Anyway, read that and contrast that with:
As an aside, I think this is the source of his confusion about password-less accounts. From Google's help page:
> When you create a passkey, you opt in to a passkey-first, password-less sign-in experience
That comma right there reads; "you opt in to a passkey-first _and_ password-less sign-in experience". I understand what they mean, but that kind of marketing speak is often misunderstood by more technically focussed people.
Sure, Google botched some of their communication on their end for sure. But the job of a journalist is to give clarity and pass along as accurate information and valid pros and cons by doing some basic research, so that the readers end up more informed after reading an article. His article did the opposite - see the comment section of the second article for how a lot of people were more confused / misinformed by Ron's article. Of course, not all of that was due to his article, but it's very clear his article made the confusion meaningfully worse.
Oh yeah, I'm not defending the journalism on that piece, just pointing out where he probably got confused. I think I only read it correctly because of all the context in this thread.
