
Introducing the Google Chrome OS - mqt
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
======
koepked
I'm not sure if I like implications of a web-centric OS, especially when its
producer is as rich and powerful as Google. I see the market for it, and I
think it will be a huge benefit for the average user. However, I see the
transition from desktop-based software to web-based as a loss of user control.
Today, when governments decide that mp3 sharing, porn, articles of political
dissent, or news from non-national sources should be eliminated, they quickly
realize, if they don’t already know, that elimination is impossible, because
no agency can track down and deal with every user who has decided to install
software allowing him/her to do these things. When software moves to the web,
I think it will likely end up existing on the servers of one of an oligopoly
of computing providers, who will be much easier to influence because of their
small number, and because they will have no choice but to abide by legislation
if they wish to remain in business.

This may not seem like an issue right now, because there is still choice. But
with Google pushing a web-centric OS, I think within a decade, many people
will have a hard time choosing something else, much the same way they had a
hard time choosing something other than windows until the last five years.

Maybe I’m just a Big Brother fearing nut, but I don’t like where we’re
heading.

~~~
trickjarrett
I concur. I've become more and more aware of the looming Google benevolent
giant, but one day that giant's going to get angry and by that point it may be
too late.

That being said, I still use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Analytics, and
other services. So I'm not exactly avoiding the apocalypse here.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
What I think is interesting is that having a hard time choosing something
other than Windows may have been quite benevolent in comparison with a Google-
situation which turns ugly. What if there is an organisation that has all your
email, all your documents, all your appointments and all your conversations
and can follow the majority of your surfing via ads. What if this resource
suddenly is too tempting to keep hands away from for "fighting terrorism" or
something such.

Being forced to use Windows at work could be considered nice in comparison.

I don't think that anyone at Google set out to be evil. But power corrupts and
the legal systems and governments have not exactly struck up a fight for
privacy for the individual the last couple of years.

~~~
koepked
Yes! Thank you for capturing more of what I could feel in my gut, but could
not bring to words when composing my comment.

 _I don't think that anyone at Google set out to be evil. But power corrupts
and the legal systems and governments have not exactly struck up a fight for
privacy for the individual the last couple of years._

I also see scenarios where Google never becomes corrupted by power, but by
government mandate a la Patriot Act is forced to reveal content. I don't like
that there appear to be many plausible ways where the whole situation could
end up generally bad.

~~~
trickjarrett
Indeed Google may never turn to the dark side, but to have that much
information under one corporate entity's control is terrifying to say the
least.

Unfortunately in the digital age, it is hard to achieve any semblance true
security for your personal information without acting on what lay-people
perceive as paranoia.

~~~
jessewmc
This is what really bothers me about it. If it weren't Google, it would be
someone else.

What we probably have to worry about is that the base level of privacy that is
easy to achieve is in freefall. The incentives for any individual organization
are too strong, because of the level of service (to consumers or advertisers
or whatever) can be so much stronger. It seems to me that compounding this is
the fact that the 'digital age' makes monopolies natural in alot of places,
even if only for a short time.

We're already rapidly adjusting to a loss of privacy, and maybe it's a
necessary progression and privacy advocates will one day be a quaint
historical footnote.

Even so, I'm definitely in the paranoid camp, and if we don't make a conscious
effort to have a more active cultural attitude towards privacy, we might not
be able to preserve any of it if we have a collective 'oh shit' moment down
the road.

------
Micand
If ARM and x86 are targeted, this means no Flash (not surprising, given how
poorly it runs on Linux), which presumably means YouTube will be operating in
full-on HTML 5 video mode by the time these devices launch.

If netbooks continue their meteoric ascent, and if Chrome OS grabs a
significant share of the market, we may finally see the realization of the
mythical Year of Linux On the Desktop. The ironic aspect, of course, is that
even though a large number of non-technical users will finally be running on a
fully open-source platform, they will use it to run applications whose
workings are even more opaque than traditional closed-source, client-side
apps.

I wonder what role, if any, Native Client will play on these devices. I
understand Native Client to target only x86, but I find it difficult to
imagine Chrome OS -- Google's first direct challenge to Windows -- not being
able to run Native Client applications.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Adobe are working on full Flash 10 for ARM-based linux on netbooks and
smartphone platforms, due for next year.

Whether Google wants or needs it is another question.

~~~
roc
Given the way that Flash performs on OSX I don't see any reason to think their
ARM port will be at all acceptable.

------
dryicerx
So effectively your PC becomes a Google ThinClient.

Got all the Office Applications with Google Apps. Email/Communication with
Gmail. The rest of the web. Multimedia with YouTube/Hulu/etc. Sounds like what
majority of the people need. Even for work environments, would be pretty good
(you can offer your proprietary application in the form of a web application).

~~~
derefr
I'd enjoy replacing the "instant-on OS" partition on my notebook with this.

~~~
stcredzero
What I want is a good enough "instant-on" that it's my only partition, and I
no longer have to worry about hibernation or sleep mode ever again. Have
orthogonal persistence for everything, so I never even have to save. Just open
the clamshell, or hit the on button. Something comes along to distract me, I
snap it shut, take care of whatever it is, then open it up again, wait a half
second and continue on where I left off.

The ideal laptop/internet pad would behave like the Nintendo DS, if the DS
could hibernate, and not just sleep when you close it.

~~~
jacquesm
the ideal laptop / internet pad would behave like an animated piece of paper.

------
mcav
Key Data Point:

> _The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new
> windowing system on top of a Linux kernel._

~~~
tc
If their approach to Android is any guide, much of the work will consist of
eliminating any GNU or GPL components from the (userspace) runtime
environment.

~~~
cdibona
This denies that Android runs on top of Linux, which is licensed under the
gpl. Or that the Google search appliance runs on a ton of gpl'd code, all
mirrored off of code.google.com...

~~~
tc
You must be talking about some other comment, because I don't mean to deny any
of that. I was merely pointing out that on Google's largest (public) OS
project to date (Android), Google evinced a strong desire for a copyleft-free
userspace and succeeded in building a non-GNU Linux distro. This is clearly a
different project with different goals, so we'll see how it turns out.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The stated reason for that was that Carriers and Telcos wanted to build on
Android and were put off by the GPL. (Though obviously not put off enough that
they'd reject the GPL'd Linux that runs beneath it)

Google's approach to licences is far more nuanced than blind adherance or
avoidance of any particular licence.

------
chaosprophet
I personally would never trust google with something as important and all
encompassing as my OS. I value my privacy far too much for that, and seeing as
how google collects usage data for just about every action you perform on
services they offer, I'm not sure i'll ever go the google way on desktop
software.

~~~
samg
Google knows who my friends are (Contacts), what I'm saying to them
(Gchat/Gmail), where I'm going (Gmaps), what I'm reading (Reader), what I'm
writing (Docs) and what I'm looking for (Search).

As far as I'm concerned, operating systems are pretty interchangeable. The
things I care about are already all going through Google. Does anyone besides
Google offer a similar suite of apps? The only one I can think of is Apple's
MobileMe.

~~~
chaosprophet
How about Outlook/Thunderbird/Facebook (contacts) + Yahoo (mail) +
OpenStreetMap (maps) + Sage/Friendfeed (RSS) + Zoho (Docs) + Bing (Search)?

While no-one may be offering a similar _suite_ of applications, if you want to
use them you can find different services that do.

Also currently even if google does know all that information about you, it
doesn't know what files you have on your hard drive. In my opinion, giving
carte blanche on data on my hard drives to google is a big no for a company
that doesn't give two hoots about the privacy of their users.

~~~
samg
The value of Google's services, at least for me, is that they all work
together. I can login from an internet cafe in the middle of nowhere and have
all my contacts in my email program, the same ones synced to my iPhone.

I don't know if I buy the claim that Google doesn't give "two hoots" about
your privacy, as long as you don't count selling contextual ads as over the
line. But anyway, my point is that the "files" I care about protecting are
already with Google. For true protection of your local files, on any operating
system, encryption is your only answer.

~~~
chaosprophet
I believe with facebook connect, you can maybe hack those different services
to work together (firefox extension?). Maybe, I should take a look at that
idea.

And if google did care about my privacy why read all my mails, and keep track
of every webpage i visit from their search engine. I don't buy the "we'll only
take a peep, just for advertising" logic.

Also, google already having all the files you care about would be more an
exception than the norm. I would presume a majority of people keep their files
stored on their hard drives.

In my opinion, keeping track of my actions in any way goes against google's
self stated "don't be evil" policy. Or did Paul Buchheit take that policy with
him to friendfeed???

------
grellas
The key to supremacy in the enterprise market is to seize control of the entry
point.

IBM did it in the 1960s and 1970s with the entry point being a highly skilled
personalized sales force in an era where relationships established the trust
needed for enterprises to commit to large systems.

Microsoft did it in the 1980s and 1990s with the entry point being its
proprietary API for its desktop OS which, with the help of OEM hardware
partners, it used to choke out anyone who sought to compete with it in the
desktop applications market. It then tried (and failed) to use its desktop
monopoly as a vehicle by which to dominate the back-end of enterprise
computing.

Google now seeks to gain similar supremacy with the entry point being superior
_proprietary_ products ultimately derived from or at least capitalizing upon
Open Source in a web-centric computing environment. What form this will take,
I don't know. But it will take a form by which Google tries to seize and
maintain control of the entry point and ultimately bend the world's primary
computing environments to its proprietary advantage. The Chrome OS is one
piece of this effort.

The question is one of which company will become the ultimate gatekeeper to
all or most of enterprise computing, which is where the money is. Google wants
that role and that is where its fight with Microsoft will lie.

As they say, "The law of human nature - it ain't been repealed yet."

~~~
extension
Microsoft's success was based almost entirely on lock-in: they made everyone
depend on something that only they could provide. The equivalent strategy for
Google would obviously be to hoard the world's data in their private silos,
which they are arguably already doing. I would find that scenario more
plausible if it weren't for Wave.

Wave, by its nature, will obsolete or radically transform, many of Google's
existing web apps: gmail, docs, blogger, picasa, calendar.. anything related
to communication or collaboration. Yet, it seems as though they've gone to
great lengths to make Wave decentralized, even as far as open sourcing their
server implementation. They've done this even though a silo style Wave app
would likely be a huge success anyway. I can't fathom why they would allow
Wave to exist if they were hoping to control everyone's data, as it clearly
represents a threat to the control they already have.

I'm not dropping my guard, but at this point my best guess is that Google is
just trying to create an open and fair web ecosystem, in which they will
compete based on their momentum and massive resources, and in which their
major competitors lose their existing advantage. Either that, or they don't
have much of a plan at all and the company is really just a bunch of smart
people doing cool stuff with a huge pile of money that fell from the sky.

------
Xichekolas
I couldn't help thinking about the crunchpad when I read this.

Slap this on a tablet with a hybrid display and you might have something very
interesting.

~~~
skorgu
Slap a Pixel Qi [1] screen and a capacitive (iPhone) touchscreen on a
Crunchpad and I at least will line up for one.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=related)

~~~
jcl
I thought it already was planned to be capacitive:
[http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr....](http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr.2009.update/)

------
btw0
I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace
the bloated X window system in other distributions.

~~~
tvon
The barrier to replacing X is not replacing X, it is the significant rewriting
of software that uses X.

~~~
blasdel
And the first massive hump there is getting the replacement good enough to
even bother _thinking_ about rewrites.

Google has a chance to leap past that, because they've contrived a situation
where they not only don't need X, they don't need to port X apps.

~~~
tvon
Well, yeah, but you're not talking about _replacing_ X anymore (which is what
the GP post was talking about).

------
gojomo
Some may remember the Forbes ASAP article, excerpted from Gilder's book,
touted with the cover, "George Gilder Thinks This Kid Can Topple Bill Gates":

<http://www.gilder.com/public/telecosm_series/software.html>

It's taken 14 long years -- and it's Google-Chrome-plus-Javascript rather than
Netscape-Navigator-plus-HotJava -- but the browser has finally become a
complete alternative to a desktop OS.

The article's final sentence: "In the age of the hollowed-out computer, the
king of the desktop rules an emigrating empire."

~~~
gaius
The _only_ way Google can make good on their promises of it just working,
being virus free etc, is if they lock it down more than Apple did the iPhone.

General purpose computing device, or a Google Terminal? That's your choice.

~~~
gojomo
What if one device has a switch on the side: 'locked-down terminal' or 'open
general purpose computer'? And via virtualization, the two sides are sealed
from each other, but instantly switchable? Why not the best of both worlds?

------
ErrantX
Im convinced it's not a coincidence that this week they also announced
dropping a load of beta tags, hid the free apps sign up page a little more and
made a number of other tweaks.

I get the impression they are trying to repackage their cloud services
together: it would make sense if the plan for Chrome OS is to ultimately tie
it all together.

------
kylec
Let's hope this also means that a Linux version of Chrome is around the
corner.

~~~
cdibona
If you haven't tried out the chromium nightly desktop builds, they're actually
quite nice. The team is still nailing down the plugins, but the browser itself
is wicked fast and pretty stable (given its alpha nature)

~~~
markbao
If you're a Mac user, you can also download the latest nightly build here:

[http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-
ma...](http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/) (scroll
all the way down to the latest build directory)

And yes, it is _wicked fast_. On my system, it doesn't even _bounce_ in the
dock before opening. It just opens. Plugins aren't supported yet, but I just
open any sites that require Flash in Safari.

~~~
pygy
It's so fast OS X is unable to register it as a recently launched application
for the magic folder in the dock...

Anyone knows why?

~~~
chaosmachine
Just a guess, but maybe the weird process-per-tab thing.

------
dcurtis
I'm glad Google has identified a need for something like this, but I don't
really trust that Google has the right talent to build an operating system.
They have serious problems with user experience and interface design (see:
Doug Bowman). The mere idea that they are attempting to encroach on an aspect
of experience as large as the operating system is to me somewhat scary.

I do hope they prove me wrong. But based on their past performance, I am not
holding my breath.

Also: Google, if you're reading this, please at least make the typography
render properly in this OS. You've already failed at this with Chrome, which
has some of the worst antialiasing I have seen in a browser (surpassed in
crappiness only by IE).

~~~
seldo
As I said below (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693339>): you've not got
what they're thinking of as the OS. The browser is the operating system, and
the apps are all web apps. The core of the OS is Linux, but the interface is
all browser -- you don't install apps, you just type in their URL. There's
hardly any OS UI they need to invent that we haven't already seen as part of
Chrome itself.

~~~
dcurtis
Not really. You still have to be able to log in, store data, set up parental
controls, deal with power management and screen savers and wifi networks,
choose desktop backgrounds (assuming they don't force you to use a single
tabbed window), choose keyboard/language/sticky keys, define trackpad
gestures, accessibility settings, etc...

I am curious to see how they deal with this stuff.

~~~
Xichekolas
My guess is that you will be in a single tabbed window, with special tabs for
things like wifi, login, file browser, settings, etc (like Firefox's
about:config).

At least that is how I'd do it. Just type config:wifi in your location bar to
change your wifi settings. Visit config:files to browse your local files, etc.
Of course, all of these can be bookmarked by default so the end user can click
rather than type.

Chrome already does stuff like this with about:memory, about:network, etc.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome-
specific_about:_addresses)

------
jeffspost
Interesting. The one missing piece--a RAD development environment that's as
efficient as Visual Studio is at producing fat clients. The business world
will only embrace the webcentric model when it becomes as efficient to code in
as .net click-once fat clients. The idea of simple, cheap, rugged hardware is
very appealing. But programmer time is the #1 cost--businesses go for easy
drag/drop fat client apps. Software written for 5 users has to be thrown
together pretty fast or it never pays back...

~~~
Adrenalist
Can you clarify your statements a bit more?

I don't think that Google Chrome OS would be suitable for most corporate shops
that are generally Microsoft centric (and have been for quite some time). I
think this free OS will be geared towards light users that primarily use their
computer for surfing the web and checking their email.

~~~
swolchok
RAD = rapid application development, the business term for "drag-n-drop GUI
builders" that we all know and hate. Not having one for the Web is a valid
criticism, but if GWT can handle Swing API input then we DO have one.

~~~
Adrenalist
I'm familiar with RAD, although at least for my employer it's more than just
drag-and-drop GUI builders.

It sounds to me like jeffspost is over generalizing and suggesting that Google
Chrome OS will only succeed if it's embraced by large corporations. The
software hasn't even launched and jeffspost has already figured out it's "one
missing piece".

~~~
netsp
And generalising that it will need to replace Windows.

They are launching it as a netbook OS for a reason. Netbooks is a loose term.
I'm not exactly sure what the line is, but one definition might be a small
laptop that doesn't replace your main computer.

I daresay that whoever buys this will either have another computer or have no
need for corporate apps.

------
blasdel
I wonder just how Google Native Client will fit into this, especially extended
with things like USB support and OpenGL.

There's games, obviously, but what about a NaCL port of iTunes? It's not
_that_ far-fetched.

~~~
niktechx
Google has already indirectly "extended" Native Client with native 3D graphics
using their O3D API (<http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/>). It's just a matter
of time until someone codes up a library to expose that API through JS interop
in Native Client.

I think we can expect very close integration of Native Client into the Chrome
OS as soon as or right after it goes public. To the level of accessing
hardware ports to control external devices right from your Native Client web-
app.

Imagine drivers that get loaded and updated on-the-fly. Of course, Google will
have to implement a smart security mechanism (along the lines of RSA
authentication for dynamic device/driver coupling) and provide a way for
device manufacturers to register their driver's public keys with Chrome OS.

~~~
Raphael
But will Native Client work on ARM?

~~~
niktechx
Yes: [http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-
clien...](http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-client-
technology-for-running.html)

------
eelco
I think this is great. Most people don't know what a browser is anyway, so for
them it probably won't make much of a difference. It will be interesting to
see how much of an OS you can strip away.

------
yankeeracer73
I don't see that anyone has mentioned Apple in any of this. They certainly
aren't just going to roll over and let Google take this entire space. They
will launch a netbook at some point with the iPhone OS, some storage, the app
store to get everything you want, a superior user experience and industrial
design, and oh yeah, the browser to also run all these other apps...And it
will be this kind of weird hybrid old model vs. new all over again.

------
billpg
I could develop a new netbook OS over a weekend.

(Joke. Please don't downvote me again, I'm already at -5.)

~~~
netsp
promise to be good?

~~~
billpg
But I though that "Mel" sounded "ghastly". Shirley that's unforgivable? :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679208>

------
alessandro
I think Google will continue to "win" and we will use their
applications/reader/ecc until they will have the dominant search engine. If
you look at what they offer (with the exception, maybe, of excel-like webapp),
they are not killer application. We are using them because our online-life is
Google-centric. So we should remeber that everything else they do is buld on
their search engine dominance (think to the omnibox)... For the webos is the
same. It's fine, for a netbook IF Google will remain Google.

If you look at what people do with a Mac, they do far more than just using web
application. Far Far more.

------
jackchristopher
The danger is and always has been centralized control (and not just in
software). No one should own the web OS — the web is ours.

Stallman & Co. foresaw this (at least) a decade ago. He's right to be worried.
The real issue is: what are rights in the digital age? Who has control of
what?

I might not back everything he's done. And he sometimes dismisses technical
issues as trivial over political ones unnecessarily. But he is having the
conversation at the right level of abstraction.

We'll keep facing the pitfalls of centralized power until we collectively
decide to kill that beast permanently.

------
Jem
I've an AA1 running Linpus, which is buggy and slower than I anticipated. It's
bloated down with superfluous software that I don't need, and that you have to
follow a series of complex guides to remove. (Even then you risk screwing up
parts of Linpus which are dependant on it.)

All I use it for is browsing and light coding on the move. Windows, and the
likes of Ubuntu Netbook Remix are all too 'big' for that.

It sounds like the Google Chrome OS is exactly what my netbook needs.

~~~
mooism2
I get the impression that the only native application it will run is Chrome.
So how are you going to edit your source code, push/pull your changes, test
it, run it?

I've seen web-based ssh clients, and someone might be able to write a web-
based vnc / remote desktop client, but I can't see it being useful for offline
coding.

~~~
Jem
You're grossly over-complicating my needs.

None of my websites (that I would edit on the netbook) are business critical /
make money / have any real world importance whatsoever. I can log in via
cpanel, roll out some coding amends live and worry about breaking things as
and when it happens.

~~~
mooism2
Ah, right, I misinterpreted what you meant by "light coding".

------
sfphotoarts
Is this any different than someone else taking Ubuntu/Firefox and calling that
the Firefox OS? Chrome isn't an operating system, linux is. This is a
distribution and pre-installed browser. How is this anything different that
what we currently have in the netbook market.

The real player in the future of netbooks is very likely Apple, not Google,
because any netbook running OSX will also be able to not only run all the
usual OSX apps but Chrome too...

~~~
mattn
2 years ago I made cl33n, a Linux live CD that boots Linux, connects to the
net, runs the Matchbox window manager and launches Firefox- that's all it
does. ChromeOS is "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top
of a Linux kernel." cl33n is "Mozilla Firefox running within a little-used
windowing system on top of a Linux kernel". cl33n isn't unique, Webconverger
and other great live CDs do a similar "make it easy for anyone to browse
safely" job.

Google cancelled cl33n's AdSense account 8 days ago, right before they were
due to make their first payment. The site and its small traffic & AdSense
revenue hasn't changed for 2 years (am working on an update now, I got kinda
busy with a startup ;)). If cl33n did Bad Things then it's been doing them for
2 years now. I wonder if Google will refund the money to the advertisers?

I've appealed but have not received a response from Google. I still don't know
what cl33n did to incur Google's wrath.

------
netsp
_For application developers, the web is the platform._... _Google Chrome OS is
being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being
designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop
systems._

Does this mean an operating system that runs chrome and little else or an
operating system that runs mostly chrome?

------
csomar
Using Google Chrome OS, means that we throw Windows and OSX away. Windows or
OSX (Desktop-application) are not good, flexible because they are dektop
applications, but because they have dozen of years of user experience.
Throwing this user experience away, means we are starting the OS history
again, which is a lose of time and money. In my opinion!

------
ananthrk
It is also interesting to think about this news in the context of FaceBook
buying Parakey (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parakey>), though it is a _web-
based_ OS. IMO, given Google's array of applications, they are better suited
to write a _web-centric_ OS than FaceBook.

------
10ren
_we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone,
including Google_

This is the kind of competition that I would like to enjoy (i.e. between
products that both belong to me). I wonder if it actually will work out for
them, and if so, how I could use that strategy myself.

------
Goladus
I switched back to Firefox for security reasons and because Chrome turned out
to be _really_ slow re-rendering tabs that haven't been visited for awhile.
Not too enthused about a whole OS but I suppose that might be one answer to
the security problems.

------
ntoshev
I can't wait to try an actual version of this in a virtualbox. Betas should be
available for geeks way before the netbook manufacturers get to installing it
on their devices in 2010.

------
jsz0
It's going to be interesting to see how committed Google is to this project.
Google seems like a company these days with more ambition than substance
sometimes. They have some really good services but they also have a lot of
services that have seen very few, if any, significant improvements lately. It
does remind me a bit of Microsoft when they had to get their fingers into
every category of software even if they weren't offering a particularly good
product. It was more about being in that space than actually being the best at
it. I hope Google is not trying to go this route because it almost always ends
up in mediocrity.

------
timothychung
I hope someone will wrap it as an application on Windows.

That would be fantastic to have a OS to handle all web related activities for
general users.

------
Derrek
Does anyone have any guesses on how this might be different from Android?

~~~
mbrubeck
See the comments about Android in the Google Blog post.

Android: Aimed at small-screen, low-power devices (handhelds, set-top boxes,
MIDs, netbooks). Java-based application development. Touchscreen-oriented UI.

Chrome OS: Aimed at netbooks, laptops, desktops. Web-based application
development. Browser-based UI.

------
shimi
I don't see the point, Android is using a Chrome version, so if you'll take
Android remove Dalvik then you're getting a new OS?

By that definition I can remove all my apps from my Vista laptop except the
browser and what do I get, an IE OS?

That's silly!!!

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yread
I still think that Opera OS would be a better idea :)

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Oompa
A browser is one thing. But an OS? I have my doubts.

~~~
seldo
You have to re-think what is meant by an "operating system".

What is Windows? It's that thing, in the background, that lets you run all the
applications you want to run.

But what if all your applications were written in Javascript and HTML, and had
URLs instead of .exe files? With all the extra power built into Chrome, they
could still write to file systems, store data, work offline, do sophisticated
graphics and parallel processing -- these are not hypotheticals, this is what
Chrome can do _right now_. We're just beginning to scratch the surface of what
an app written from Chrome can do.

Chrome can be an OS, for some value of "OS".

~~~
sovande
When the iphone was first released, development was going to be via javascript
and safari. That didn't go too well with neither users nor developers. Isn't
this going to be the same thing? And for the so called windowing system I
would not hold my breath and except anything like quartz. Its probably going
to be just enough framebuffer code to drop X11 so the browser window can run
in fullscreen. The window manager will then be implemented in javascript. Wee!

~~~
ZeroGravitas
That's a common misconception.

When the iPhone was first released, development was restricted to web apps and
they didn't have access to any API. The fact that it was javascript and HTML
was mostly tangential to the complaints of people who wanted to install (and
sell) local apps, with access to the unique hardware, though obviously
existing Cocoa coders, 3D game programmers and anyone needing to get close to
the metal weren't going to be happy even if these other elements were taken
care of.

On the other hand "fart apps" and things that are basically light wrappers
round existing web apps have no such problem.

See the Palm Pre for someone taking this to it's logical extreme.

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gasull
I wonder if Chrome OS is the same as, or a derivative of, Goobuntu:

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu>

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tybris
Just another Linux distribution.

If they want to do something useful, make me a command-line that supports
images, links, etc and gives me an easy way to process XML.

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c00p3r
They will probably build something like fbdev wrapper to run their browser
along with Native Client and GPU-accelerated (even on ARM) ffmpeg's codecs for
html5 support, and it could be a real deal. They will reuse 80% and build 20%
as usual.

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asciilifeform
Yet another Unix clone. Yawn.

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rms
Checkmate.

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samuel
Is this a response to bing? If you go after my market, I'll go after yours.

It's not only the Chrome OS thing. Google Apps out of beta could mean that
Google is serious about competing in the groupware segment.

