The Huge Letdown Of Google Chrome OS

Michael Lankton | Nov 19, 2009 | View Comments


On July 7th of this year Google announced their entrance into the desktop operating system fray with the forthcoming Google Chrome OS. Details were blurry, but we were told that it would utilize the linux kernel and a new windowing system.

The use of linux in and of itself was not a cause for alarm. The linux kernel does have a lot of functionality and hardware support. Linux isn’t intrinsically slow and resource intensive, as the linux distros of yesteryear brought very snappy performance to hardware that was less than bleeding edge. Linux has accumulated its share of bloat over the years, and the average linux distro is no longer as swift or as light as it once was.

Nevertheless, the use of a linux kernel didn’t automatically mean that Chrome OS would be nothing but a Google-ized linux distro. The promise of a proprietary windowing system would allow them to do away with a windowing system that carried 20 years worth of baggage, and while it would also mean that you wouldn’t be running Xwindows apps on Chrome OS, that was actually a move in the right direction. Google Chrome OS should be an operating system that utilized linux technology but stood on its own merits. There is precedence for this; Mac OS X uses a big chunk of the FreeBSD userland for its unix underlayer. Mac OS X is no more FreeBSD than Chrome OS will be linux.

So the thought of a lightweight, webcentric operating system that provided a platform for Google’s web browser and online apps held quite a bit of promise. As a guy with a laptop that is getting a little gray at the temples, such a system would be attractive because said operating system should be pretty thrifty with hardware resources.

Google already has Android OS, an operating system for handheld devices and netbooks. Android OS also uses the linux kernel and a proprietary windowing system. I can tell you from firsthand experience that Android OS is very much the thing for phones and tablets, and I expect an explosion of Android devices in 2010.

So, again, Google is a smart company filled with smart people, and they already got this right once. Hopes for Chrome were very high indeed.

Well today is the day we got a limited peek at what they’ve done so far. As someone who was looking forward to this day, I have to tell you that I am very disappointed with what Google showed us.

Google Chrome OS Intro Video

Google Chrome OS Demonstration

So basically what Google’s operating system amounts to is a minimalist framework to launch and use the Google Chrome web browser. We thought the OS would be heavily dependent on Chrome, it just turns out that the OS is Chrome.

The only real use I can see for a system like this is for public terminals, which if you haven’t noticed, don’t really exist anywhere at this time.

I suppose the guys at Google working on Chrome OS should be applauded for figuring out how to make a web browser into an operating system. I am sure that Chrome OS is not without merit and under closer inspection I am sure there are some pretty good ideas rolled into Chrome OS. I just don’t see any of us abandoning the systems we currently use to apply the handcuffs that such a system would impose on our usage.


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About the Author: Have you been a bass player in a hardcore punk band? Built stroker Harleys? Have you been in a fight this month? Written an article about SEO that somehow managed to turn into a social commentary editorial?Mike has.Since 2007 Mike has been sharing his unique worldview with Connected Internet readers. Stop back to see what Mike is thinking about next week.

  • It's my day off, and I just finished playing with Chromium in VirtualBox. It's even worse than I thought. I wasn't kidding when I said that Chrome OS is the bare minimum required to boot your hardware and run Chrome. That's all there is. It's the Chrome web browser. Period. Have a nice day.
    What a joke. I hope this thing tanks. I would so much rather run Android OS on a tablet or netbook than this garbage.
  • I had trouble understanding all of the hype months ago.

    Giving it more than a fleeting moment of analysis, it was easy to forsee that Chrome OS would be simply be a minimal Linux variant used to support the Chrome browser. And you could already do that with Firefox & any of a fistfull of Linux distros long before anyone had ever heard of Chrome - the browser or OS.

    A happens so often, everyone just got swept up in the media frenxy and now the enevitable post-hype letdown is settling in.
  • The idea of a slimmed down linux running a proprietary windowing system was attractive. It would have had none of the baggage of X, and promised fast performance on a wide range of hardware. I think that's what had us all interested, we were just expecting a more conventional os.

    If Chrome's target is netbooks, I think they made a bad guess at where people were going to go. I think people will embrace tablets in a way that they will never embrace the netbook.
  • scaredof
    Wouldn't this be completely ideal for a tablet? If I had a tablet it would be for just running a fast browser and some simple apps (nothing that couldn't happily be a web app).
  • Stevie
    It does look like a huge let down. It's like buying a Netpliance (http://www.targetpc.com/hardware/internet_appli...). If I wanted to do nothing but browse the web, I would have got a WebTV. Do they even make those any more? Probably not, because no one wanted a device that's only purpose was to get on the web.
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