Posted on 07/08/2009 4:56:31 AM PDT by comps4spice
It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.
Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.
Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. 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. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.
We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.
Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director
This would technically be the most barebones operating system ever implemented as according to them it has the ability to run nothing other than a browser.
I’d also like to see how they’re going to overcome boot delays without revolutionizing IC technology. If your operating system is totally stripped down, it will boot faster, but it’s still going to take time.
Google isn’t taking aim at Microsoft or Apple. They’re taking aim at taking the Netbook theory one step further. Those companies who actually develop functional operating systems aren’t going to worry.
Bing is a better search engine...google will have its hands full!
I’d make the switch from Firefox, but I can’t be bothered swapping all the bookmarks and stuff.
Firefox has been good. I’ll stick with it.
Chrome can import the bookmarks. They have extensions, but not as many as Firefox. But it is lightning fast.
It will?
OK. Maybe I’ll give it a try.
Thanks!
cites? sights? sites?
I think the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. Color me embarrassed!
I wondered about that myself. Did they use “sites” as sort of pun, since Google is an internet-based company? Or was it a true error, and they meant “sights”? What a grammar nazi I am.
If the OS primarily resides in flash memory, it can "boot" instantly. It won't really be a boot, it would be coming back from hibernation.
Barely? Google has a great search engine, but this is probably out of their area of exertise. The main reason they are targeting netbooks is they can't possible support the range of HW that MS supports (or the range that linux supports for that matter). But even with this low hanging fruit it will be hard to pull off.
OTOH, my netbook came with Xp home which I immediately scrapped. MS isn't a perfect fit for the netbook segment either.
I call BS right here.
“Already, over 30 million people use it (Chrome) regularly.”
If these 30 million people are anything like me, we’ve downloaded it, played with it a bit, and resumed using Firefox like before.
I mean I’m sure there are *some* people who use it regularly, but I highly doubt it’s anything close to what they say.
Years back Gates mentioned that operating systems were going the way of the dinosaur. No news here. The less google programs on my system the better. They are hogs and spy on anything you do!
Not to be an alarmist or anything but before you do you might want to check out what, if any, of your usage will be trasmitted to Google and how comfortable you are with that.
Which is why I'm not tempted in the least to sample an OS created by them!
No thank you, give me a 64 bit OS and privacy.
A bootable web browser isn’t going to unseat Microsoft just yet.
re: “lightning fast”
After a certain speed is reached, more speed is insigficant. And I’m just not in the mood to get overly friendly with Google.
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