Google Oompa-Loompas dream of virus-free OS
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By John Leyden
9th July 2009 16:05 GMT
Google has rather rashly claimed its plans to develop an operating system promise an end to security woes.
The search giant said Google Chrome OS, due to debut in the second half of next year and initially targeted at netbooks, will be based on open source code and offer unprecedented security.
Sundar Pichai, VP of product management and Linus Upson, engineering director at Google, pledged an end to not just the need to run antivirus but of security updates more generally in a blog posting. The duo go on to boast that Google's sugar-coated OS will also offer speed, simplicity, an end to world hunger and an England Ashes win (we made the last two up).
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.
I've always wondered why it needs to take so long to boot up a computer. I flick on my light switch, the lights come on...I turn the key to the ignition, my car is started...I turn on the TV, it lights up immediately...same with the radio...same with most anything else...except the computer, which takes agonizingly long to boot to the point where it's usable. :-)