Google Chrome OS

So Google is in the process of developing it’s Chrome O/S.  It’s an interesting development and I’ll be intrigued to see where it goes but I think it needs some more thought.

If you think about the actual end product, Google will essentially use a Linux based kernel and then use new windowing kit.  On top of that will be a browser (Chrome), which we all know about and probably use and then a series of “desktop” links to on-line applications which will focus on Google’s existing docs, spreadsheets, mail and so on.  At the end of the day it’s a version of Linux with Chrome - end of story really.

Maybe I’m missing a trick but this just looks like a netbook edition of Ubuntu (which already exists) with a few Google bells and whistles, most notably the “Chrome” browser.  It doesn’t even sound that ground breaking and only the Google name is giving this the air-time.

When Google say “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel” this leaves me distinctly cold.  A lot of people really like the graphical nature of operating systems and indeed the new Windows 7 and Mac OSX are well received in part because of the advances here. Unfortunately Google has always left me completely cold in the design arena, in fact I can’t recall a product which I ever thought was sexy.  Yes, they follow the simplicity route and indeed it’s been good for them but would I really want my daily experience within the OS to feel like a bland moment.  It’d be like going back in time.

The statement “redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates” reeks of arrogance.  Where you have an OS you no doubt have a hacking community and indeed it’s generally very hard to really protect against everything.  If you consider the number of updates, security or otherwise that happens on most Linux, Mac and Windows installs then you should know that this is rubbish.

Personally I’m enjoying running Mac OSX at home and the new version of Windows 7 runs brilliantly at work and although I’ll test what they push out I’m not convinced it will stay for any length of time on my machines.