30 ms·

Chromebooks will get 10 years of automatic updates

• stabbles 3y ago
  The question is, is this statement binding for 10 years, or can they "kill" it within a couple years?
• pseudoshikhar 3y ago
  No use to me, have booted linux on it
• lg_rocket 3y ago
  This is a big victory for the parents, teachers, and students who wrote to Google asking them to make this change. https://pirg.org/articles/why-google-announced-chromebooks-will-last-for-10-years/ https://pirg.org/articles/why-google-announced-chromebooks-w... Google and other tech companies should continue to find ways to stop the disposability treadmill that pressures us to replace our phones and laptops in favor of newer models. With e-waste the fastest growing waste-stream in the U.S., it’s not sustainable to consume technology at this rate. This is a meaningful step toward a tech industry making products designed to last.
  • mrtesthah 3y ago
    Google's per-user software subscription model works to their benefit here, as it lets schools and businesses trade the money saved from a less frequent hardware upgrade schedule for additional years of Google product usage.
  • tgv 3y ago
    > This is a big victory for the parents, teachers, and students Who should never have been using computers in the first place. There's really no point. Using gmail and gdocs doesn't teach anything of value. A lot of the other software is pricey and sometimes even detrimental to the school result.
    • lern_too_spel 3y ago
      Writing papers in a word processor is a far different experience from writing papers on paper.
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        Thankfully. Handwriting caused me massive hand cramping until much later in life when I re-trained myself to hold a pen differently. A lot of my school essays were optimized for the fewest number of words that met the base requirements. That in itself is a useful skill, but I don't recommend it as a coping mechanism to avoid physical pain.
      • nocman 3y ago
        Yeah, writing on a word processor is a million times better (at least it is for me). Don't get me wrong, I do think it's bad that writing things by hand is becoming more and more rare all the time. In particular, handwritten letters and notes have an extra bit of "personal touch" to them that can make them very valuable to the recipient. However, from the time I was in High School to today I would never want to be required to write a paper, well, strictly on paper (from the beginning). I want all of that ability to quickly edit at my fingertips.
        • com2kid 3y ago
          As someone who has physical problems writing by hand, papers I wrote by hand in school where better. Being forced to slow down gave me mental time to edit before I committed to page, by the time my pencil made a mark I was already on the 2nd or 3rd revision of what I was going to write.
          • nocman 3y ago
            On a computer I can easily rewrite the same phrase 10 times, reorganize a sentence for the best sounding flow, move or remove whole paragraphs multiple times, until I am satisfied I have said what I wanted to say in the best way I know how. I can save off any number of possibilities and compare them side by side. Also, none of this prevents me from spending 30 minutes beforehand thinking about what I am about to write. Although, I will admit, even if I do that I am likely to have at least a text editor open to jot down a few notes as I think about it. I do agree, however, that the up-front thinking is a very good idea.
  • samtheprogram 3y ago
    Ironically (because related to Google), I feel that the constant churn of web development is what makes these older devices unusable. I have several devices from early to mid 2010's, and the real reason these devices are annoying to unbearable to impossible to use (assuming Linux or Windows for security updates) is that they become very slow while just browsing the web or simply playing a video with a newer codec that has no hardware support on these older machines. In my mind, this 10 years of updates is fantastic, but also not very practical towards the end of the support cycle. Better to have the option, though.
    • noirscape 3y ago
      Generally speaking I'd suggest installing Firefox on older devices. It's usually at least slightly more usable as long as you don't have too many tabs open. I'd also recommend Firefox in general but that's neither here or there.
      • skinkestek 3y ago
        On a slightly newer machine (3 years old, 32GB memory) Firefox (or rather LibreWolf) again runs nicely with a few hundred tabs. It would probably run fine with that amount of tabs also if it had 16 or maybe 8 GB, but not together with 2 or 3 IDE instancee, Teams, Slack and ome or more applications running in debug.
        • pbmonster 3y ago
          I have absolutely zero issues on 10 year old hardware with 16GByte of memory. Hundreds of tabs (Firefox is really good about moving them out of memory when they don't get used for a while - which, lets be honest, are almost all of those tabs) and the normal everyday onslaught of office software, a fat IDE, and a CAD editor. This stuff is not rocket science. It's not even performance gaming. We worked efficiently in 2013, and it still works today. All it takes is some memory and a halfway decent SSD.
        • mymac 3y ago
          It bloody well should though, 32G is massive.
  • froh 3y ago
    til "PIRG" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Research_Group https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Research_Gro...
  • Zambyte 3y ago
    > Google and other tech companies should continue to find ways to stop the disposability treadmill that pressures us to replace our phones and laptops in favor of newer models. The treadmill is powered by "intellectual property". Abolish "owning" ideas, and you abolish the treadmill. Capitalism would solve this issue if it were allowed to run its course. Unfortunately we've let artificial monopolies run rampant in the name of "innovation". All that we've innovated is screwing people over as much as possible.
    • LordDragonfang 3y ago
      Intellectual property is capital. Advocating for communal ownership for the intellectual means of production is more communist than it is capitalist. The market can then fix it once you've removed intellectual capitalism from the equation.
      • freedomben 3y ago
        There are plenty of capitalists who would disagree by arguing that "intellectual property" isn't capital because such thing isn't even possible. Many anarcho-capitalists hold this position. I'm not versed enough to argue it in depth, but the basic premise is that you can't "own" an idea/thought, and there's no scarcity at play with ideas so it fails the basic test for property.
        • squarefoot 3y ago
          I guess the system worked around that limitation by hiring people with ideas and have them sign NDAs.
      • teddyh 3y ago
        Bitcoin is commonly held to be worth something, i.e., an asset. But there are many who argue that its “true” value is 0. Something similar to that divergence is happening here. We, as a society, have a convention, a habit, where copyrighted works, trademarks, mining rights, etc. are restricted by law to be controlled by a single legal entity. This makes these a tradable commodity. But if the law did not apply to these, they would become worthless. It is, in fact, these laws which have created this tradable commodity from nothing. Other laws could be created to do the same to any number of currently freely available things; this does not prove that these things should be covered by such laws merely because it would create a kind of property which would have value.
  • avgcorrection 3y ago
    > Google and other tech companies should continue to find ways to stop the disposability treadmill that pressures us to replace our phones and laptops in favor of newer models. With e-waste the fastest growing waste-stream in the U.S., it’s not sustainable to consume technology at this rate. This is a meaningful step toward a tech industry making products designed to last. Uh-huh. Alternatively you could go back to books, pencil and paper.
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      Like most schools around the world still do today.
    • scbzzzzz 3y ago
      I am really heartbroken by your response, I always feel the world/society should fight planned obsolescence. people/planet over profits. and then I see a person responding with a joke (I hope you don't mean it) when we(society) have means to make products last but some corporation chose profits against it and then greenwash with 5min mother earth videos. I know you are aware/heard of planned obsolescence. some people complain, these corporations have to maintain and it costs them, but those people don't realise We are gifted with wonderful opensource community like (pixelexperience os maintainers). These corporation can design it to make it easy for opensource community to maintain it after EOL. Since you are here in HN, there is high probability you are one of the geeks in industry. I hope you fight for "planet/people over profits".
      • bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        >I am really heartbroken by your response, I always feel the world/society should fight planned obsolescence. alternative explanation - they feel there is overuse of computing devices and that one could really go back to pencil and paper for lots of tasks.
        • walteweiss 3y ago
          ‘Uh-huh’ changes that context and makes it sarcastic.
  • waynesonfire 3y ago
    They should have written to the schools to ban these devices.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • neycoda 3y ago
    This is why we need money spent on recycling and proper cleanup. Not just shipping things to countries with lesser economies and lighting the piles of garbage on fire, but taxing profits of these devices and creating jobs for salvaging and turning the garbage back into resources that can be re-"mined" (so to speak, but from storage areas). If this is considered unrealistic, OK, then we're right back to the same problem no matter which form of garbage we're creating.
• nickthegreek 3y ago
  >Starting in 2024, if you have Chromebooks that were released from 2021 onwards, you’ll automatically get 10 years of updates. Nice of them to cover a few from the last few years as well. From a school standpoint, this is a big win. I doubt many chromebooks in active use by students would even last 10 years.
  • jsnell 3y ago
    I don't think it's even covering just the last few years but goes back further than that: > For Chromebooks released before 2021 and already in use, users and IT admins will have the option to extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release (after they receive their last automatic update). I don't entirely understand why the 2021 cutoff for it being opt-in vs. opt-out is there. Maybe it's about the "already in use" bit somehow, and making sure that pre-2021 models don't continue being manufactured and sold as as new.
    • wrs 3y ago
      I’m wondering if that will be a paid option. That’s how the last stage of support for commercial OSes often works.
      • ewoodrich 3y ago
        I have an original Pixelbook (late 2017 release date) and the auto update support page [1] has been updated from June 2024 to June 2027 (with an asterisk saying it is user opt in but that's all I can see). So at first glance it doesn't seem to be paid. My Pixelbook doesn't get much use anymore vs my M1 MacBook but it's nice to know it will still be supported. It can be a handy thin client and I don't have to worry as much about it getting stolen/abusing at this point in its life. [1] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=638303129716857329-825486087&p=auto-update-policy&rd=1#zippy=%2Cgoogle https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=...
    • highwaylights 3y ago
      My guess is that they’ve received commitments since 2021 on parts and drivers for 10 years, and don’t have those commitments prior to that date, so they’re only offering opt-in OS updates that will be under subtly different terms for liability indemnity purposes.
• Zuiii 3y ago
  They should also guarantee that OEMs will not leave the Chromebook bootloader locked once those 10 years of automatic updates are over and they should release the source code for their drivers. My android is useless after 3 years because google doesn't do what microsoft does with x86 OEMs.
  • tonfa 3y ago
    Are chromebooks bootloader locked?
    • londons_explore 3y ago
      No. Chromebooks have all open source drivers, and you can compile it yourself if you like. The only closed source bits are third party code (usually due to patent reasons - eg. mp3 codecs). If you want to run all your own stuff, you do need to have the machine in dev mode, which will warn you on every startup.
      • colecut 3y ago
        That warning screen is the most awful thing... Not because of the warning, but because if you press Spacebar on that warning screen (which is the only key that the screen suggests you might want to press), it re-enables OS Verification, removing your ability to boot anything but ChromeOs until you run some more terminal commands do set it all up again.. If at any point a child, or pretty much anyone else besides you turns on your laptop, this is guaranteed to happen. I hope they had good reason for making this design decision because for me it was one of the most frustrating aspects of trying boot outside of ChromeOS
        • pgeorgi 3y ago
          It's to ensure that you, the user, know when the boot process has changed substantially, and that you have a simple way to get back into familiar territory. If you want to get rid of Chrome OS and all its user protection measures entirely, that's possible with official and relatively standardized means. The open source firmware community provides documentation and tested firmware images for that (of course: no warranty), most prominently https://mrchromebox.tech/ https://mrchromebox.tech/
• kramerger 3y ago
  Serious question: Is the chromebook division run by an entire different company? They are great exactly where Google has otherwise failed.
  • crazygringo 3y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. When Google shut down Stadia they refunded everybody everything, for instance. Google generally seems to treat its users pretty well. As long as you can accept that free accounts don't come with any kind of customer service or recourse. And that it's going to shut down products that don't ultimately contribute to its bottom line, since it's a business.
    • ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
      Wait... if you got a stadia/bought games, etc., all of it got refunded when they folded?!
      • AuthError 3y ago
        Yes also i think they sent out update for controllers so it can be used outside of stadia
      • sangnoir 3y ago
        Yes - all Stadia purchases were fully refunded - software and hardware (Chromecast and controllers). Google also released a firmware update for the controllers allowing them to be used as generic Bluetooth controllers. It was the best Google product sunset I have experienced.
        • ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
          Wow I'm really surprised I missed that! Google sure gets a ton of flack (and deservedly so) for unceremoniously axing beloved products that don't quite bring Google-scale revenue, but this sunset sounds beyond incredibly respectful to their users and really shines a positive light on them. The controller thing is such an unnecessary but trust-promoting thing to do!
• SeanAnderson 3y ago
  Sadly, my first thought was, "I don't trust that remark, Google." Perhaps their hardware division will perform better than their software, but I can't help but feel that some exception to the rule will come up in a few years and this promise won't be worth much.
  • helf 3y ago
    Dunno why you are getting downvoted. That was my exact reaction, too. Given how often they "promise" something and then renege in 3 years.
• cibyr 3y ago
  Now we just need every model to come with its expiry date clearly labelled.
  • jiofj 3y ago
    Expiry date? It's not like after 10 years those laptops will simply shut down.
    • breakingcups 3y ago
      They might as well, since they will be insecure.
      • ChrisLTD 3y ago
        Old Chromebooks can run Linux, or ChromeOS Flex
        • hedora 3y ago
          Do they require the hardware drivers to be upstreamed to the Linux kernel? If not, then there's no way to patch security issues. Also, what about the binary blobs, such as the cell and wifi chipset operating systems?
          • modeless 3y ago
            I don't know but the hardware drivers are not directly exposed to the web. The biggest security issue is the web facing attack surface and Google is in complete control of that.
        • modeless 3y ago
          Or they can continue to get automatic browser updates after the platform updates stop with Lacros.
        • Moldoteck 3y ago
          afaik you can't install another OS on any chromebook, some are locked
• fluxem 3y ago
  [flagged]
• WalterBright 3y ago
  My chromebook simply stopped playing videos of any sort a couple months ago. I followed all the procedures google provided, nothing worked. Everything else works fine. I figured it was some automatic update that did it.
• adolph 3y ago
  10 years is a long time. I wonder how they are doing the accounting on this commitment or if the only cost is marketing.
• davidw 3y ago
  I'm kind of amazed at the Chromebook I got for $250. I can do pretty much everything I need with it, it has good battery life. I can even do some coding with it. I bought it as a stopgap when the Dell I ran Ubuntu on died, but since I don't do a lot of coding these days outside of work, haven't replaced the Dell yet.
  • mark_l_watson 3y ago
    Same experience, except all 4 of my Mac and Linux laptops still work fine. I bought a Lenovo Chromebook two years ago for $300: includes keyboard case and pen. Linux containers work well (but a little slowly). If I were poor, I could have a good digital life with just this one device. re Google: good for them doing this!
  • pjmlp 3y ago
    My 300 euro Asus 1215B netbook bought with Linux in 2009 is still going, without sharing everything I do with Google, and survived several Ubuntu upgrades.
    • davidw 3y ago
      I've had a number of these Dells over the years, and most have been great. This one developed a problem with the wifi system that I think must be in the HW.
      • robocat 3y ago
        WiFi failure is common on laptops. You can often easily replace the internal WiFi card - Intel cards were usually the best bet in my experience (especially on Linux - sometimes best to replace when you buy laptop if Linux is your main OS). I have done quite a few replacements for friends. if just the Bluetooth craps out and you have a spare USB-A port then you can get cheap Bluetooth dongles.
        • gabrielhidasy 3y ago
          Is WiFi failure something that happens? I've never seen one. I did upgrade a few cards (in one to go from B to G, in other from N to AC), and I replaced a few broadcom cards with intel ones to get better Linux support, but I don't think I ever saw a broken card.
• izzydata 3y ago
  But do Chromebooks harvest user data to sell to advertisers?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • Kalkaline 3y ago
    Of course
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • switch007 3y ago
    Users will pay for those 10 years one way or another
  • SquareWheel 3y ago
    Data isn't "sold to advertisers" under any account plan, but there are stricter controls for Google Workspace for Education users. https://workspace.google.com/terms/education_privacy.html https://workspace.google.com/terms/education_privacy.html
• paravirtualized 3y ago
  I would never use a Chromebook, but this is extremely appealing either way. I wonder if their other hardware and operating systems will receive this kind of support eventually.
  • jraph 3y ago
    > this is extremely appealing either way Not really, any standard computer gets updates forever. (at least for Linux, I don't know other OSes really well).
    • hedora 3y ago
      However, Chromebooks supposedly come with well-tested Linux support. If this is a guarantee that the drivers will get security updates for 10 years and be mainlined into the linux kernel (and if there is a way to get these things with a normal keyboard and BIOS), then this is great news. I'd never run ChromeOS, but would happily buy a flagship-grade laptop that lived up to the expectations in the previous paragraph (and then run Linux or even BSD on it).
      • walteweiss 3y ago
        Why BIOS (did you mean UEFI?) when it runs the best boot loader, which is Coreboot¹. Many users would love to re-flash their bios/uefi for it, if it’s supported. 1: https://www.coreboot.org/ https://www.coreboot.org/
    • cududa 3y ago
      Chromebooks are popular in schools because of ease of use and ease of device management. Suggesting school districts with thousands of students deploy and manage linux students is asinine.
      • salawat 3y ago
        Not really. Not once you get the primitives nailed down, and your network architecture/endpoint management sorted. In fact, most of the biggest things holding back Linux in schools is the lack of a multi-billion dollar corporation extprting enough money that after the "student and educational discount version" is released and a few paltry assurances by a salesman that support will be a thing that school administrators are fine with provisioning networks of it. Novell, contrary to popular belief, exists, and works just fine with Linux, windows, and Mac. Lets you use your own servers and cloud infra and everything. Novell itself is just a bunch of effort put into migration scripts, some custom OpenLDAP schemas, a few augmented endpoint agents/pieces of groupware, and the ever important to the Enterprise license management framework.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  That's pretty good. Are they also able to run popular Linux distros?
  • _joel 3y ago
    Yes, but if you want to run linux, then I wouldn't suggest getting a Chromebook. It's a square peg in a round hole imho, just get a laptop.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      Of course. I'm thinking more about life after those 10 years.
      • kogepathic 3y ago
        > life after those 10 years Yes, Chromebooks run coreboot and almost every model has a community coreboot build with a SeaBIOS/EDK (UEFI) payload available. [1] When you flash that, you lose the ability to boot ChromeOS, but you can install a standard Linux distro on them. IMHO, Chromebooks are awesome machines. With ChromeOS they have one of the most secure boot chain/data models of anything currently shipping. Unlocked bootloader, vboot by default, all user data is encrypted, and power washing is trivial. Amazing battery life. Also, they're cheap, and guaranteed to run coreboot with a bootloader that can always be unlocked by the user. [1] https://mrchromebox.tech/ https://mrchromebox.tech/
    • pphysch 3y ago
      If you just want to run some Linux software, or do linux development, a modern Chromebook is totally sufficient. The built-in Linux VM is easy to set up and no longer requires voiding your warranty. Docker, VSCode, et al works great. It's a very different world than 5+ years ago with crouton, etc.
      • _joel 3y ago
        Fair one if it's improved but it still feels on par with WSL2 for user experience, some people like that I guess. A vanilla linux laptop just seems better imho but I've not played with one for a while, I admit.
• dingosity 3y ago
  If only this were true regarding the ChromeBook I bought 9 years ago.
• drcongo 3y ago
  ...unless we decide to just cancel the whole project on a whim.
• summerlight 3y ago
  It is interesting to see a very specific number 2021 here...Wonder why they picked that year as a cutoff? Did they have any (relatively) recent technology implemented around that time to make the update easier and future proof? I know that this kind of long commitment is painful for platforms because third parties won't do a shit for old machines and platforms usually don't have a good way to enforce them to update their problematic firmware or whatever.
  • cududa 3y ago
    Probably a certain class of chipset/ SoC that was used in a lot of machines sold that year? Also could be that in 2020, when schools were buying oodles of chromebooks during the pandemic: a) Schools were already buying years old models that made them infeasible to continue supporting b) ...they want all the schools that bought tons of chromebooks in 2020 to re-up
• RistrettoMike 3y ago
  I've seen a few folks here doubting that Google would actually follow through with this (which I think is a valid concern with their track record), but I'm more curious about if the hardware would hold up to 10 years of updates. Granted, not all current Chromebooks are as low-specced as they used to be, but with the way the modern web has been gobbling up system resources the last few years I can't imagine a Chromebook actually being usable through an entire decade of bloat (whether it's technically supported via updates or not).
  • wakeupcall 3y ago
    That's a very good point. If I look at my android experience, two major updates is the limit I would _want_ to update to. On devices where I could push the limits with lineage/cyanogenos, I could perhaps extend this to 3, being pretty apparent you're sacrificing speed for security at that point. I hope they're going for a different track record.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • ygjb 3y ago
    ChromeOS and Google are super creepy because of how data hungry they are. That said, one of the advantages is that if they have committed to a 10 year lifecycle, and they have a new feature that is awful on an older device for performance reasons, they have an incentive to implement a feature that executes that slow function using cloud compute resources when the device is connected to maintain their lock on customers. It really depends on how Google assesses the value prop of supporting older devices.
  • creshal 3y ago
    For the intended education market I'd hope there's pressure to keep the used software reasonably well optimized for the sorts of hardware it gets used on. But the react zealots have swindled the whole world economy into funding their madness for years, so who knows.
  • segmondy 3y ago
    my chromebook is a c720 released in 2013. Still holding up fine.
• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I'm still a bit salty that Google discontinued the Pixelbook and shut down the team responsible for it. I could easily see that machine becoming the perfect developer laptop with its Linux container support, and the high-end version had pretty good specs. I would love a high end Chromebook, but sadly haven't found anything that is even close to where the Pixelbook was.
  • audiodude 3y ago
    I've had a Google issued pixelbook for work since 2018 and I absolutely love it.
  • pphysch 3y ago
    I switched to a Acer Spin after my Pixelbook EOL'd, and have been happy with it. Aluminum chassis, enough ports, nice keyboard, touchscreen 2-in-1, etc. I don't really use the touch features but it doesn't hurt. ChromeOS has come a long way and the builtin Linux VM makes it surprisingly easy to e.g. do full-stack development with VScode devcontainers. It feels like a proper OS. I hit the search key and type "code" and it launches my full dev stack. No more mucking about with crouton or dual-booting or other hacks.
  • award_ 3y ago
    I'm not sure if it would suit you or not, but I've been very happy with my lenovo c13 chromebook. You can get a decently spec'd chromebook-version of a thinkpad for a pretty reasonable price I think.
  • technofiend 3y ago
    It really was a sleek and elegant system. I got a friend to switch to one after him twice say "my computer is so slow, I need to buy a new one" only for me to find each computer filled with every browser plugin and tracking app you can think of. Even though I'm sure there are still sketchy chrome plugins, the pixelbook cut down on that sort of thing enough it's lasted him several times longer than a new computer does. Like you, I wish Google had continue to make them.
  • undersuit 3y ago
• southwesterly 3y ago
  Will they though? I don’t trust google now as far as I can throw them.
• baz00 3y ago
  I worry more about Google’s service longevity than the updates on these.
• amatecha 3y ago
  Cool, the computer I use every day is older than that, and has the latest OpenBSD on it... and it cost me less than any Chromebook on the market (and I can upgrade/repair it myself). /shrug
• hedora 3y ago
  While getting updates is great news, this presumably means that they either don't intend to leverage any new hardware capabilities until a decade after they come out (either in Chrome the browser, or ChromeOS). For example, this blog post commits to not requiring on-device machine learning acceleration until at least 2034. Otherwise, users will be stuck on a "secure" but obsolete web browser and/or old version of ChromeOS. I'm not convinced they thought through the implications of this policy.
  • esprehn 3y ago
    They could use it, but make it optional?
    • hedora 3y ago
      Right. I said they couldn’t do anything that requires it. For instance, a GPU is “optional” when browsing the web, but the last time I checked, even a high end xeon server CPU was too slow for it to be usable.
• 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
  The hardware will be obsolete after 5 years as the web browsers require more and more hardware to render text and graphics. Soon it'll be 20GB and 16 cores to render cnet.com. And OS updates always slow down the machine. I just got a Samsung update to my smartphone and now it's 50% slower.
• Havoc 3y ago
  I guess the bad PR got to them Regardless...its a win
• akyuu 3y ago
  I have serious doubts about how comprehensive this support will actually be, especially regarding firmware updates and non-Google vendor commitment. There is a wide variety of Chromebook hardware manufacturers, and most of them don't have a good track record of providing firmware upgrades for long. Google can keep ChromeOS updated on these devices, just like Microsoft can keep pushing Windows updates, but are the manufacturers going to provide firmware updates for 10 years? Are Intel or Mediatek going to be providing 10 years of microcode updates for the CPUs used on these devices? It doesn't make sense to me that these companies are suddenly going to invest a lot of money just to support these cheap devices that probably don't make a lot of profit, when they have never given a similar level of support to their flagship products. I think this 10 year support window will not be full device support, just a commitment to providing OS updates that don't break stuff.
  • creshal 3y ago
    > but are the manufacturers going to provide firmware updates for 10 years? Typically, yes, at least for severe, headline-generating issues. Most others tend to be able to be worked around in Linux kernel drivers anyway (and usually better than by most vendors…), so realistically the burden will be on Google to use a 10-year LTS kernel and meaningfully support it receiving backports for various issues. > Are Intel or Mediatek going to be providing 10 years of microcode updates for the CPUs used on these devices? Intel at least seems to be providing updates for 7+ years, going by their recent microcode releases. It's not quite as out of the ordinary as it seems, at least for the big vendors. Mediatek is another question.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• 1-6 3y ago
  This does more for the environment than renewables. Kudos
• 1-6 3y ago
  Why 10 years? 12 is a better. #Dozenal
• jimmar 3y ago
  Longer support is good. I hope schools don't see that 10 years of support as meaning that the Chromebooks they buy will have 10 years of useful life. My daughter has a 3-year old Chromebook issued by her high school that struggles to load web pages.
  • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    At least this means that the OS is less likely to be the constraint.
• 1970-01-01 3y ago
  My reaction is simply that poor schools will soon be budgeting a 10-year Chromebook cycle. In 2033, students will be typing and tapping on Chromebooks that could be twice their age. Yuck.
  • Retr0id 3y ago
    So what? Laptops made 10 years ago are perfectly cromulent for typical classroom activities.
  • supertrope 3y ago
    If it works it’s fine. Schools are under immense budget pressures. It’s normal to use a textbook with your older sibling’s name written in it because it was issued to them. Now if it shows your mom’s name written there the book is too old.
• Moldoteck 3y ago
  would be nice if at end of support they would allow to install another OS, like some linux distro
• daveoc64 3y ago
  >All Chromebook platforms will get regular automatic updates for 10 years — more than any other operating system commits to today. I suppose Microsoft technically doesn't offer 10 years of support with Windows 11, but it has done with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1, and 10. There's also a footnote on the Google article: >A small selection of device platforms may not receive the full 10 years of automatic updates, and some features and services may not be supported. See our Help Center for details.
  • Jenda_ 3y ago
    And more importantly: with "normal" computers and OSes, you can just upgrade the operating system to the next version. So even though a computer with Debian from 2008 did not get "15 years of updates", it still runs a current and supported operating system today. It has only started with this smartphone madness, that you cannot install a stock OS of whatever version you want and are dependent on manufacturer or community for device-specific images.
    • nolist_policy 3y ago
      But you can install Linux just fine on Chromebooks.
• hanniabu 3y ago
  [flagged]
• mato 3y ago
  Cool, can we get the same for Pixel4+? Ta.
• dcormier 3y ago
  That’s great, Google. Now for your phones.
• andrewstuart 3y ago
  Why not just make it indefinite? Updates as long as you want.
• Projectiboga 3y ago
  Hmm, I wonder if they will extend the update time frame for their Pixel Phones? The #a series only get 3 years of updates, which is way too short.
• TX81Z 3y ago
  Show me a chrome book that has hardware which can last a decade.
  • LordDragonfang 3y ago
    I literally did some web dev work on my Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550 (released 2012) last week. It's running linux[1] at this point (since it's EOL), and is a little slow, but it's still perfectly functional for running vscode and a local webserver. (As others have pointed out, browsing the rest of the bloated web is a pain, though) [1] https://galliumos.org/ https://galliumos.org/
• happytiger 3y ago
  Someone is positioning against Apple’s entry.
• rbanffy 3y ago
  I'd be happy if they got full keyboards, with Control, Super, and Meta so I can run Emacs.
  • walteweiss 3y ago
    Why not re-map the keys? I absolutely love my Chromebook’s keyboard for just that, less keys.
    • rbanffy 3y ago
      I'd love a laptop with a Space Cadet keyboard ;-)
• bitigchi 3y ago
  We are yet to see for how long Apple is going to support their Apple Silicon machines, but this definitely sets a precedent for Apple. It would be really shameful if they go the iPhone route and cut support after 6 years of updates. On the other hand, Apple is still selling the iMac with a 2020 chipset, so we could say that they look like they are committed to providing updates. I hope they wouldn't just cut off support in 3 years time.
  • JohnTHaller 3y ago
    Apple has typically supported Mac hardware for about 7 years from introduction for a while now. That is provided you're updating to the last supported version of macOS for it and then all security updates. I'd be surprised if they changed this much either way for Apple Silicon. One issue is that Apple never tells you when they end of life a given version of macOS officially, so you're left guessing a bit.
• sirjaz 3y ago
  We need to go back to making everything available offline, and use local compute power. Chromebooks and the ChromeOS are useless really in offline mode unless you are technical expert. The Linux container and Android support is abysmal unless you have the fastest and most powerful chromebook. At which point you should just get a Windows machine with WSL and WSA, or a Macbook.
  • refulgentis 3y ago
    Not true at all in my experience re:speed, it's really bizarre to me how often people assert that without even a token anecdote. It's not the same speed as your average devs machine but doesn't mean it's any slower than WSL on the same hardware
    • sirjaz 3y ago
      You still need the fastest hardware. It would be better if Google just released a true Linux desktop and killed ChromeOS all together. This would allow native application install and better hw support.
      • refulgentis 3y ago
        It does? I'm confused
  • jeffbee 3y ago
    I can't think of one single way in which a Chromebook is less useful when offline than a laptop running some other operating system.
    • sirjaz 3y ago
      If you are only in a web only/SaaS type user.
      • smoldesu 3y ago
        I think those sorts of people would have trouble offline on any OS.
• sublimefire 3y ago
  Google has a track record of discontinuing things when they feel like it. Such a statement is welcome but it needs to be tested in time. I would even say it is much more related to the fact that it is September than anything else or because they want to make their brand look better in the light of all this antitrust probing.
• freedomben 3y ago
  This is fantastic! I had kind of stopped buying Chromebooks because of how short the supported life was, even though they were great for my needs and very affordable. I'll be buying Chromebooks again. With Pixel phones getting 5 years, and Chromebooks getting 10, I'm feeling good again about recommending them to people, particularly since they are unlockable so you can install alternative ROMs to get more life. I'd really love to see them match Apple by doing at least 7 years for Pixel phones, but I'm feeling really good about the direction we're going!
• throwaway128128 3y ago
  I wonder what changed that allowed them to have a better update policy. AFAIK the time horizon was capped because SOC vendors fail to update drivers for legacy products.
• bastardoperator 3y ago
  I'm skeptical, they don't have a track record of supporting anything long term unless it's ad related...
• pluc 3y ago
  Until they decide to change their mind
• cogman10 3y ago
  And how long will my windows laptop, or linux laptop receive updates? Answer: Basically forever. Google is playing the game of "See, we got everyone in mobile to think 3 years of updates is good. Maybe we can do the same with laptops?" 10 years is good, but frankly for a laptop built on linux it's an embarrassment. If google would instead support a standard distro like debian we'd see way better support. (but then, they couldn't track everything as easily).
  • sneak 3y ago
    "basically forever" is only true in Mac-land now because of the recent architectural switch. Apple was dropping support for specific Intel microarchitectures with each release for a while there. Now that the future is ARM, these machines will be supported for a long time. Not sure how long the Intel Macbook Pros from 2020 will be. I bet it's not another 8 years. 2016 is an important cutoff because it is when they introduced the T1 boot security chip. Some future macOS will drop support for everything before these machines, which will permanently evaporate the concept of a hackintosh.
    • cogman10 3y ago
      Agreed. Right before your comment I pulled mac from the list. I was thinking of apple's iphone support being pretty good in the mobile arena and conflating that with their non-mobile support. After double checking to see what's going on with old hardware, it became really clear that apple doesn't support their older laptops.
  • mmwelt 3y ago
    Things are changing with Windows. Windows 10 will only be supported until 14 Oct 2025[1], and Windows 11 explicitly does not support some relatively recent hardware configurations, e.g. 7th generation Intel processors[2]. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows... [2] https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/08/27/update-on-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-and-the-pc-health-check-app/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/08/27/update-...
• tedchs 3y ago
  This is a big relief. I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus that still works fine and I like the form factor. I recently got notified that ChromeOS updates were EOL, so I reformatted it with PostmarketOS, an Alpine Linux derivative. Installing was easy, and I want to like it, but it almost works. It has no sound, won't play videos, and the touchscreen behavior is janky.
• cptaj 3y ago
  I'm sure we can trust google on this one
  • m3kw9 3y ago
    Purposely being coy about they type of updates thinking it will get brand new OSs up to year ten is disingenuous. It will likely be security patches mostly after year 3
    • scottlamb 3y ago
      Unsure if this is true, but would it be so bad? I won't use a device that is significantly behind on security updates. I will absolutely use an OS that only has the features available at time of release. Might be preferable to the Apple situation in which devices seem to get slower and slower over time as you jump to major OS revisions with heavier base requirements. On the other hand, websites generally expect modern browsers. I don't recall if they separately version the base ChromeOS from the actual Chrome browser that is primarily[1] what people do with these machines. I'd probably want the latter to be fairly up-to-date on features as well as security... [1] Recent Chromebooks also can run arbitrary Linux containers. The feature is called "Crostini" or "Linux on ChromeOS".
      • salawat 3y ago
        Security updates don't really do squat in the realm of reassuring you that you're okay, and definitely wouldn't even be a thing if we had comprehensive documentation of the underlying hardware/firmware these bastards are running on. Software/hardware gets better with age, but only with full disclosure and a full, unblack-boxed picture of what you have to work with. God, how I wish for a modern, fully documented, fully public Mobo+Processor+chipsets of reasonable oomph. Kill the firmware blackbox, and watch the quality that can be bootstrapped. If I live to see the day when the leading cause of electronic equipment retirement is "50th time reflowing solder, and oopsed", I can die a happy man.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  We all know after 3-5 years it will be only security patches
  • danans 3y ago
    ChromeOS updates are all full system updates, not just security updates. So they include any features that the hardware can reasonably support.
• kgbcia 3y ago
  That's ambitious for a laptop. Would expect like 7 years max. Need a chrome phone.
• entropicgravity 3y ago
  I'm just in the middle of installing Linux Mint on my 2017 Asus c202 because the updates stopped this summer. The c202 is still a fine machine for my uses. I've take taken the screw out of the mother board now and just reading up on how to install Linux but now ... maybe I'll wait and see if fresh updates restart coming my way.
  • whompyjaw 3y ago
    im extremely biased, since its my daily driver for everything, but i think Linux is the better way to go. maybe a little awkward at first if you're fully embedded in the Google eco, but can still use most google products via browser, anyway.
• lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  Is this contractually binding? Or is it an opinion piece on a blog with no legal impact?
• sfmike 3y ago
  until 2 years later we are discontinuing chromebook support in 90 days.
• stewbrew 3y ago
  But don't expect them to check whether the Chromebooks are still useful after an update. E.g., the original Lenovo duet turned into an oversized paperweight after one of their later updates.
• acyou 3y ago
  ... And after 10 years, Google will intentionally structure their updates to force-sunset hardware, even if the hardware is still going strong.
• mfrw 3y ago
  Can folks help me a little here, please. Sure this is an awesome announcement. I now am considering to buy a ChromeBook even more seriously. My reluctance is, can Google, tomorrow (before 10 years) feel that, ahh no we are bored of this so let's not do it. Google has a history of introducing stuff that people start to rely on and then kill it; I still wish Inbox had not been killed by Google.
  • perfect-blue 3y ago
    You’re not wrong. Google does have a history of ending products. Honestly, someone should read the fine print and figure out if there is a clause in there that actually allows they to end support whenever they feel like it. I have an inkling that there is…
  • ShinTakuya 3y ago
    How often have they explicitly committed to support something for that long? Not disagreeing just curious. I think the main thing is whether or not they continue the product line. As long as they keep releasing Chromebooks they'll want to keep this commitment or else they'll risk reputational damage.
    • nolist_policy 3y ago
      Well, previously they supported Chromebooks for 8 years and adhered to that. They even prolonged support for some devices during the pandemic.
• sandGorgon 3y ago
  how is Google doing this ? i mean as opposed to Apple, ChromeOS has to support a much wider variety of chipsets/motherboards/wifi drivers, etc. how is Google guaranteeing 10 years of updates on Linux while supporting newer and newer models every year. In 10 years - Google's supported chromebook devices would exponentially blow up (versus Apple). How are they pulling this off ?
  • nolist_policy 3y ago
    There is a small selection base boards prescribed by Google, that a manufacturer can built a Chromebook around. That base board covers pretty much everything AFAIK, except for touchpad, touchscren, pen input, etc. I count around 40 base boards[1] that are still supported today, one year from now it's 37, two years from now it's 31. And you see much fewer variety in newer devices. The x86 boards are very similar, you'll often have the same board just with a newer CPU/SoC. It just means you have one more device in the regression test lab, it won't necessarily create more work. [1] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices/ https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-f...
• fzeindl 3y ago
  Is there anything, maybe a legal agreement, that can stop google from breaking this promise in three years? They are not famous for longterm project management.
  • Thorrez 3y ago
    Has there been an instance of Google promising to support something for a certain number of years then failing to do so? Disclosure: I work at Google.
    • agos 3y ago
      Pixel Pass, which was supposed to give you a new phone after two years, was closed 22 months after being introduced.
      • hu3 3y ago
        > Can I still upgrade my Pixel device after 24 months? > Yes, you can still upgrade your Pixel device after 24 months, you just won’t be able to renew your subscription to Pixel Pass. You can purchase or finance your next Pixel device directly from Google Store or Google Fi Wireless, and you have the option to trade-in your current Pixel device towards your next device. Current Pixel Pass subscribers received $100 towards their next Pixel purchase good for 2 years, which can also be used alongside available promotions. https://support.google.com/pixelpass/answer/13968577?hl=en#zippy=%2Ccan-i-still-upgrade-my-pixel-device-after-months https://support.google.com/pixelpass/answer/13968577?hl=en#z...
      • eduction 3y ago
        That's amazing, how did I miss this. What a classic example of Google's inability to see anything through (at least in consumer facing paid products!).
      • iamdelirium 3y ago
        This was never suppose to give you a new phone after 2 years. It was just a way to finance the phone. The way to upgrade was to get a new Pixel Pass that would lock you in another 2 years.
• Aissen 3y ago
  Nice ! We were at a ridiculous situation where Google had released ChromeOS Flex, which would allow installing the latest OS on devices older that many Chromebooks that went out of support (and it was marketed as such). I joked that they should release ChromeOS Flex for out of support Chromebooks, but official support is much better of course.
• penguin_booze 3y ago
  As a reminder, this is the same Google that once announced unlimited photos and such. No one should be surprised when they come back and say oopsie. Also, if you can replace the browser with Firefox, that'd be great - I might consider buying one.
• londons_explore 3y ago
  10 years of updates, sure. But will 10 year old hardware actually be usable on the web? Especially Chromebook hardware that tends to be low end.
  • tytso 3y ago
    They don't have to be low-end. You can buy higher-end Chromebooks, but they cost more money. Do people remember the "netbooks" that were-super cheap Windows laptops with 10 inch screens? Even if you install Linux on it, with the 512MB or 1G (or maybe 2GB for the really highly spec'ed out netbooks), there was real limits to what they could do. If you want something super-cheap, then perhaps it won't be useful 5 or 10 years later. You get what you pay for; this isn't unique for Chromebooks.
• theshrike79 3y ago
  A serious question, what do people do with Chromebooks? Especially people who use their own money to get one, instead of getting one free from school. A decent Chromebook seems to be around 1000€, with prices going up to 2000€. You can get an _actual_ laptop with that. Why get a glorified hardware browser?
  • mkjonesuk 3y ago
    Very low bloat. And if you use mainly Google cloud based Apps you can get pretty much everything done. The only problem is the lack of a 'premium' model that isn't cheap plastic.
    • salawat 3y ago
      ...Define bloat. Because if you say thAt a Beyond Linux From Scratch built system with a package manager integrated is bloated, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact there is a certain minimum footprint symbol table wise to provide a complete interface to the hardware for the user. Which can also be had literally ad-free, no web telemetry, no one else's encryption keys involved. Anything using a cloud suite like Google or Azure, I assure you, is fundamentally not unbloated.
• perryizgr8 3y ago
  Slight tangent but why do school students need laptops? What's wrong with pen and paper and a scientific calculator? Every thing taught in school can be taught using pen and paper. Introducing expensive unreliable (compared to pen and paper) tools is unnecessary.
• londons_explore 3y ago
  I have a Gen 1 chromecast, which was supposedly still supported till April. I can tell you, that for the last~3 years of its life, it was pretty much useless. About half of youtube videos would stutter so badly it was unusable (ie. half the time they'd be paused). Third party apps were also about only about half functional - the loading time of the app frequently meant there was a comms timeout before the app had loaded. And the chromecast itself couldn't stay connected to any wifi network for more than about 20 mins - which obviously isn't great for something designed for TV watching. Basically - support is useless unless they actually put enough effort in to make sure the product remains usable.
• vorticalbox 3y ago
  I have a chromebook from 5+ years ago other than the 4gb of ram I don't see why Google couldn't just keep updates going forever? Surly chromeOS isn't so "heavy" now that it cannot run on a 3.5gz dual core and 4gb of ram? Latest of any major distribution still runs pretty well.
• knorker 3y ago
  Retroactive to devices released in 2021.
• dnfjficiv 3y ago
  [dead]
• javier_e06 3y ago
  I have a samsung chromebook plus 32 bit ARM based and now it has plastered on the screen a message that says: "Security Updates Ended. Update your device" The message cannot be removed. If I click on it, opens chrome and sends me to the Google store (effing commercial). The laptop runs like a charm (I replaced the battery) with termux installed. It has a great touch interface with a stylus that will break If I try to install other OS on it. Google way to obsolete this things starts looking a lot like Apple. They want to kill their old devices with a thousand little cuts. I just want to remove the goddam message and for Google to leave me alone. Good luck with that.
  • hackmiester 3y ago
    How does this look like Apple? Google is far worse about obsolescence than Apple, and, afaik, always has been.
  • beretguy 3y ago
    Just install Linux on it, if you can.
  • ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    Have you tried wiping ChromeOS and installing Linux on it? https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-chromebook/ https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-chromebook/
    • javier_e06 3y ago
      I am pretty sure that install Linux fine but it will kill the touch interface and the use use of the stylus to take notes. I might have to do that at some point.