10 ms·

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

370 points by mqt 17y ago

10ren 17y ago
we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google This is the kind of competition that I would like to enjoy (i.e. between products that both belong to me). I wonder if it actually will work out for them, and if so, how I could use that strategy myself.
gojomo 17y ago
Some may remember the Forbes ASAP article, excerpted from Gilder's book, touted with the cover, "George Gilder Thinks This Kid Can Topple Bill Gates": http://www.gilder.com/public/telecosm_series/software.html http://www.gilder.com/public/telecosm_series/software.html It's taken 14 long years -- and it's Google-Chrome-plus-Javascript rather than Netscape-Navigator-plus-HotJava -- but the browser has finally become a complete alternative to a desktop OS. The article's final sentence: "In the age of the hollowed-out computer, the king of the desktop rules an emigrating empire."
- gaius 17y ago
  The only way Google can make good on their promises of it just working, being virus free etc, is if they lock it down more than Apple did the iPhone. General purpose computing device, or a Google Terminal? That's your choice.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    What if one device has a switch on the side: 'locked-down terminal' or 'open general purpose computer'? And via virtualization, the two sides are sealed from each other, but instantly switchable? Why not the best of both worlds?
- huherto 17y ago
  It didn't happen before because MS was able to defend its position. (e.g. Positioning IE, crippling java, etc)
ananthrk 17y ago
It is also interesting to think about this news in the context of FaceBook buying Parakey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parakey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parakey), though it is a web-based OS. IMO, given Google's array of applications, they are better suited to write a web-centric OS than FaceBook.
timothychung 17y ago
I hope someone will wrap it as an application on Windows. That would be fantastic to have a OS to handle all web related activities for general users.
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mcav 17y ago
Key Data Point: > The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.
- tc 17y ago
  If their approach to Android is any guide, much of the work will consist of eliminating any GNU or GPL components from the (userspace) runtime environment.
  - cdibona 17y ago
    This denies that Android runs on top of Linux, which is licensed under the gpl. Or that the Google search appliance runs on a ton of gpl'd code, all mirrored off of code.google.com...
    - tc 17y ago
      You must be talking about some other comment, because I don't mean to deny any of that. I was merely pointing out that on Google's largest (public) OS project to date (Android), Google evinced a strong desire for a copyleft-free userspace and succeeded in building a non-GNU Linux distro. This is clearly a different project with different goals, so we'll see how it turns out.
      - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
        The stated reason for that was that Carriers and Telcos wanted to build on Android and were put off by the GPL. (Though obviously not put off enough that they'd reject the GPL'd Linux that runs beneath it) Google's approach to licences is far more nuanced than blind adherance or avoidance of any particular licence.
    - j_baker 17y ago
      Notice that he says userspace apps will not be GPL'ed.
  - Kadin 17y ago
Oompa 17y ago
A browser is one thing. But an OS? I have my doubts.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  Why? People surely said the same thing about Linus at one point.
- seldo 17y ago
  You have to re-think what is meant by an "operating system". What is Windows? It's that thing, in the background, that lets you run all the applications you want to run. But what if all your applications were written in Javascript and HTML, and had URLs instead of .exe files? With all the extra power built into Chrome, they could still write to file systems, store data, work offline, do sophisticated graphics and parallel processing -- these are not hypotheticals, this is what Chrome can do right now. We're just beginning to scratch the surface of what an app written from Chrome can do. Chrome can be an OS, for some value of "OS".
  - msie 17y ago
    If they depend on Javascript as an applications language then I hope they add goto to the language. At least that's what another HN discussion has led me to believe.
  - sovande 17y ago
    When the iphone was first released, development was going to be via javascript and safari. That didn't go too well with neither users nor developers. Isn't this going to be the same thing? And for the so called windowing system I would not hold my breath and except anything like quartz. Its probably going to be just enough framebuffer code to drop X11 so the browser window can run in fullscreen. The window manager will then be implemented in javascript. Wee!
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      That's a common misconception. When the iPhone was first released, development was restricted to web apps and they didn't have access to any API. The fact that it was javascript and HTML was mostly tangential to the complaints of people who wanted to install (and sell) local apps, with access to the unique hardware, though obviously existing Cocoa coders, 3D game programmers and anyone needing to get close to the metal weren't going to be happy even if these other elements were taken care of. On the other hand "fart apps" and things that are basically light wrappers round existing web apps have no such problem. See the Palm Pre for someone taking this to it's logical extreme.
jeffspost 17y ago
Interesting. The one missing piece--a RAD development environment that's as efficient as Visual Studio is at producing fat clients. The business world will only embrace the webcentric model when it becomes as efficient to code in as .net click-once fat clients. The idea of simple, cheap, rugged hardware is very appealing. But programmer time is the #1 cost--businesses go for easy drag/drop fat client apps. Software written for 5 users has to be thrown together pretty fast or it never pays back...
- Adrenalist 17y ago
  Can you clarify your statements a bit more? I don't think that Google Chrome OS would be suitable for most corporate shops that are generally Microsoft centric (and have been for quite some time). I think this free OS will be geared towards light users that primarily use their computer for surfing the web and checking their email.
  - swolchok 17y ago
    RAD = rapid application development, the business term for "drag-n-drop GUI builders" that we all know and hate. Not having one for the Web is a valid criticism, but if GWT can handle Swing API input then we DO have one.
    - Adrenalist 17y ago
      I'm familiar with RAD, although at least for my employer it's more than just drag-and-drop GUI builders. It sounds to me like jeffspost is over generalizing and suggesting that Google Chrome OS will only succeed if it's embraced by large corporations. The software hasn't even launched and jeffspost has already figured out it's "one missing piece".
      - netsp 17y ago
        And generalising that it will need to replace Windows. They are launching it as a netbook OS for a reason. Netbooks is a loose term. I'm not exactly sure what the line is, but one definition might be a small laptop that doesn't replace your main computer. I daresay that whoever buys this will either have another computer or have no need for corporate apps.
kylec 17y ago
Let's hope this also means that a Linux version of Chrome is around the corner.
- tc 17y ago
  Since they say they're implementing a new windowing environment for this project, there may not be a lot of porting overlap between Chrome for Chrome OS and Chrome for your normal Linux distribution.
  - swolchok 17y ago
    It would have to be Windowsy, unless Chrome has its own internal windowing layer that's a suitable general abstraction. I assumed that "windowing environment" meant "window manager" not "GUI toolkit" anyway.
- aita 17y ago
  They should have bought plan9.
- cdibona 17y ago
  If you haven't tried out the chromium nightly desktop builds, they're actually quite nice. The team is still nailing down the plugins, but the browser itself is wicked fast and pretty stable (given its alpha nature)
  - buugs 17y ago
    I think stable for a web browser these days requires flash/java support, I don't know if this has been fixed or not in the builds though. Probably less on the java side and more on the flash.
  - markbao 17y ago
    If you're a Mac user, you can also download the latest nightly build here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/ http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-ma... (scroll all the way down to the latest build directory) And yes, it is wicked fast. On my system, it doesn't even bounce in the dock before opening. It just opens. Plugins aren't supported yet, but I just open any sites that require Flash in Safari.
dcurtis 17y ago
I'm glad Google has identified a need for something like this, but I don't really trust that Google has the right talent to build an operating system. They have serious problems with user experience and interface design (see: Doug Bowman). The mere idea that they are attempting to encroach on an aspect of experience as large as the operating system is to me somewhat scary. I do hope they prove me wrong. But based on their past performance, I am not holding my breath. Also: Google, if you're reading this, please at least make the typography render properly in this OS. You've already failed at this with Chrome, which has some of the worst antialiasing I have seen in a browser (surpassed in crappiness only by IE).
- seldo 17y ago
  As I said below (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693339 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693339): you've not got what they're thinking of as the OS. The browser is the operating system, and the apps are all web apps. The core of the OS is Linux, but the interface is all browser -- you don't install apps, you just type in their URL. There's hardly any OS UI they need to invent that we haven't already seen as part of Chrome itself.
  - dcurtis 17y ago
    Not really. You still have to be able to log in, store data, set up parental controls, deal with power management and screen savers and wifi networks, choose desktop backgrounds (assuming they don't force you to use a single tabbed window), choose keyboard/language/sticky keys, define trackpad gestures, accessibility settings, etc... I am curious to see how they deal with this stuff.
    - Xichekolas 17y ago
      My guess is that you will be in a single tabbed window, with special tabs for things like wifi, login, file browser, settings, etc (like Firefox's about:config). At least that is how I'd do it. Just type config:wifi in your location bar to change your wifi settings. Visit config:files to browse your local files, etc. Of course, all of these can be bookmarked by default so the end user can click rather than type. Chrome already does stuff like this with about:memory, about:network, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome-specific_about:_addresses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome...
Xichekolas 17y ago
I couldn't help thinking about the crunchpad when I read this. Slap this on a tablet with a hybrid display and you might have something very interesting.
- david927 17y ago
  I thought the same thing. For my desktop, I don't see why I would replace Ubuntu with this, but this is exactly what the crunchpad needs. Great news.
- greyman 17y ago
  Yes, that would be a perfect device for it. Because, when we talk about netbooks, I am not so sure I'd like to have Chrome OS on it. Ok, it would boot faster and maybe also run slightly faster, but the boot time isn't that much of a concern for me. On the other hand, I have a half dozen windows apps I want to run on it, since I don't live on the Internet only.
- skorgu 17y ago
  Slap a Pixel Qi [1] screen and a capacitive (iPhone) touchscreen on a Crunchpad and I at least will line up for one. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=relat...
  - jcl 17y ago
    I thought it already was planned to be capacitive: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr.2009.update/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr....
netsp 17y ago
For application developers, the web is the platform.... 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. Does this mean an operating system that runs chrome and little else or an operating system that runs mostly chrome?
eelco 17y ago
I think this is great. Most people don't know what a browser is anyway, so for them it probably won't make much of a difference. It will be interesting to see how much of an OS you can strip away.
dryicerx 17y ago
So effectively your PC becomes a Google ThinClient. Got all the Office Applications with Google Apps. Email/Communication with Gmail. The rest of the web. Multimedia with YouTube/Hulu/etc. Sounds like what majority of the people need. Even for work environments, would be pretty good (you can offer your proprietary application in the form of a web application).
- derefr 17y ago
  I'd enjoy replacing the "instant-on OS" partition on my notebook with this.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    What I want is a good enough "instant-on" that it's my only partition, and I no longer have to worry about hibernation or sleep mode ever again. Have orthogonal persistence for everything, so I never even have to save. Just open the clamshell, or hit the on button. Something comes along to distract me, I snap it shut, take care of whatever it is, then open it up again, wait a half second and continue on where I left off. The ideal laptop/internet pad would behave like the Nintendo DS, if the DS could hibernate, and not just sleep when you close it.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      the ideal laptop / internet pad would behave like an animated piece of paper.
- skorgu 17y ago
  Add NaCl for heavier apps and a NaCl'd VDI or similar client and there's really nothing you can't theoretically do given enough bandwidth.
- blinks 17y ago
  It goes beyond even that, with some sweet tech coming out: http://vimeo.com/5404358 http://vimeo.com/5404358
chaosprophet 17y ago
I personally would never trust google with something as important and all encompassing as my OS. I value my privacy far too much for that, and seeing as how google collects usage data for just about every action you perform on services they offer, I'm not sure i'll ever go the google way on desktop software.
- samg 17y ago
  Google knows who my friends are (Contacts), what I'm saying to them (Gchat/Gmail), where I'm going (Gmaps), what I'm reading (Reader), what I'm writing (Docs) and what I'm looking for (Search). As far as I'm concerned, operating systems are pretty interchangeable. The things I care about are already all going through Google. Does anyone besides Google offer a similar suite of apps? The only one I can think of is Apple's MobileMe.
  - chaosprophet 17y ago
    How about Outlook/Thunderbird/Facebook (contacts) + Yahoo (mail) + OpenStreetMap (maps) + Sage/Friendfeed (RSS) + Zoho (Docs) + Bing (Search)? While no-one may be offering a similar suite of applications, if you want to use them you can find different services that do. Also currently even if google does know all that information about you, it doesn't know what files you have on your hard drive. In my opinion, giving carte blanche on data on my hard drives to google is a big no for a company that doesn't give two hoots about the privacy of their users.
    - samg 17y ago
      The value of Google's services, at least for me, is that they all work together. I can login from an internet cafe in the middle of nowhere and have all my contacts in my email program, the same ones synced to my iPhone. I don't know if I buy the claim that Google doesn't give "two hoots" about your privacy, as long as you don't count selling contextual ads as over the line. But anyway, my point is that the "files" I care about protecting are already with Google. For true protection of your local files, on any operating system, encryption is your only answer.
btw0 17y ago
I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace the bloated X window system in other distributions.
- blasdel 17y ago
  They have one of the best chances to pull it off out of all the attempts over the last 25 years. I really hope they try to go big -- bury ALSA cleanly, use Skia for all drawing as vectors, and have an event model intended for Cocoa/WPF/GTK# (not the crapulence of Xt).
- tvon 17y ago
  The barrier to replacing X is not replacing X, it is the significant rewriting of software that uses X.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    And the first massive hump there is getting the replacement good enough to even bother thinking about rewrites. Google has a chance to leap past that, because they've contrived a situation where they not only don't need X, they don't need to port X apps.
    - tvon 17y ago
      Well, yeah, but you're not talking about replacing X anymore (which is what the GP post was talking about).
  - Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
    Wich is not necessarily a problem since they seem to be aiming for a minimal local software stack.
  - limmeau 17y ago
    ... and porting or rewriting the device drivers.
ntoshev 17y ago
I can't wait to try an actual version of this in a virtualbox. Betas should be available for geeks way before the netbook manufacturers get to installing it on their devices in 2010.
gasull 17y ago
I wonder if Chrome OS is the same as, or a derivative of, Goobuntu: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu
blasdel 17y ago
I wonder just how Google Native Client will fit into this, especially extended with things like USB support and OpenGL. There's games, obviously, but what about a NaCL port of iTunes? It's not that far-fetched.
- niktechx 17y ago
  Google has already indirectly "extended" Native Client with native 3D graphics using their O3D API (http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/ http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/). It's just a matter of time until someone codes up a library to expose that API through JS interop in Native Client. I think we can expect very close integration of Native Client into the Chrome OS as soon as or right after it goes public. To the level of accessing hardware ports to control external devices right from your Native Client web-app. Imagine drivers that get loaded and updated on-the-fly. Of course, Google will have to implement a smart security mechanism (along the lines of RSA authentication for dynamic device/driver coupling) and provide a way for device manufacturers to register their driver's public keys with Chrome OS.
  - Raphael 17y ago
    But will Native Client work on ARM?
    - niktechx 17y ago
      Yes: http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-client-technology-for-running.html http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-clien...
    - pavlov 17y ago
      I think Native Client's environment is constrained enough that it would be feasible to implement JIT translation between architectures (i.e. x86 -> ARM). ISA translation tech is already widespread: a company called Transitive has been quite successful in offering translation products for Unix vendors who have needed to transition their customers to a new architecture (most visibly they provided the PPC->x86 translation engine for Apple's "Rosetta"). With Native Client, the translation ought to be made easier by the structural limitations that are imposed on NaCl modules primarily for security purposes -- to use a natural language analogy, it's easier to translate a text if you know all the words originate from a certain dictionary.
Jem 17y ago
I've an AA1 running Linpus, which is buggy and slower than I anticipated. It's bloated down with superfluous software that I don't need, and that you have to follow a series of complex guides to remove. (Even then you risk screwing up parts of Linpus which are dependant on it.) All I use it for is browsing and light coding on the move. Windows, and the likes of Ubuntu Netbook Remix are all too 'big' for that. It sounds like the Google Chrome OS is exactly what my netbook needs.
- mooism2 17y ago
  I get the impression that the only native application it will run is Chrome. So how are you going to edit your source code, push/pull your changes, test it, run it? I've seen web-based ssh clients, and someone might be able to write a web-based vnc / remote desktop client, but I can't see it being useful for offline coding.
  - Jem 17y ago
    You're grossly over-complicating my needs. None of my websites (that I would edit on the netbook) are business critical / make money / have any real world importance whatsoever. I can log in via cpanel, roll out some coding amends live and worry about breaking things as and when it happens.
    - mooism2 17y ago
      Ah, right, I misinterpreted what you meant by "light coding".
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koepked 17y ago
I'm not sure if I like implications of a web-centric OS, especially when its producer is as rich and powerful as Google. I see the market for it, and I think it will be a huge benefit for the average user. However, I see the transition from desktop-based software to web-based as a loss of user control. Today, when governments decide that mp3 sharing, porn, articles of political dissent, or news from non-national sources should be eliminated, they quickly realize, if they don’t already know, that elimination is impossible, because no agency can track down and deal with every user who has decided to install software allowing him/her to do these things. When software moves to the web, I think it will likely end up existing on the servers of one of an oligopoly of computing providers, who will be much easier to influence because of their small number, and because they will have no choice but to abide by legislation if they wish to remain in business. This may not seem like an issue right now, because there is still choice. But with Google pushing a web-centric OS, I think within a decade, many people will have a hard time choosing something else, much the same way they had a hard time choosing something other than windows until the last five years. Maybe I’m just a Big Brother fearing nut, but I don’t like where we’re heading.
- mooneater 17y ago
  Agreed, this is just too convenient for, say, the Chinese govt. (as just one example).
- trickjarrett 17y ago
  I concur. I've become more and more aware of the looming Google benevolent giant, but one day that giant's going to get angry and by that point it may be too late. That being said, I still use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Analytics, and other services. So I'm not exactly avoiding the apocalypse here.
  - bjelkeman-again 17y ago
    What I think is interesting is that having a hard time choosing something other than Windows may have been quite benevolent in comparison with a Google-situation which turns ugly. What if there is an organisation that has all your email, all your documents, all your appointments and all your conversations and can follow the majority of your surfing via ads. What if this resource suddenly is too tempting to keep hands away from for "fighting terrorism" or something such. Being forced to use Windows at work could be considered nice in comparison. I don't think that anyone at Google set out to be evil. But power corrupts and the legal systems and governments have not exactly struck up a fight for privacy for the individual the last couple of years.
Micand 17y ago
If ARM and x86 are targeted, this means no Flash (not surprising, given how poorly it runs on Linux), which presumably means YouTube will be operating in full-on HTML 5 video mode by the time these devices launch. If netbooks continue their meteoric ascent, and if Chrome OS grabs a significant share of the market, we may finally see the realization of the mythical Year of Linux On the Desktop. The ironic aspect, of course, is that even though a large number of non-technical users will finally be running on a fully open-source platform, they will use it to run applications whose workings are even more opaque than traditional closed-source, client-side apps. I wonder what role, if any, Native Client will play on these devices. I understand Native Client to target only x86, but I find it difficult to imagine Chrome OS -- Google's first direct challenge to Windows -- not being able to run Native Client applications.
- access_denied 17y ago
  I enjoyed your narrative.
  - sahaj 17y ago
    i agree with you. the comment with the large number of votes is a fearmongering comment, while the comment that you are referring to is actually a technical comment (the kind that i think is more relevant at HN).
    - yumraj 17y ago
      I'll rather have some fearmongering (if you really want to call it that, there's another better term though "devil's advocate") from people to have a certain balance of opinion rather than just have people who go gaga over every google/apple announcement. I dislike MS as much as the next guy but those are genuine concerns. Note, his comment is not like "sky is falling" but more like "beware, the sky may fall if we're not careful". I'll rather be cautious then stick my head in sand with my behind exposed.
      - access_denied 17y ago
rms 17y ago
Checkmate.
ErrantX 17y ago
Im convinced it's not a coincidence that this week they also announced dropping a load of beta tags, hid the free apps sign up page a little more and made a number of other tweaks. I get the impression they are trying to repackage their cloud services together: it would make sense if the plan for Chrome OS is to ultimately tie it all together.
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samuel 17y ago
Is this a response to bing? If you go after my market, I'll go after yours. It's not only the Chrome OS thing. Google Apps out of beta could mean that Google is serious about competing in the groupware segment.
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tybris 17y ago
Just another Linux distribution. If they want to do something useful, make me a command-line that supports images, links, etc and gives me an easy way to process XML.
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Goladus 17y ago
I switched back to Firefox for security reasons and because Chrome turned out to be really slow re-rendering tabs that haven't been visited for awhile. Not too enthused about a whole OS but I suppose that might be one answer to the security problems.
billpg 17y ago
I could develop a new netbook OS over a weekend. (Joke. Please don't downvote me again, I'm already at -5.)
- netsp 17y ago
  promise to be good?
  - billpg 17y ago
    But I though that "Mel" sounded "ghastly". Shirley that's unforgivable? :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679208 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679208
yankeeracer73 17y ago
I don't see that anyone has mentioned Apple in any of this. They certainly aren't just going to roll over and let Google take this entire space. They will launch a netbook at some point with the iPhone OS, some storage, the app store to get everything you want, a superior user experience and industrial design, and oh yeah, the browser to also run all these other apps...And it will be this kind of weird hybrid old model vs. new all over again.
Derrek 17y ago
Does anyone have any guesses on how this might be different from Android?
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  See the comments about Android in the Google Blog post. Android: Aimed at small-screen, low-power devices (handhelds, set-top boxes, MIDs, netbooks). Java-based application development. Touchscreen-oriented UI. Chrome OS: Aimed at netbooks, laptops, desktops. Web-based application development. Browser-based UI.
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alessandro 17y ago
I think Google will continue to "win" and we will use their applications/reader/ecc until they will have the dominant search engine. If you look at what they offer (with the exception, maybe, of excel-like webapp), they are not killer application. We are using them because our online-life is Google-centric. So we should remeber that everything else they do is buld on their search engine dominance (think to the omnibox)... For the webos is the same. It's fine, for a netbook IF Google will remain Google. If you look at what people do with a Mac, they do far more than just using web application. Far Far more.
asciilifeform 17y ago
Yet another Unix clone. Yawn.
grellas 17y ago
The key to supremacy in the enterprise market is to seize control of the entry point. IBM did it in the 1960s and 1970s with the entry point being a highly skilled personalized sales force in an era where relationships established the trust needed for enterprises to commit to large systems. Microsoft did it in the 1980s and 1990s with the entry point being its proprietary API for its desktop OS which, with the help of OEM hardware partners, it used to choke out anyone who sought to compete with it in the desktop applications market. It then tried (and failed) to use its desktop monopoly as a vehicle by which to dominate the back-end of enterprise computing. Google now seeks to gain similar supremacy with the entry point being superior proprietary products ultimately derived from or at least capitalizing upon Open Source in a web-centric computing environment. What form this will take, I don't know. But it will take a form by which Google tries to seize and maintain control of the entry point and ultimately bend the world's primary computing environments to its proprietary advantage. The Chrome OS is one piece of this effort. The question is one of which company will become the ultimate gatekeeper to all or most of enterprise computing, which is where the money is. Google wants that role and that is where its fight with Microsoft will lie. As they say, "The law of human nature - it ain't been repealed yet."
- extension 17y ago
  Microsoft's success was based almost entirely on lock-in: they made everyone depend on something that only they could provide. The equivalent strategy for Google would obviously be to hoard the world's data in their private silos, which they are arguably already doing. I would find that scenario more plausible if it weren't for Wave. Wave, by its nature, will obsolete or radically transform, many of Google's existing web apps: gmail, docs, blogger, picasa, calendar.. anything related to communication or collaboration. Yet, it seems as though they've gone to great lengths to make Wave decentralized, even as far as open sourcing their server implementation. They've done this even though a silo style Wave app would likely be a huge success anyway. I can't fathom why they would allow Wave to exist if they were hoping to control everyone's data, as it clearly represents a threat to the control they already have. I'm not dropping my guard, but at this point my best guess is that Google is just trying to create an open and fair web ecosystem, in which they will compete based on their momentum and massive resources, and in which their major competitors lose their existing advantage. Either that, or they don't have much of a plan at all and the company is really just a bunch of smart people doing cool stuff with a huge pile of money that fell from the sky.
jackchristopher 17y ago
The danger is and always has been centralized control (and not just in software). No one should own the web OS — the web is ours. Stallman & Co. foresaw this (at least) a decade ago. He's right to be worried. The real issue is: what are rights in the digital age? Who has control of what? I might not back everything he's done. And he sometimes dismisses technical issues as trivial over political ones unnecessarily. But he is having the conversation at the right level of abstraction. We'll keep facing the pitfalls of centralized power until we collectively decide to kill that beast permanently.
sfphotoarts 17y ago
Is this any different than someone else taking Ubuntu/Firefox and calling that the Firefox OS? Chrome isn't an operating system, linux is. This is a distribution and pre-installed browser. How is this anything different that what we currently have in the netbook market. The real player in the future of netbooks is very likely Apple, not Google, because any netbook running OSX will also be able to not only run all the usual OSX apps but Chrome too...
- mattn 17y ago
  2 years ago I made cl33n, a Linux live CD that boots Linux, connects to the net, runs the Matchbox window manager and launches Firefox- that's all it does. ChromeOS is "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." cl33n is "Mozilla Firefox running within a little-used windowing system on top of a Linux kernel". cl33n isn't unique, Webconverger and other great live CDs do a similar "make it easy for anyone to browse safely" job. Google cancelled cl33n's AdSense account 8 days ago, right before they were due to make their first payment. The site and its small traffic & AdSense revenue hasn't changed for 2 years (am working on an update now, I got kinda busy with a startup ;)). If cl33n did Bad Things then it's been doing them for 2 years now. I wonder if Google will refund the money to the advertisers? I've appealed but have not received a response from Google. I still don't know what cl33n did to incur Google's wrath.
c00p3r 17y ago
They will probably build something like fbdev wrapper to run their browser along with Native Client and GPU-accelerated (even on ARM) ffmpeg's codecs for html5 support, and it could be a real deal. They will reuse 80% and build 20% as usual.
shimi 17y ago
I don't see the point, Android is using a Chrome version, so if you'll take Android remove Dalvik then you're getting a new OS? By that definition I can remove all my apps from my Vista laptop except the browser and what do I get, an IE OS? That's silly!!!
jsz0 17y ago
It's going to be interesting to see how committed Google is to this project. Google seems like a company these days with more ambition than substance sometimes. They have some really good services but they also have a lot of services that have seen very few, if any, significant improvements lately. It does remind me a bit of Microsoft when they had to get their fingers into every category of software even if they weren't offering a particularly good product. It was more about being in that space than actually being the best at it. I hope Google is not trying to go this route because it almost always ends up in mediocrity.
csomar 17y ago
Using Google Chrome OS, means that we throw Windows and OSX away. Windows or OSX (Desktop-application) are not good, flexible because they are dektop applications, but because they have dozen of years of user experience. Throwing this user experience away, means we are starting the OS history again, which is a lose of time and money. In my opinion!
yread 17y ago
I still think that Opera OS would be a better idea :)

370 points by mqt 17y ago

10ren 17y ago

we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google This is the kind of competition that I would like to enjoy (i.e. between products that both belong to me). I wonder if it actually will work out for them, and if so, how I could use that strategy myself.

gojomo 17y ago

Some may remember the Forbes ASAP article, excerpted from Gilder's book, touted with the cover, "George Gilder Thinks This Kid Can Topple Bill Gates": http://www.gilder.com/public/telecosm_series/software.html http://www.gilder.com/public/telecosm_series/software.html It's taken 14 long years -- and it's Google-Chrome-plus-Javascript rather than Netscape-Navigator-plus-HotJava -- but the browser has finally become a complete alternative to a desktop OS. The article's final sentence: "In the age of the hollowed-out computer, the king of the desktop rules an emigrating empire."

gaius 17y ago
The only way Google can make good on their promises of it just working, being virus free etc, is if they lock it down more than Apple did the iPhone. General purpose computing device, or a Google Terminal? That's your choice.
- gojomo 17y ago
  What if one device has a switch on the side: 'locked-down terminal' or 'open general purpose computer'? And via virtualization, the two sides are sealed from each other, but instantly switchable? Why not the best of both worlds?
huherto 17y ago
It didn't happen before because MS was able to defend its position. (e.g. Positioning IE, crippling java, etc)

ananthrk 17y ago

It is also interesting to think about this news in the context of FaceBook buying Parakey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parakey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parakey), though it is a web-based OS. IMO, given Google's array of applications, they are better suited to write a web-centric OS than FaceBook.

timothychung 17y ago

I hope someone will wrap it as an application on Windows. That would be fantastic to have a OS to handle all web related activities for general users.

deleted 17y ago

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mcav 17y ago

Key Data Point: > The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

tc 17y ago
If their approach to Android is any guide, much of the work will consist of eliminating any GNU or GPL components from the (userspace) runtime environment.
- cdibona 17y ago
  This denies that Android runs on top of Linux, which is licensed under the gpl. Or that the Google search appliance runs on a ton of gpl'd code, all mirrored off of code.google.com...
  - tc 17y ago
    You must be talking about some other comment, because I don't mean to deny any of that. I was merely pointing out that on Google's largest (public) OS project to date (Android), Google evinced a strong desire for a copyleft-free userspace and succeeded in building a non-GNU Linux distro. This is clearly a different project with different goals, so we'll see how it turns out.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      The stated reason for that was that Carriers and Telcos wanted to build on Android and were put off by the GPL. (Though obviously not put off enough that they'd reject the GPL'd Linux that runs beneath it) Google's approach to licences is far more nuanced than blind adherance or avoidance of any particular licence.
  - j_baker 17y ago
    Notice that he says userspace apps will not be GPL'ed.
- Kadin 17y ago

Oompa 17y ago

A browser is one thing. But an OS? I have my doubts.

Xichekolas 17y ago
Why? People surely said the same thing about Linus at one point.
seldo 17y ago
You have to re-think what is meant by an "operating system". What is Windows? It's that thing, in the background, that lets you run all the applications you want to run. But what if all your applications were written in Javascript and HTML, and had URLs instead of .exe files? With all the extra power built into Chrome, they could still write to file systems, store data, work offline, do sophisticated graphics and parallel processing -- these are not hypotheticals, this is what Chrome can do right now. We're just beginning to scratch the surface of what an app written from Chrome can do. Chrome can be an OS, for some value of "OS".
- msie 17y ago
  If they depend on Javascript as an applications language then I hope they add goto to the language. At least that's what another HN discussion has led me to believe.
- sovande 17y ago
  When the iphone was first released, development was going to be via javascript and safari. That didn't go too well with neither users nor developers. Isn't this going to be the same thing? And for the so called windowing system I would not hold my breath and except anything like quartz. Its probably going to be just enough framebuffer code to drop X11 so the browser window can run in fullscreen. The window manager will then be implemented in javascript. Wee!
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    That's a common misconception. When the iPhone was first released, development was restricted to web apps and they didn't have access to any API. The fact that it was javascript and HTML was mostly tangential to the complaints of people who wanted to install (and sell) local apps, with access to the unique hardware, though obviously existing Cocoa coders, 3D game programmers and anyone needing to get close to the metal weren't going to be happy even if these other elements were taken care of. On the other hand "fart apps" and things that are basically light wrappers round existing web apps have no such problem. See the Palm Pre for someone taking this to it's logical extreme.

jeffspost 17y ago

Interesting. The one missing piece--a RAD development environment that's as efficient as Visual Studio is at producing fat clients. The business world will only embrace the webcentric model when it becomes as efficient to code in as .net click-once fat clients. The idea of simple, cheap, rugged hardware is very appealing. But programmer time is the #1 cost--businesses go for easy drag/drop fat client apps. Software written for 5 users has to be thrown together pretty fast or it never pays back...

Adrenalist 17y ago
Can you clarify your statements a bit more? I don't think that Google Chrome OS would be suitable for most corporate shops that are generally Microsoft centric (and have been for quite some time). I think this free OS will be geared towards light users that primarily use their computer for surfing the web and checking their email.
- swolchok 17y ago
  RAD = rapid application development, the business term for "drag-n-drop GUI builders" that we all know and hate. Not having one for the Web is a valid criticism, but if GWT can handle Swing API input then we DO have one.
  - Adrenalist 17y ago
    I'm familiar with RAD, although at least for my employer it's more than just drag-and-drop GUI builders. It sounds to me like jeffspost is over generalizing and suggesting that Google Chrome OS will only succeed if it's embraced by large corporations. The software hasn't even launched and jeffspost has already figured out it's "one missing piece".
    - netsp 17y ago
      And generalising that it will need to replace Windows. They are launching it as a netbook OS for a reason. Netbooks is a loose term. I'm not exactly sure what the line is, but one definition might be a small laptop that doesn't replace your main computer. I daresay that whoever buys this will either have another computer or have no need for corporate apps.

kylec 17y ago

Let's hope this also means that a Linux version of Chrome is around the corner.

tc 17y ago
Since they say they're implementing a new windowing environment for this project, there may not be a lot of porting overlap between Chrome for Chrome OS and Chrome for your normal Linux distribution.
- swolchok 17y ago
  It would have to be Windowsy, unless Chrome has its own internal windowing layer that's a suitable general abstraction. I assumed that "windowing environment" meant "window manager" not "GUI toolkit" anyway.
aita 17y ago
They should have bought plan9.
cdibona 17y ago
If you haven't tried out the chromium nightly desktop builds, they're actually quite nice. The team is still nailing down the plugins, but the browser itself is wicked fast and pretty stable (given its alpha nature)
- buugs 17y ago
  I think stable for a web browser these days requires flash/java support, I don't know if this has been fixed or not in the builds though. Probably less on the java side and more on the flash.
- markbao 17y ago
  If you're a Mac user, you can also download the latest nightly build here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/ http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-ma... (scroll all the way down to the latest build directory) And yes, it is wicked fast. On my system, it doesn't even bounce in the dock before opening. It just opens. Plugins aren't supported yet, but I just open any sites that require Flash in Safari.

dcurtis 17y ago

I'm glad Google has identified a need for something like this, but I don't really trust that Google has the right talent to build an operating system. They have serious problems with user experience and interface design (see: Doug Bowman). The mere idea that they are attempting to encroach on an aspect of experience as large as the operating system is to me somewhat scary. I do hope they prove me wrong. But based on their past performance, I am not holding my breath. Also: Google, if you're reading this, please at least make the typography render properly in this OS. You've already failed at this with Chrome, which has some of the worst antialiasing I have seen in a browser (surpassed in crappiness only by IE).

seldo 17y ago
As I said below (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693339 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693339): you've not got what they're thinking of as the OS. The browser is the operating system, and the apps are all web apps. The core of the OS is Linux, but the interface is all browser -- you don't install apps, you just type in their URL. There's hardly any OS UI they need to invent that we haven't already seen as part of Chrome itself.
- dcurtis 17y ago
  Not really. You still have to be able to log in, store data, set up parental controls, deal with power management and screen savers and wifi networks, choose desktop backgrounds (assuming they don't force you to use a single tabbed window), choose keyboard/language/sticky keys, define trackpad gestures, accessibility settings, etc... I am curious to see how they deal with this stuff.
  - Xichekolas 17y ago
    My guess is that you will be in a single tabbed window, with special tabs for things like wifi, login, file browser, settings, etc (like Firefox's about:config). At least that is how I'd do it. Just type config:wifi in your location bar to change your wifi settings. Visit config:files to browse your local files, etc. Of course, all of these can be bookmarked by default so the end user can click rather than type. Chrome already does stuff like this with about:memory, about:network, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome-specific_about:_addresses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme#Google_Chrome...

Xichekolas 17y ago

I couldn't help thinking about the crunchpad when I read this. Slap this on a tablet with a hybrid display and you might have something very interesting.

david927 17y ago
I thought the same thing. For my desktop, I don't see why I would replace Ubuntu with this, but this is exactly what the crunchpad needs. Great news.
greyman 17y ago
Yes, that would be a perfect device for it. Because, when we talk about netbooks, I am not so sure I'd like to have Chrome OS on it. Ok, it would boot faster and maybe also run slightly faster, but the boot time isn't that much of a concern for me. On the other hand, I have a half dozen windows apps I want to run on it, since I don't live on the Internet only.
skorgu 17y ago
Slap a Pixel Qi [1] screen and a capacitive (iPhone) touchscreen on a Crunchpad and I at least will line up for one. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawX3wenxNc&feature=relat...
- jcl 17y ago
  I thought it already was planned to be capacitive: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr.2009.update/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/10/crunchpad.apr....

netsp 17y ago

For application developers, the web is the platform.... 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. Does this mean an operating system that runs chrome and little else or an operating system that runs mostly chrome?

eelco 17y ago

I think this is great. Most people don't know what a browser is anyway, so for them it probably won't make much of a difference. It will be interesting to see how much of an OS you can strip away.

dryicerx 17y ago

So effectively your PC becomes a Google ThinClient. Got all the Office Applications with Google Apps. Email/Communication with Gmail. The rest of the web. Multimedia with YouTube/Hulu/etc. Sounds like what majority of the people need. Even for work environments, would be pretty good (you can offer your proprietary application in the form of a web application).

derefr 17y ago
I'd enjoy replacing the "instant-on OS" partition on my notebook with this.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  What I want is a good enough "instant-on" that it's my only partition, and I no longer have to worry about hibernation or sleep mode ever again. Have orthogonal persistence for everything, so I never even have to save. Just open the clamshell, or hit the on button. Something comes along to distract me, I snap it shut, take care of whatever it is, then open it up again, wait a half second and continue on where I left off. The ideal laptop/internet pad would behave like the Nintendo DS, if the DS could hibernate, and not just sleep when you close it.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    the ideal laptop / internet pad would behave like an animated piece of paper.
skorgu 17y ago
Add NaCl for heavier apps and a NaCl'd VDI or similar client and there's really nothing you can't theoretically do given enough bandwidth.
blinks 17y ago
It goes beyond even that, with some sweet tech coming out: http://vimeo.com/5404358 http://vimeo.com/5404358

chaosprophet 17y ago

I personally would never trust google with something as important and all encompassing as my OS. I value my privacy far too much for that, and seeing as how google collects usage data for just about every action you perform on services they offer, I'm not sure i'll ever go the google way on desktop software.

samg 17y ago
Google knows who my friends are (Contacts), what I'm saying to them (Gchat/Gmail), where I'm going (Gmaps), what I'm reading (Reader), what I'm writing (Docs) and what I'm looking for (Search). As far as I'm concerned, operating systems are pretty interchangeable. The things I care about are already all going through Google. Does anyone besides Google offer a similar suite of apps? The only one I can think of is Apple's MobileMe.
- chaosprophet 17y ago
  How about Outlook/Thunderbird/Facebook (contacts) + Yahoo (mail) + OpenStreetMap (maps) + Sage/Friendfeed (RSS) + Zoho (Docs) + Bing (Search)? While no-one may be offering a similar suite of applications, if you want to use them you can find different services that do. Also currently even if google does know all that information about you, it doesn't know what files you have on your hard drive. In my opinion, giving carte blanche on data on my hard drives to google is a big no for a company that doesn't give two hoots about the privacy of their users.
  - samg 17y ago
    The value of Google's services, at least for me, is that they all work together. I can login from an internet cafe in the middle of nowhere and have all my contacts in my email program, the same ones synced to my iPhone. I don't know if I buy the claim that Google doesn't give "two hoots" about your privacy, as long as you don't count selling contextual ads as over the line. But anyway, my point is that the "files" I care about protecting are already with Google. For true protection of your local files, on any operating system, encryption is your only answer.

btw0 17y ago

I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace the bloated X window system in other distributions.

blasdel 17y ago
They have one of the best chances to pull it off out of all the attempts over the last 25 years. I really hope they try to go big -- bury ALSA cleanly, use Skia for all drawing as vectors, and have an event model intended for Cocoa/WPF/GTK# (not the crapulence of Xt).
tvon 17y ago
The barrier to replacing X is not replacing X, it is the significant rewriting of software that uses X.
- blasdel 17y ago
  And the first massive hump there is getting the replacement good enough to even bother thinking about rewrites. Google has a chance to leap past that, because they've contrived a situation where they not only don't need X, they don't need to port X apps.
  - tvon 17y ago
    Well, yeah, but you're not talking about replacing X anymore (which is what the GP post was talking about).
- Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
  Wich is not necessarily a problem since they seem to be aiming for a minimal local software stack.
- limmeau 17y ago
  ... and porting or rewriting the device drivers.

ntoshev 17y ago

I can't wait to try an actual version of this in a virtualbox. Betas should be available for geeks way before the netbook manufacturers get to installing it on their devices in 2010.

gasull 17y ago

I wonder if Chrome OS is the same as, or a derivative of, Goobuntu: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu

blasdel 17y ago

I wonder just how Google Native Client will fit into this, especially extended with things like USB support and OpenGL. There's games, obviously, but what about a NaCL port of iTunes? It's not that far-fetched.

niktechx 17y ago
Google has already indirectly "extended" Native Client with native 3D graphics using their O3D API (http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/ http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/). It's just a matter of time until someone codes up a library to expose that API through JS interop in Native Client. I think we can expect very close integration of Native Client into the Chrome OS as soon as or right after it goes public. To the level of accessing hardware ports to control external devices right from your Native Client web-app. Imagine drivers that get loaded and updated on-the-fly. Of course, Google will have to implement a smart security mechanism (along the lines of RSA authentication for dynamic device/driver coupling) and provide a way for device manufacturers to register their driver's public keys with Chrome OS.
- Raphael 17y ago
  But will Native Client work on ARM?
  - niktechx 17y ago
    Yes: http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-client-technology-for-running.html http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-clien...
  - pavlov 17y ago
    I think Native Client's environment is constrained enough that it would be feasible to implement JIT translation between architectures (i.e. x86 -> ARM). ISA translation tech is already widespread: a company called Transitive has been quite successful in offering translation products for Unix vendors who have needed to transition their customers to a new architecture (most visibly they provided the PPC->x86 translation engine for Apple's "Rosetta"). With Native Client, the translation ought to be made easier by the structural limitations that are imposed on NaCl modules primarily for security purposes -- to use a natural language analogy, it's easier to translate a text if you know all the words originate from a certain dictionary.

Jem 17y ago

I've an AA1 running Linpus, which is buggy and slower than I anticipated. It's bloated down with superfluous software that I don't need, and that you have to follow a series of complex guides to remove. (Even then you risk screwing up parts of Linpus which are dependant on it.) All I use it for is browsing and light coding on the move. Windows, and the likes of Ubuntu Netbook Remix are all too 'big' for that. It sounds like the Google Chrome OS is exactly what my netbook needs.

mooism2 17y ago
I get the impression that the only native application it will run is Chrome. So how are you going to edit your source code, push/pull your changes, test it, run it? I've seen web-based ssh clients, and someone might be able to write a web-based vnc / remote desktop client, but I can't see it being useful for offline coding.
- Jem 17y ago
  You're grossly over-complicating my needs. None of my websites (that I would edit on the netbook) are business critical / make money / have any real world importance whatsoever. I can log in via cpanel, roll out some coding amends live and worry about breaking things as and when it happens.
  - mooism2 17y ago
    Ah, right, I misinterpreted what you meant by "light coding".

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koepked 17y ago

I'm not sure if I like implications of a web-centric OS, especially when its producer is as rich and powerful as Google. I see the market for it, and I think it will be a huge benefit for the average user. However, I see the transition from desktop-based software to web-based as a loss of user control. Today, when governments decide that mp3 sharing, porn, articles of political dissent, or news from non-national sources should be eliminated, they quickly realize, if they don’t already know, that elimination is impossible, because no agency can track down and deal with every user who has decided to install software allowing him/her to do these things. When software moves to the web, I think it will likely end up existing on the servers of one of an oligopoly of computing providers, who will be much easier to influence because of their small number, and because they will have no choice but to abide by legislation if they wish to remain in business. This may not seem like an issue right now, because there is still choice. But with Google pushing a web-centric OS, I think within a decade, many people will have a hard time choosing something else, much the same way they had a hard time choosing something other than windows until the last five years. Maybe I’m just a Big Brother fearing nut, but I don’t like where we’re heading.

mooneater 17y ago
Agreed, this is just too convenient for, say, the Chinese govt. (as just one example).
trickjarrett 17y ago
I concur. I've become more and more aware of the looming Google benevolent giant, but one day that giant's going to get angry and by that point it may be too late. That being said, I still use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Analytics, and other services. So I'm not exactly avoiding the apocalypse here.
- bjelkeman-again 17y ago
  What I think is interesting is that having a hard time choosing something other than Windows may have been quite benevolent in comparison with a Google-situation which turns ugly. What if there is an organisation that has all your email, all your documents, all your appointments and all your conversations and can follow the majority of your surfing via ads. What if this resource suddenly is too tempting to keep hands away from for "fighting terrorism" or something such. Being forced to use Windows at work could be considered nice in comparison. I don't think that anyone at Google set out to be evil. But power corrupts and the legal systems and governments have not exactly struck up a fight for privacy for the individual the last couple of years.

Micand 17y ago

If ARM and x86 are targeted, this means no Flash (not surprising, given how poorly it runs on Linux), which presumably means YouTube will be operating in full-on HTML 5 video mode by the time these devices launch. If netbooks continue their meteoric ascent, and if Chrome OS grabs a significant share of the market, we may finally see the realization of the mythical Year of Linux On the Desktop. The ironic aspect, of course, is that even though a large number of non-technical users will finally be running on a fully open-source platform, they will use it to run applications whose workings are even more opaque than traditional closed-source, client-side apps. I wonder what role, if any, Native Client will play on these devices. I understand Native Client to target only x86, but I find it difficult to imagine Chrome OS -- Google's first direct challenge to Windows -- not being able to run Native Client applications.

access_denied 17y ago
I enjoyed your narrative.
- sahaj 17y ago
  i agree with you. the comment with the large number of votes is a fearmongering comment, while the comment that you are referring to is actually a technical comment (the kind that i think is more relevant at HN).
  - yumraj 17y ago
    I'll rather have some fearmongering (if you really want to call it that, there's another better term though "devil's advocate") from people to have a certain balance of opinion rather than just have people who go gaga over every google/apple announcement. I dislike MS as much as the next guy but those are genuine concerns. Note, his comment is not like "sky is falling" but more like "beware, the sky may fall if we're not careful". I'll rather be cautious then stick my head in sand with my behind exposed.
    - access_denied 17y ago

rms 17y ago

Checkmate.

ErrantX 17y ago

Im convinced it's not a coincidence that this week they also announced dropping a load of beta tags, hid the free apps sign up page a little more and made a number of other tweaks. I get the impression they are trying to repackage their cloud services together: it would make sense if the plan for Chrome OS is to ultimately tie it all together.

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samuel 17y ago

Is this a response to bing? If you go after my market, I'll go after yours. It's not only the Chrome OS thing. Google Apps out of beta could mean that Google is serious about competing in the groupware segment.

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tybris 17y ago

Just another Linux distribution. If they want to do something useful, make me a command-line that supports images, links, etc and gives me an easy way to process XML.

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Goladus 17y ago

I switched back to Firefox for security reasons and because Chrome turned out to be really slow re-rendering tabs that haven't been visited for awhile. Not too enthused about a whole OS but I suppose that might be one answer to the security problems.

billpg 17y ago

I could develop a new netbook OS over a weekend. (Joke. Please don't downvote me again, I'm already at -5.)

netsp 17y ago
promise to be good?
- billpg 17y ago
  But I though that "Mel" sounded "ghastly". Shirley that's unforgivable? :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679208 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679208

yankeeracer73 17y ago

I don't see that anyone has mentioned Apple in any of this. They certainly aren't just going to roll over and let Google take this entire space. They will launch a netbook at some point with the iPhone OS, some storage, the app store to get everything you want, a superior user experience and industrial design, and oh yeah, the browser to also run all these other apps...And it will be this kind of weird hybrid old model vs. new all over again.

Derrek 17y ago

Does anyone have any guesses on how this might be different from Android?

mbrubeck 17y ago
See the comments about Android in the Google Blog post. Android: Aimed at small-screen, low-power devices (handhelds, set-top boxes, MIDs, netbooks). Java-based application development. Touchscreen-oriented UI. Chrome OS: Aimed at netbooks, laptops, desktops. Web-based application development. Browser-based UI.

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alessandro 17y ago

I think Google will continue to "win" and we will use their applications/reader/ecc until they will have the dominant search engine. If you look at what they offer (with the exception, maybe, of excel-like webapp), they are not killer application. We are using them because our online-life is Google-centric. So we should remeber that everything else they do is buld on their search engine dominance (think to the omnibox)... For the webos is the same. It's fine, for a netbook IF Google will remain Google. If you look at what people do with a Mac, they do far more than just using web application. Far Far more.

asciilifeform 17y ago

Yet another Unix clone. Yawn.

grellas 17y ago

The key to supremacy in the enterprise market is to seize control of the entry point. IBM did it in the 1960s and 1970s with the entry point being a highly skilled personalized sales force in an era where relationships established the trust needed for enterprises to commit to large systems. Microsoft did it in the 1980s and 1990s with the entry point being its proprietary API for its desktop OS which, with the help of OEM hardware partners, it used to choke out anyone who sought to compete with it in the desktop applications market. It then tried (and failed) to use its desktop monopoly as a vehicle by which to dominate the back-end of enterprise computing. Google now seeks to gain similar supremacy with the entry point being superior proprietary products ultimately derived from or at least capitalizing upon Open Source in a web-centric computing environment. What form this will take, I don't know. But it will take a form by which Google tries to seize and maintain control of the entry point and ultimately bend the world's primary computing environments to its proprietary advantage. The Chrome OS is one piece of this effort. The question is one of which company will become the ultimate gatekeeper to all or most of enterprise computing, which is where the money is. Google wants that role and that is where its fight with Microsoft will lie. As they say, "The law of human nature - it ain't been repealed yet."

extension 17y ago
Microsoft's success was based almost entirely on lock-in: they made everyone depend on something that only they could provide. The equivalent strategy for Google would obviously be to hoard the world's data in their private silos, which they are arguably already doing. I would find that scenario more plausible if it weren't for Wave. Wave, by its nature, will obsolete or radically transform, many of Google's existing web apps: gmail, docs, blogger, picasa, calendar.. anything related to communication or collaboration. Yet, it seems as though they've gone to great lengths to make Wave decentralized, even as far as open sourcing their server implementation. They've done this even though a silo style Wave app would likely be a huge success anyway. I can't fathom why they would allow Wave to exist if they were hoping to control everyone's data, as it clearly represents a threat to the control they already have. I'm not dropping my guard, but at this point my best guess is that Google is just trying to create an open and fair web ecosystem, in which they will compete based on their momentum and massive resources, and in which their major competitors lose their existing advantage. Either that, or they don't have much of a plan at all and the company is really just a bunch of smart people doing cool stuff with a huge pile of money that fell from the sky.

jackchristopher 17y ago

The danger is and always has been centralized control (and not just in software). No one should own the web OS — the web is ours. Stallman & Co. foresaw this (at least) a decade ago. He's right to be worried. The real issue is: what are rights in the digital age? Who has control of what? I might not back everything he's done. And he sometimes dismisses technical issues as trivial over political ones unnecessarily. But he is having the conversation at the right level of abstraction. We'll keep facing the pitfalls of centralized power until we collectively decide to kill that beast permanently.

sfphotoarts 17y ago

Is this any different than someone else taking Ubuntu/Firefox and calling that the Firefox OS? Chrome isn't an operating system, linux is. This is a distribution and pre-installed browser. How is this anything different that what we currently have in the netbook market. The real player in the future of netbooks is very likely Apple, not Google, because any netbook running OSX will also be able to not only run all the usual OSX apps but Chrome too...

mattn 17y ago
2 years ago I made cl33n, a Linux live CD that boots Linux, connects to the net, runs the Matchbox window manager and launches Firefox- that's all it does. ChromeOS is "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." cl33n is "Mozilla Firefox running within a little-used windowing system on top of a Linux kernel". cl33n isn't unique, Webconverger and other great live CDs do a similar "make it easy for anyone to browse safely" job. Google cancelled cl33n's AdSense account 8 days ago, right before they were due to make their first payment. The site and its small traffic & AdSense revenue hasn't changed for 2 years (am working on an update now, I got kinda busy with a startup ;)). If cl33n did Bad Things then it's been doing them for 2 years now. I wonder if Google will refund the money to the advertisers? I've appealed but have not received a response from Google. I still don't know what cl33n did to incur Google's wrath.

c00p3r 17y ago

They will probably build something like fbdev wrapper to run their browser along with Native Client and GPU-accelerated (even on ARM) ffmpeg's codecs for html5 support, and it could be a real deal. They will reuse 80% and build 20% as usual.

shimi 17y ago

I don't see the point, Android is using a Chrome version, so if you'll take Android remove Dalvik then you're getting a new OS? By that definition I can remove all my apps from my Vista laptop except the browser and what do I get, an IE OS? That's silly!!!

jsz0 17y ago

It's going to be interesting to see how committed Google is to this project. Google seems like a company these days with more ambition than substance sometimes. They have some really good services but they also have a lot of services that have seen very few, if any, significant improvements lately. It does remind me a bit of Microsoft when they had to get their fingers into every category of software even if they weren't offering a particularly good product. It was more about being in that space than actually being the best at it. I hope Google is not trying to go this route because it almost always ends up in mediocrity.

csomar 17y ago

Using Google Chrome OS, means that we throw Windows and OSX away. Windows or OSX (Desktop-application) are not good, flexible because they are dektop applications, but because they have dozen of years of user experience. Throwing this user experience away, means we are starting the OS history again, which is a lose of time and money. In my opinion!

yread 17y ago

I still think that Opera OS would be a better idea :)