Comments on: What Chrome OS has on Windows that Linux doesn't

Because the Web is already a powerful force, Google's OS project has a leg up over would-be Microsoft challengers such as Linux. But it has its own issues too.

[t8]

What many have failed to see is that software that runs through a browser is advantages as it then can run on any OS. Secondly, 5 years in software development is a long time. In 5 years from now, what is available in a browser may be way richer than what is available through Windows APIs.

Google is looking to the future and Microsoft is trying to protect their legacy monopoly.

Cloud computing also could be a game breaker and I see Chrome OS in principle, as an OS with a huge advantage for the future and no advantage for legacy stuff.

Chrome OS should run on smaller hardware, be faster, and it will probably be free. Very good reasons for hardware manufactures to embrace it.

[jessiethe3rd]

I have to disagee with you here. Microsoft has been developing Windows Azure for quite a few years now. Have you ever tried Mesh? It's a light Web OS which gives you the ability to share files between Mac, PC, Mobile devices. There is also a web interface that acts as a desktop. Sorry but Microsoft has been way far ahead of the game then Google has in regards to these types of technologies.

[medezark]

This article is just slightly screwey. Chrome OS will have NOTHING over Linux. It will be little more than a Linux distribution itself, with a GUI based on the Chrome browser technology. True, they may lock you into Google as the default search engine, and google applications as the default applications, but it's still linux. The extent to which it is solely a Web OS remains to be seen.

Personally, I don't think a 100% Web OS is ever going to fly until the ubiquity, bandwidth, security and reliability of both internet connections and the server farms that support the cloud improves tremendously.

3G dead spots, rural areas with no internet service greater than dial-up (At 28Kb or less due to distances), compromised servers, server outages and localized internet service disruptions all happen more frequently than the "cloud" components want to admit. Add to that the possibility of private, personal, and confidentail data on the "cloud" being hacked and you have a disaster in the making. (Imagine a dedicated criminal group hacking one server farm and getting EVERYONE's bank information, and transferring 100% of that to an offshore bank in one fell swoop.)

But, if I were a VC or company heavily invested in the cloud, I'd be proclaiming the death of the computer and welcoming our cloud overlords too. And, great googly-moogly, how can anyone even compare Excel to Google's spreadsheet equivalent?? It's like comparing Notepad to Word. It's Ok in a pinch, I guess, but it's sooooo slow and lacks so many features!

[SteveMcQwark]

All of these problems and more, Google them solving is. And google has never locked anyone into any of their services. On first boot of Google Chrome, it asks you what search engine you want to use. You can also change it at any time. No other web browser does that. Google also makes it as easy as possible to retrieve your data from their services to use elsewhere.

And since none of the applications should run on Linux but in the browser, its not still Linux.

[aintnorainbowdorothy]

It's not a Browser is a Browser is a Browser. OSX has Microsoft Office. Wonder why? OpenOffice is prety good, but if it's free I have to have some suspiscion about it. I'm old enough to remember when IBM was really the onloy game in town. Yes there were others but IBM owned the world. Of course then came Gates and Allen, writing pretty good code and then starting Microsoft. Yes, Jobs and friends had Apple going before that, but Gates and Allen did a lot of the programming.

Does this mean that they didn't rip off whatever they needed to start their own company? No. But they had a good leg up with programming skills, hired good programmers and coders (still do for that matter), didn't locate in one of the most expensive places in the world, although where they are now is getting there more rapidly than not, if it isn't already.

Microsoft has rifts, but then I'm sure Google and Apple, as well as the various Linx distributers, have.

C'mon folks. It just isn't a perfect world and until a person understands that then he/she is nothing but an evangilist for whatever they personally like. Firefox is a nice OS as is Ubuntu as is Windows as is OSX, All have their shortcomings, as I'm sure Google's will.

But I just won't trust a company who professes to do no evil and then keeps my information, whatever it may be, forever, targets ads at me and thinks it owns the world. When it doesn't.

Obama may like Page et al but he also likes Gates and Buffett (not Jimmy although I'm not sure on that point). The Web isn't the OS. Rather the OS is the Web.

Remember, you have to pay an ISP before you can get to the Web. It's really those companies that own it. No matter what Vint Cerf or Tim Berners-Lee might think. Or even yourself.

[jrlii]

I don't see what the big fuss is about: Chrome OS will be just another Linux distribution.

Admittedly, a distribution from folks who have some serious technical and marketing chops, but still just another distribution.

The question for me is: Will Chrome OS be closer to Puppy Linux (super light weight, but a little limited) or Ubuntu which is rather large and does practically everything a typical user needs out of the box?

[SteveMcQwark]

Neither, as it will run all apps on the web. It will be lightweight like puppy with the breadth of functionality of Ubuntu, if Google gets their way.

[rob1400]

Since the news about this Google Chrome OS news broke out, one thing I have wondering is why Google is announcing it today when it won't be ready for at least a year. It is quite un-Google given it likes to keep things under radar until it is ready.

But now I know why. It is to deflect the media's attention from Microsoft's early success with Bing. Just to change the talk of the town. Smart marketing move!

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/07/09/microsoft-hitwise-data-shows-steady-growth-at-bing/

[jtjt145]

This discussion about free choice of browsers is all rubbish! Written by who? Micro$oft shills, either paid for or just dumb followers in a naive, misunderstood sense of loyalty.
Nobody who really has used Chrome and IE (any version) side by side would EVER come to the conclusion that IE is a serious competitor, for just about any open-source browser that exists.

Lets face it, when it comes to the web, and increasingly on computers in general Micro$oft starts looking painfully incompetent.

[jessiethe3rd]

Um yeah.... Microsoft is incompetent. Have you seen this? Microsoft just updated Silverlight to stream 720p+ video over the web. Yeah that's incompetent for you - they're delivering where others have failed.

http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

[frobots]

Chrome OS is here to show us the direction towards the future. It's here to show that the OS as we know it is obsolete and becoming irrelevant.
The Browser is an environment where we have many apps running and where most of the future and most advanced apps will be running. It doesn't make any sense to have two environments running apps, the Browser and the OS of our choice.
Compatibility and accessibility is the future.
MS Windows will and MUST become irrelevant.

[jtjt145]

@naive screaming : "SHOW ME THE DRIVERS!....."

There exist more drivers on linux for present day hardware and legacy equipment, than there ever did for windows vista. This combined with the fact that the Google OS will be based on linux, makes your argument sound a little uneducated.

[jessiethe3rd]

I read this article over again... am I missing something here .... what exactly makes this better than Windows? I see a bunch of jibberjabber about technical challenges and web paradigm shifts blah blah blah. I see some stuff about dealing with applications in a Java style environment but I cannot really pull out any REAL nuggets of "a-ha... that's better!" If anything I see this as a light watered down OS with web only capabilities. Nothing special here.

Like most of the CNET articles going gaga over Google WOS (Web Operating System) there's a whole lot of nothing substantial, a whole lot of speculation, and a whole of wanting for this to be the next great thing.

[619clean]

innovation never hurts...

[dokbyte]

I think everyone should use what works for them. There's no one good OS.

In my case, I use Windows cos I wont be able to play almost all of my cherished games on a Mac/Linux. If, for e.g., internet security becomes a big issue for me in the future, I'd just get an OS with better security. I might then use windows offline, or just damp it and get myself a game console, what ever strikes my fancy.

Overall, innovations are always good for us consumer. If it's good we use it. If it goes wrong, too bad. Period.

[hugociss]

Or maybe Google can do something like what Palm did with their WebOS. Coding system-native apps with CSS, and all that web standards. Or perhaps just extend their Android OS, add support for enterprise features, make it effecient with multi-cores and 64-bit.

[solvback]

LOL It's a joke right google can't be serious.

[grue82]

Alright gamers, I guess we'll have to settle for text-based CounterStrike and a cruddier than crud version of Crysis fully in-browser using a Java-based game engine.

Please...

Even if it's not gaming that is the main thing that Chrome OS blots out, there are just too many applications that web apps can't replicate efficiently. And if I use the example of, say, a CD burning app within a browser. Because of permissions constraints, would it require an ISO to be uploaded to some site where people can look at what you hide on your computer before burning?

Would something like this even be wise considering ISP's are beginning to think of ways to make price gouge bandwidth costs for their clients?

I don't have much faith that it will even be a remote threat to anyone. Rather, it may just give a more inappropriate image of what a Linux OS can do.

[jessiethe3rd]

How does one download their favorite music, video, or porn and watch it? Stream it from the web using a service? Oh wait... that's right - have it stored on Google's servers where they can root through all your personal information... gimmie a break.

[SteveMcQwark]

For all legal content, (and much illegal content), thats already possible. ;-) But I can see web based bittorent clients for doing that, then you can still play it back in your browser, offline :P

[sensi2]

@ Vegaman

"defeats the EU's lawsuits entirely because there is no longer a monopoly as long as Google offers Chrome included with the OS. "

Jeez, another pointless and retarded sentence. The day Chrome OS will have 90% of the OS market, being a defacto monopoly, and tie its Browser as deep as that you can't remove it, it will certainly be subject to legal pursuits from its competitors too. The EU still have a justice while the US anti-trust justice was simply too corrupt under the previous administration to do anything against Microsoft/Intel usual illegal business practices or anti-competition behaviors, that's why US companies (Sun, AMD) have sued their foes in the EU. Please drop your moronic anti-EU garbage and Microsoft boot-licking, both are appalling and ludicrous.

[swinggolfclub]

Well written. I just wonder on how's it going to be. As for now, Windows really makes my world better. :)

[ahickey]

For consumers roll this into a cable box and you don't need a proper computer for most activities.
In my experience most people are not content creaters other than words and pictures, so a powerful computer is not needed.

Power Users doing will still need a PC for their work for now as the cloud isn't up to it, but it will get there.

I think this is a great idea and Google with gmail, apps, YouTube GoogleVoice have been putting the pieces in place to allow most (not all) activities to be done in the browser.

One thought though. If it is Linux based, with Chrome and is all GPL or equivalent then some smart person will use the light OS to build a traditonal desktop OS by adding back in OpenOffice, Thunderbird,...
So, this will really challenge the fast boot times for an OS and give a lean experience for those who only want that and then there will be the option to add more if needed.

[BluePhenom]

Google's ability to make their products user-friendly enables them to take the sometimes complicated Linux system and package it for everyone to use. Furthermore, they are pushing the OS into the cloud--where users are spending more and more time. Seems like a natural evolution for Google and OS. At this time, all we can do is speculate and hypothesize of Google's new OS. We'll see in 2010!

-Ethan
<a href="http://sparxoo.com/">Sparxoo</a>

[boggart]

And how dumb would somebody have to be to trust Google with all their business and personal data, not to mention relying on The Evil Empire mk2 for their software?