Quick Thoughts on ChromeOS

December 7th, 2010

Google gave the first glimpse at ChromeOS, their operating system for, well, netbooks.

Essentially, the “OS” is basically just…a web browser.

Not as crazy as it sounds…most of what many people do online is web-based. Reading pages, sending emails, Facebook, etc. This will be fine for that, but I’m not sure it’s all that appealing. Netbooks started taking off when they became capable of running a full OS (Windows XP).

The iPad and future Android based tablets like more appealing form factors for lightweight use.

On the other hand, I could see this form factor being useful in kiosk machines or as desktops for people with very limited needs.

I worry that the Chrome “app store” is just going to further fragment the web. It seems unnecessary since these “apps” are anyway just fancy web pages, albeit with requirements for modern browser capabilities.

Chrome as a browser, on the other hand, is quite decent. If I’m stuck on a Windows machine, I’ll probably be using Chrome. On the Mac, however, I can’t find any advantage over Safari, and I prefer some of Safari’s capabilities (e.g. command keys to launch bookmark bar items).

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  • Anonymous

    I personally prefer Chrome on the Mac. One thing in particular that stands out to me is the ability to search from within the url bar.

  • http://www.infobhan.com Ishir Bhan

    That’s a nice feature. I like that Safari bookmarks sync with my iPhone, though. I really find Chrome and Safari quite similar.

  • http://infobhan.com infobhan

    Chrome has some nice features…I don’t find it all that different from Safari, but there are a couple missing items that really bug me. The first is the lack of command keys to load bookmark bar items. The second is a minor annoyance. If you open the Developer Tools window, you should be able to drag it from anywhere in the top grey area (that’s how it works in Safari). In Chrome, it only works if you drag it from the narrow strip at the top of the window.