Google Chrome OS getting ready

Google Chrome Operating System (OS), the first operating system from Google, will be out in a year. Google announced this at a press meet today.

Google Chrome OS screenshot

As is already known, the Google Chrome OS will be a browser-based operating system, and will have no connection to Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones and netbooks. The Google Chrome OS is the most ambitious attack yet on the entrenched operating systems Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS. Google also launched the Chromium OS project, opening the source code of the Google Chrome OS to developers. Screenshots of the upcoming Google Chrome OS shows applications in tabs just like browser tabs.

All apps in Chrome OS will be web apps

The Google Chrome OS is built around three principles; speed, simplicity and security. All applications running on the Google Chrome OS will be web apps. There will be no applications installed on the computer. Every application, be it a word processor, an image editor or a music player – will be run from the internet. The programs you use on your Google Chrome OS will be on the cloud, not on your computer.

How many web apps are there currently? Few. Google itself has tried to migrate more application-based work to the internet with Google Docs, Google Mail and Google Maps. However, fully functioning programs of all tastes and requirements are still not available on the web. But Google is not in a hurry – it plans to release the first full version of the Google Chrome OS only in one year. During that time, programmers get to work on the open source Google Chrome OS source code, and application developers get to develop web apps which will be useful when the Google Chrome OS goes live. Alongside, Google will be in the background talking to hardware makers to load their systems with Google Chrome OS before releasing them.

Chrome OS starts up fastest

Speed is critical to the Google Chrome OS. In a video on its official blog, Google said that even the fastest OS now takes nearly 45 seconds to boot up. This is a very long delay for those who live their lives on the Web. At the Google Chrome OS preview, Google officials demonstrated that the Google Chrome OS starts up in less than seven seconds. Google plans to bring this down to three seconds by the time the OS is launched. This is almost as fast as switching on a TV. Press ON, wait for the screen to turn on, Go!

Google emphasizes the security aspect for the Google Chrome OS. Unlike a hard-drive application, all programs running on the Google Chrome OS is on the web. Each application is protected by what Google calls a sandbox. If any application happens to be corrupted by a malware, spyware or virus, it automatically fixes itself and reboots. There is no need to run antivirus or debugging software on the Google Chrome OS. In fact, every time the computer starts up, Google Chrome OS will check with the online resources to check for its own integrity. If any breach of integrity is found, it fixes itself before getting down to work.

Broadband speed bottleneck

Everything sounds so nice and sweet, that we at DanceWithShadows feel quite wary about Google Chrome OS. First, having it may a good thing to have web apps which will save you hard disk space and the trouble of frequently installing, updating and scanning multiple programs. However, for a web app to function as fast as computer hard disk-based application, one needs to have a very high speed internet connection. Currently, the speeds for many internet users are quite pitiable – to launch a YouTube video in HD, you need to buffer the video several times before you can watch it in full. Just think of the time you will need to launch a Photoshop Web App over Google Chrome OS. Applications which require a lot of time to load, will take even more time to load on the Google Chrome OS, once the companies release their web app versions.

Second, will established application vendors bother to build apps for the Google Chrome OS, which run from the server? It is difficult to see Adobe or Microsoft launching ‘lighter’ web apps for the Google Chrome OS. They are conditioned for decades to build consistently fatter applications year after year. Getting Corel to build a web app for three-dimensional design to run on Google Chrome OS is not the same as getting code junkies to build apps which can check your pulse from the cloud.

Hardware for Chrome OS

Third, who will make the PCs to run the Google Chrome OS? By Google’s own confession, it is working with the hardware makers (Read HP, Dell, Lenovo) to persuade them to run the Google Chrome OS on their machines. However, this is not going to be easy. Computer manufacturers earn their daily bread by selling ever bigger computers with gigantic hard disks and humungous memories which can run a thousand applications together. Application manufactures and OS makers have been feeding this thirst for ever bigger computers for decades by launching bigger and bigger bloatware for a long time. Windows Vista and MS Office are perfect examples.

However, since the Google Chrome OS being a light operating system, its hardware requirements will be much lower than that of Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X. Besides, the apps will be located on the Web, which further reduces the need for a cavernous memory, drivers, numerous scanning and upkeep software and the hardware to support it all. Which means if they build progressively ‘smaller’ computers for a Google Chrome OS, the hardware makers go against their own raison d’être. We don’t think it will happen.

How safe is the Cloud?

Fourth is more psychological. Will you be comfortable keeping your applications on the cloud more than on your own hard disk or central server? We agree that many corporates have moved to the cloud computing platforms, but Google Chrome OS drives applications out of the desktop and corporate server systems and moves them to the web. Will corporates be happy with this? We don’t know how many large conglomerates will be comfortable with moving their data on employees, finances and management entirely to the web, besides having to work on them online.

Still, we hope that the Google Chrome OS will be a success, against all odds. We feel that OS makers have loaded is increasingly uglier and unwieldy systems, forcing us to upgrade our machines and the installed applications for no reason. We hope Google Chrome OS will be a breath of fresh air, and force more innovation into the application developing and programming community.

Google Chrome OS download

Developers can the source code for Google Chrome OS from Chromium, the open source project’s home.