What is Chrome OS?

For most people they have not touched Chrome OS in their life but as a 2000's kid I am quite familiar with it.

Chrome OS is an operating system based on Linux while taking inspiration and integrating with android. While Linux is designed to be an open operating system for general computing which has customization as a core part. Chrome OS took the opposite end of that being an operating system focused on being locked down for schools and companies where people do their work in G suite and the web browser.

Even though Chrome OS was based on Linux it did not have support for Linux apps until 2018.

The Issues

While Chrome OS is not a horrible operating system it has some huge weaknesses. The computer it comes on is a big one while there are/were Chrome Books with enough ram and compute most Chrome books only had 4 GB of ram and N100 or worse CPUs. With These Ram and compute limitations just having a few tabs with rich content like google docs would slow the computers down to a crawl.

One of it's biggest drawbacks which is exaggerated by the limited compute most Chrome books have, is Chrome itself. Which at only 10 tabs uses 0.4 GB more than Firefox and still more than other Chromium browsers. While 0.4 GB¹ of ram might not seem like a lot that's 10% of the total ram on most Chrome books.

Where Chrome OS Thrives

While you might think I hate Chrome books I actually think there is a space for Chrome books and now Googlebook. The big thing is giving them at least 8 GB of ram because in the modern web 4 GB is just not good enough.

Assuming the Chrome Book has 8 GB of ram it can thrive in quite a few places. A huge one is people who do almost everything in a web browser someone who comes to mind for me is my nana. For this user who looks at their emails edits a PDF and prints every now and then Chrome books Thrive here being the perfect computer for this while being secure.

Thin client is another area where Chrome Books can thrive as having a light weight OS which you can use for remoting into a server or computer while still doing basic admin.

Where Chrome/Googlebook OS stands today

As Chrome OS has an end of life in 2034² I don't expect it to change much just keep chugging along in it's current state. While for the new Googlebook OS Google has some serious work to do as currently it's a buggy mess. In the future I could see it actually rising to become a major player like Chrome OS was meant to be. One thing which is not a major issue but Google books is an existing google product which when ever you search Google books shows up.