Will the Future Belong to Chrome?
As anyone with an Internet connection has probably heard, Google took the first public wraps off of it’s long-awaited Chrome OS last month, giving a short demonstration, and even releasing the source code for the Open Source version of the OS, called Chromium. Bootable versions quickly appeared, first on gdgt and then a “diet” version from hexxah, available here. I tried unsuccessfully to get the version from gdgt to run, but hexxah’s USB-based version was very simple to get working.
My initial impressions is that everything about Chrome OS is still very much in development, and the versions available are pretty rudimentary, more of a proof of concept than an actual beta version. Nonetheless, there are some things to be observed, most notably the speed of the boot-up and the relative ease of use the base interface provides. Essentially, if you are able to use the Chrome browser application, then you should be able to use the Chrome OS, as the underlying philosophy of the OS is to bring everything into the browser anyway. Chrome is being presented as an essentially “cloud-based” OS, that recognizes the extent to which many users now basically live online, and to leverage that fact for performance and speed. Naturally there are all sorts of business ramifications of Google offering its own OS, but from the user’s perspective, the key is far more likely to be how well it serves their own needs.
That is the key issue for Chrome OS, of course, whether or not we are ready to embrace the cloud as the core of our computing experience. Personally, I’m of two-minds. One side recognizes that there are some undeniable advantages to off-loading a great deal of my computing elsewhere, whether it be via cloud storage, web-based applications, or even remote processing. Having used an Android-based G1 phone for almost a year now, I am already deeply involved in the Google-sphere, relying on Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Reader for much of my daily web-interactions. Yet I do try to retain some personal control over my cloud interactions, using both my own VPS server and remote desktop functions to keep some things out of Google’s (admittedly mostly benevolent) hands. And even more critically, a very large part of my online experience is based on media consumption, which at this point still operates from downloaded files stored locally. I listen to my MP3’s and watch my MKV’s at home, I don’t generally rely on streaming solutions like Last.fm, Slacker, Netflix or Hulu, even if it would be much cheaper from a storage and power consumption perspective. I tend to collect media that I find interesting, even if I don’t have immediate plans to watch or listen, and given the somewhat erratic nature of sites likeHulu, that put up and pull down content haphazardly, I much prefer to maintain my own measure of control.
