Google Chrome has always been a little more than a browser: it’s optimized for running web applications, each tab runs as a separate process, the interface is minimalistic and there’s even a task manager. “We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build,” that’s what Google quoted in September 2008 at the launch of Chrome.
Yesterday, Google announced a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s Google’s attempt to re-think what operating systems should be. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year they will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. The OS will be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface will be minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as they did for the Google Chrome browser, Google is going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web will be the platform.
With a new open source communication protocol (Wave), Browser, a bunch of web applications, a mobile OS and now a main stream OS for desktops / netbooks Google is surely investing big time! Lets just hope they stick to their motto of ‘do no evil’ with all these changes.
