Google Chrome OS: 7 things you must know

Google finally does the inevitable, the most anticipated and talked about project in the tech world as far as they are concerned. They have designed an OS that has their name, i.e. Google Chrome OS. As we must quote Google here, “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.” This is perhaps the most significant Google announcement after the Google Wave show-off in public. So, let me take you to the heart of the matter asap and give you 7 points that are worth mentioning in their upcoming OS.

1. Open Source: Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. If you remember Android’s success with netbooks, you must not be too surprised by the target.

2. Fast and Lightweight: Google Chrome OS will be built around three S that are Google’s prowess - Speed, simplicity and security. They are designing the OS to be fast and lightweight.

3.  Security: Google as always is pretty keen to take security seriously unlike some of the softer counterparts. It completely redesigns the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.

4. Hardware: Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips. So what’s so big about it? Think about it for a second. Its fantastic. So many people are buying netbooks right now, but are running WIndows XP on them. Windows XP is 8 years old. It was built to run on Pentium IIIs and Pentium 4s. So what bout an updated OS? here it is.

5. Architecture: Google explains their architecture here,

Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

6. Instant Interaction: Google Chrome OS will waste absolutely no time for your hardware updates, web interaction, OS install.Every thing will be instant as Google so aptly puts: “Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates”

7. Its not an ANDROID: Google Chrome OS will NOT BE Android. It will borrow some features but not fully.

So, is it gonna drop a nuclear bomb on Windows? Hell no for now. Operating systems’ market is a different ball game altogether. And we have seen several instances where Linux community, even being so strong and so versatile hasn’t been able to come close to a buggy and reluctantly upgrading Windows OS. Only time will tell if Google spreads across the offline world.

[Source: Google blog]