ChromeOS

Google announced the project in July 2009, initially describing it as an operating system where applications and user data would reside in the cloud.

[10][11] To ascertain marketing requirements, developers relied on informal metrics, including monitoring the usage patterns of 200 machines used by Google employees.

[12] Google requested that its hardware partners use solid-state drives "for performance and reliability reasons"[13] as well as the lower capacity requirements inherent in an operating system that accesses applications and most user data on remote servers.

[21] The ChromiumOS build environment is no longer restricted to any particular distribution, but installation and quick-start guides use Debian's (and thus also Ubuntu's) apt syntax.

In April 2012, Google made the first update to ChromeOS's user interface since the operating system had launched, introducing a hardware-accelerated window manager called "Aura" along with a conventional taskbar.

In mid-2014, Time magazine published an article titled "Depending on Who's Counting, Chromebooks are Either an Enormous Hit or Totally Irrelevant", which detailed the differences in opinion.

[50] Seizing the opportunity created by the end of life for Windows XP, Google pushed hard to sell Chromebooks to businesses, offering significant discounts in early 2014.

[52][53][54] Since July 2021, ChromeOS's embedded controller was changed to be based on a Google maintained fork of Zephyr, a real time operating system.

[63][64] Standard features include the ability to sync bookmarks and browser extensions across devices, cloud or native printing, multi-layered security, remote desktop, and automatic updates.

Chromebooks are widely used in classrooms and the advantages of cloud-based systems have been gaining an increased share of the market in other sectors as well, including financial services, healthcare, and retail.

Google's Grab and Go program with Chrome Enterprise allows businesses deploying Chromebooks to provide employees access to a bank of fully charged computers that can be checked out and returned after some time.

[77] The machines come with a bundle of Dell's cloud-based support services that would enable enterprise ICT managers to deploy them in environments that also rely on Windows.

Designed to rival the Apple iPad, it had an identical screen size and resolution and other similar specifications, a notable addition was a Wacom-branded stylus that does not require a battery or charging.

[90][91] Initially, ChromeOS was a pure thin client operating system that relied primarily on servers to host web applications and related data storage.

[97] In 2016, the second version, ARC++, was introduced, using Linux kernel features cgroups and namespaces to make containers that can run Android apps in an isolated environment.

[111][112][113] Google integrated a media player into both ChromeOS and the Chrome browser, enabling users to play back MP3s, view JPEGs, and handle other multimedia files without connectivity.

Engineering director Zelidrag Hornung explained that ARC had been scrapped due to its limitations, including its incompatibility with the Android Native Development Toolkit (NDK), and that it was unable to pass Google's own compatibility test suite.

[128] The main benefit claimed by Google of their official Linux application support is that it can run without enabling developer mode, keeping many of the security features of ChromeOS.

[133] Google's project for supporting Linux applications in ChromeOS is called Crostini, named for the Italian bread-based starter, and as a pun on Crouton.

[140] In preliminary design documents for the ChromiumOS open-source project, Google described a three-tier architecture: firmware, browser and window manager, and system-level software and userland services.

[148][149][150][151][152] Early in the project, Google provided publicly many details of ChromeOS' design goals and direction,[153] although the company has not followed up with a technical description of the completed operating system.

Design goals for ChromeOS' user interface included using minimal screen space by combining applications and standard Web pages into a single tab strip, rather than separating the two.

Writing in CNET, Stephen Shankland argued that with overlapping windows, "Google is anchoring itself into the past" as both iOS and Microsoft's Metro interface are largely or entirely full-screen.

While the cloud provides virtually any connected device with information access, the task of "developing and maintaining print subsystems for every combination of hardware and operating system—from desktops to netbooks to mobile devices—simply isn't feasible.

Both ChromeOS and the Chrome browser may introduce difficulties to end-users when handling specific file types offline; for example, when opening an image or document residing on a local storage device, it may be unclear whether and which specific Web application should be automatically opened for viewing, or the handling should be performed by a traditional application acting as a preview utility.

Some observers claimed that other operating systems already filled the niche that ChromeOS was aiming for, with the added advantage of supporting native applications in addition to a browser.

Using a Windows 7 or Linux-based netbook, users can simply not install anything but a web browser and connect to the vast array of Google products and other web-based services and applications.

The event featured a daily press conference in which each team leader, Android's Andy Rubin and Chrome's Sundar Pichai, "unconvincingly tried to explain why the systems weren't competitive".

[185] Google co-founder Sergey Brin addressed the question by saying that owning two promising operating systems was "a problem that most companies would love to face".