Chrome OS Impressions

Like much of the tech community when Google comes up with something new, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I got into "Google Wave" and while I see the vast potential, I have not yet found a solution for it to solve. Now, we have "Chrome OS" which is garnering a lot of attention as you can actually download a very early developers build.

There is a lot about Chrome OS to be interested in and there is also a lot that makes me want to shrug my shoulders and move on. First and foremost, I do not consider this to be an OS, at least not in the traditional sense. If you are interested in installing numerous applications, working offline from the hard drive or many other common traits of a standard computer, then "Chrome OS" will not be for you. However, if you are constantly wired and want a netbook that boots in an instant and give you a window to the cloud it may be the best yet? Possibly. Given that the "OS" will be limited to machines with solid state drives its speed will surely be something to see.

"Chrome OS" will fill a very niche market. I do not believe claims that it will cut into Microsoft's business... at all. I have also not been a fan of the marketing of the netbook to begin with. The devices are very good for very specific purposes. Yet I hear of many ill informed or ill advised people buying them not knowing of their limitations. Many of us on-line are what I hear refereed to often as "inside baseball" whereas we know the ins and outs of the industry. The "Chrome OS" means something to us but to the majority of other people it will not.

Now, admittedly it is still very early on in the development of "Chrome OS" and the versions that you can find on-line now are primitive at best. I would like to point out that you should be VERY careful on where you get your build of "Chrome OS"... very, very careful. Otherwise all you are doing is downloading something that will steal your private data.

The great site GDGT has posted a VMWare image of the OS which you can download by clicking here.