Acer and Samsung will soon be distributing Note(Net)Book PCs with the "Google Chrome O.S." installed.

What!!! No Windows!!! Yep.

Sounds like a great idea if you have a desktop as well (running Linux of course) for all your personal stuff you don't want to store online. I was going to get a tablet soon but I'll consider one of these for sure for daily web browsing duties.

Thats nothing new, Acer have been distributing an alternative called ubuntu, except unlike googles, it doesn't require the internet. All free, and like mac s no real virus issues coz its linux.

It looks like a great idea. I have nearly the same functions on my ipad. I use my ipad for 95% of my web browsing, music, photos etc. But chrome os, looks like it will give my ipad a run for its money

FormulaNova said...
No, Chrome is not the default browser, it is the OS. You won't have an option, and I wonder if you can install apps, or whether it will all run remotely.

Without the connection to the internet, I wonder what it lets you do.

Chrome OS is a glorified version of their browser. Chrome OS is exclusively for "Cloud Computing" - ie everything is on the net, hence you do all your stuff in a browser window, out there somewhere. So what you see as your desktop is in fact a full screen browser window. There are a few other little changes. It's fine if your identity isn't worth keeping, but if you want all your private stuff to remain private, don't go near! They might be able to secure it one day, but then the crims will find a way around that too. (bit like Windoze in that regard)

Just bite the bullet and move over to Linux. There are literally hundreds of "distros" out there, so you'll find one just right for you, they're free, secure, robust, virus free and easy to install/use. There are around 50,000 applications available - for free of course. You can keep your private stuff at home and you can use the "cloud" for other stuff. Btw, approx 80% of all internet servers globally are running Linux.

dinsdale said...

FormulaNova said...
No, Chrome is not the default browser, it is the OS. You won't have an option, and I wonder if you can install apps, or whether it will all run remotely.

Without the connection to the internet, I wonder what it lets you do.

Chrome OS is a glorified version of their browser. Chrome OS is exclusively for "Cloud Computing" - ie everything is on the net, hence you do all your stuff in a browser window, out there somewhere. So what you see as your desktop is in fact a full screen browser window. There are a few other little changes. It's fine if your identity isn't worth keeping, but if you want all your private stuff to remain private, don't go near! They might be able to secure it one day, but then the crims will find a way around that too. (bit like Windoze in that regard)

Just bite the bullet and move over to Linux. There are literally hundreds of "distros" out there, so you'll find one just right for you, they're free, secure, robust, virus free and easy to install/use. There are around 50,000 applications available - for free of course. You can keep your private stuff at home and you can use the "cloud" for other stuff. Btw, approx 80% of all internet servers globally are running Linux.

Spot on mate. I've been using Ubuntu for years, all free. It's quicker and better than windows, yet none of that clouding rubbish.

Why does nobody else seem to use it except IT geeks. No offence to any IT geeks.

Squid Lips said...

I've got Ubuntu on my desktop and I'm barely computer literate compared to an IT geek. There are no Microsoft products in our house

Living the dream!

Apple, google, microsoft, all evil empires!
Oops, I forgot seabreeze

bjw said...

Spot on mate. I've been using Ubuntu for years, all free. It's quicker and better than windows, yet none of that clouding rubbish.

Why does nobody else seem to use it except IT geeks. No offence to any IT geeks.

Ubuntu only seems to have come of age lately. Well at least that's my take on it.

I've been using it as 'Mythbuntu' for the last year or so, and it is surprisingly effective, and for most things I have no need to use windows. It also makes a very useful way to set up a work laptop to dual-boot and use it for other stuff, including recording TV programs.

I swear my older laptop got slower and slower as Microsoft released 'updates'. Yet under Ubuntu it runs fine. I expect the same will happen with my current laptop, but at least Ubuntu will run fine for a lot longer.

CJW said...

I understand all the Microsoft hating but honestly Windows7 is the best, most stable operating system I have ever used. It's setup such that even a half wit can plug in almost any peripheral device in and it will work or help you to make it work, this is far from the case with ANY current distro of linux. Sure M$ have had a bit of a checkered history (vista lol) but you can't deny that XPSP3 and Win7 are damn good.

Linux is all fine and dandy and for specific things it is no doubt superior but at this stage there is no distro that comes close to being the plug and play, any idiot can use it style of operating system that Win7 and Safari are.

If you're a bit of a technofile and just want a box to run a media server and download a few tv shows, linux is your OS, but if you're serious about gaming or a majority of the worlds software you need a Windows machine; end of story.

Ubuntu, is getting close to being a complete replacement for 'Windows'. I don't use other distros, but I expect there are others at a similar point.

It is surprising in that drivers have been written for almost anything you can throw at it. I have a USB to SCSI adapter that needed a dodgy-looking driver for windows, and surprisingly a 'normal' install of Ubuntu picked it up, said nothing about it, went on to recognize the scanner attached to the same adapter, mounted that, and suddenly I could scan things - all without having to download anything from the internet and no questions about drivers. I was impressed.

Of course, there are still areas where you need to understand how something works and drop down to configuring things manually, but people seem to releasing updates to fix these things.

I built a machine using Ubuntu for my mother to use, and my 8 year old nephew worked out how to use it and showed my mother. That's a lot better than it used to be, and being Linux it is less likely to get viruses.

CJW said...
If you're a bit of a technofile and just want a box to run a media server and download a few tv shows, linux is your OS, but if you're serious about gaming or a majority of the worlds software you need a Windows machine; end of story.

I see what you are saying but Microsoft does not.

Re gaming:- When CPU speeds beyond 1Ghz and graphic card RAM over 500Mb, and huge amounts of HDD space became the requirements for the PC games the kids wanted to play, which introduced instability to my PC, I declared.

You want to play those games?? You do it on Play Station or X-Box and stop buggering up my communication device (ie PC, the new telephone, the new audio visual entertainment device, the new information gatherer and the new office.

Microsoft charge $12/month/user for access to their game server for X-Box Live users. They have to be making squillions out of that.

Most would agree that Windows XP (SP3) or Windows 7 is about as good as an OS can get and with Mac and various Linux OS's chipping away at their market share, you have to ask the question, why would they throw most of their resources at OS development which just gets more weighty and complicated by the minute.

Young people do not seem to care about their privacy these days, as exampled by what happens on Face Book etc.

All that matters is ultimate access to social networks via the internet, so the Google Chrome OS is just a satisfaction of market demand for a lightweight (free) way of doing what most people want to do which is communicate via the internet.

The internet killed the fax machine and is turning the telephone into the internet machine.

I tried installing "chrome" on my laptop
, following all instruction precisly snd my laptop froze.
Took me over 6 hours to get it to where I could go to a created restart point.
I'll wait until I need a new 'puter before I go down that path again!@#$@%

bjw said...

Simple fix. Google Firefox.

Firefox? That was a great book

TrevNewman said...

download the Chrome browser, fire it up, maximize the window and don't do anything that can't be done through the browser (i.e don't run any app, access the HDD etc..) and congratulations you have a Chrome netbook.

100% Go straight to the top of the class.

Test pilot 1 said...

I tried installing "chrome" on my laptop
, following all instruction precisly snd my laptop froze.
Took me over 6 hours to get it to where I could go to a created restart point.
I'll wait until I need a new 'puter before I go down that path again!@#$@%

I installed a version of it last year. Google: Install Chromium.

Did what it said it would do. Basically all of your google apps are there. If you don't do much more than browse the web it's probably all you need. The iPad has proven a lot of people don't need much.

If you are offline can store your files locally.

A bit OT but can one of you computer-savvy blokes explain something for me.

I think I understand what Linux is. And one of the main benefits of Linux over Windows that everyone seems to harp on about is the absence of viruses. So why does Linux not have viruses? Is it because there's some fundamental difference in the way it works compared to Windows that makes viruses not work? Or is it just because such a small proportion of users are on Linux that it's not worth virus makers making viruses for it?

If it's the latter, why does everyone who uses Linux keep trying to convert everyone else over to it? Won't that just ruin it by attracting the virus makers? Wouldn't you be better of shutting up about it? A bit like kite/wind surfers not trying to get everyone else into the sport because it'll stuff it up for those already into it by overcrowding everywhere?

So many questions!!

I hate Qantas.

I have to work with unix at work, and as much as i hate it, lots of people still say its fantastic so I did a bit of research, read good things and then tried ubuntu on my home PC. What a load of ****. Had no end of dramas, ubuntu was crap useless crap, i went to uninstall it and broke my windows partition - PC unbootable. Had to download a windows recovery disk and fix stuff up - all in all a bad experience, I will never try linux again.

I did another search for ubuntu on google - but this time homing in on all the bad reviews... this one sums it up nicely:

"Imagine that Linux and Ubuntu and all those variations of that crappy OS are
FREE for the taking. You would think that everyone would rush to install
Ubuntu and ditch Windows. Tell you what. It isn't happening.

The reason is that people are all gung-ho on the concept of free software
and open source. Once they realize that it's ****, they quickly remove that
crappy software from their PC's and go back to a real solution. Microsoft
Windows.

Remeber Ubuntu is FREE and Linux is FREE and still NOBODY wants it. That
should tell you all you need to know about that piece of **** software."