Alessandra Ajraldi

There was a lot of waiting for the announced presentation (or pre -presentation) of Google Chrome OS, the operating system from Google. Many people thought it was a move by the giant search engine to undermine the substantial monopoly over Microsoft in the operating systems for personal computers, but what has emerged from its debut is anything but this.

As the google’s video says, Google Chrome OS is an operating system whose only purpose is to get started the most quickly as possible to allow the user to do the thing which now does more than any other on the computer: access to the Internet. In the demo, boot and loading the browser requires only around seven seconds. The computer essentially becomes a terminal with some ornament more.

There is no Start menu or Dock: all interaction occurs through browser tabs, including configuration. The e-mails are consulted through Gmail, documents edited with Google Docs, and so on.
Google Chrome OS is a long-term challenge for Microsoft, Apple and the Linux world, because it makes substantially the operating system irrelevant for most applications that do not require the handling of large amounts of data.

So the new operating system is designed specifically for  a web-centric experience. In a very ambitious  way,  Google declares that will built an architecture that will allow the user not having to deal with the usual problems related to viruses and malware definition updates, or security. In a recent statement was said:

“We heard a lot of our users and their message is clear: computers need to be better. The audience wants instant access to the email box, without wasting time waiting for the computer and the browser working properly. They want their computers always as active, quick and responsive as when they bought them. They want their data to be accessible anywhere and do not want to worry of losing them or having to make continuously backups. And, more importantly, it will not take hours to configure the computer with any new hardware or software upgrades. “

But there is always a bottom line: Do we really trust to entrust everything, absolutely everything, including our data, our photos, our mail to Google?