Meet Chrome OS Flex, Google’s new weapon for desktop domination
Is that an outdated Windows system or a present Chrome OS pc? Google’s on the brink of blur the traces of desktop computing in some critically shape-shifting methods.
QuinceCreative/Google/JR Raphael
Google’s Chrome OS platform has come a ridiculously great distance in an extremely quick time.
Back when it launched in 2010, Chrome OS really was only a browser in a field — a dead-simple working system designed to behave as a portal to the online and never rather more. The software program had no desktop, no activity bar, and barely even something in the best way of settings. It was basically only a full-screen browser window — and that is it.
Fast-forward to 2022, and Chrome OS is a completely featured and impressively polished computing resolution. Between the platform’s ongoing enlargement and the speedy evolution in how all of us use computer systems, Chromebooks are actually a genuinely sensible and sometimes advantageous choice for enterprise, private, and education-related use.
The trick now for Google, significantly on the enterprise entrance, is getting firms to surrender the Windows behavior and truly give Chrome OS a strive.
Part of that problem is closing the gaps with how some firms nonetheless strategy computing. Plain and easy, whereas Chrome OS may be capable to deal with 95% of a typical group’s wants, plenty of locations nonetheless depend on legacy applications that function solely within the Windows atmosphere. So a bit of over a yr in the past, Google got here up with a solution to deal with that and provide enterprises the flexibility to run Windows apps inside Chrome OS with just about no ongoing effort.
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But the opposite a part of the problem is solely the truth that making a leap to the entire different platform is a frightening and in addition pricey change — particularly when most firms have stockpiles of still-functioning outdated Windows programs sitting round and amassing mud.
That’s precisely the place a brand new effort referred to as Chrome OS Flex comes into play. Chrome OS Flex is a wild new program that makes it nearly laughably simple to transform any outdated Windows or Mac system into a completely functioning Chrome OS system — one which’s up to date each 4 weeks, identical to a daily Chromebook, and all the time as safe as will be.
The craziest a part of all? The software program and every thing round it’s fully free and obtainable for anybody — companies, faculties, and even people — to make use of.
The Chrome OS Flex muscle
If you’ve got been studying this column and following the Chrome OS ecosystem for lengthy, the idea behind Chrome OS Flex may sound acquainted. And it ought to.
Chrome OS Flex is actually an evolution of a third-party software program setup referred to as CloudReady. CloudReady used Google’s open-source Chromium code to create a Chrome-OS-like atmosphere that might be utilized to any outdated pc after which up to date usually by way of CloudReady’s personal ongoing efforts.
It was an excellent setup, however as an unofficial, non-Google-associated challenge, it got here with some inevitable limitations. CloudReady could not play video from Netflix or sure different streaming companies with out pretty complicated workarounds, as an illustration. Some Google companies, akin to Drive and Maps, did not all the time work as anticipated within the CloudReady atmosphere. The exceptionally efficient Powerwash system for resetting a Chrome OS system wasn’t obtainable inside CloudReady in any respect. And commonplace Google options like Google Assistant, which has turn into a core a part of the Chromebook productiveness bundle, have been lacking totally on CloudReady-converted computer systems.
In December of 2020, although, Google purchased the corporate behind CloudReady. Chrome OS Flex is the results of that buy — a freshly Googleized model of the CloudReady idea, now that includes native integration with the remainder of the Google ecosystem and with most of these outdated asterisks stripped away.
And beginning at the moment, anybody can obtain the brand new software program, load it onto a USB drive, and have it up and operating on any outdated Windows or Mac system in a matter of minutes.
“You get this [opportunity] to refresh your PCs and Macs with our quick and safe working system,” says Thomas Riedl, Google’s director of enterprise and schooling merchandise. “At the identical time, you additionally get a chance to strive new {hardware} that matches your wants.”
Chrome OS Flex provides you nearly all the advantages of a full-fledged Chromebook, in different phrases, with none of the related prices or commitments. All you want is a Windows or Mac system and about 5 minutes to make the transition and provides your current system a complete new life.
And it is one which’ll be instantly recognizable to anybody who’s ever used a Chromebook.
Chrome OS Flex vs. the usual Chromebook expertise
What’s most fascinating about Chrome OS Flex, much more than its CloudReady predecessor, is how impossibly comparable the expertise is to the usual Chrome OS setup on the floor. At first look specifically, most people in all probability would not discover any distinction.
Here, for illustration, is a screenshot of the primary Chrome OS Flex desktop interface:
Yes, that is Chrome OS Flex — but it surely might simply as effectively be Chrome OS itself.
Even probably the most observant Chromebook aficionados amongst us can be hard-pressed to inform that aside from what you see on a local Chrome-OS-running Chromebook system.
Chrome OS Flex will get up to date on the similar cadence as the usual Chrome OS software program, too, and any gadgets operating Chrome OS Flex will be managed proper alongside common Chromebooks within the Google Workspace Admin instrument.
“There are so many nice advantages to successfully leverage an enormous Windows fleet and convey it into the Chrome OS household with out having to undergo new {hardware} purchases first,” Riedl says.
So what is the catch? Believe it or not, there actually is not one. From Google’s perspective, anybody utilizing Chrome OS Flex is clearly turning into extra engaged with the general Google ecosystem and all the companies round it. And whereas the software program itself could also be free, firms and faculties are more likely to proceed investing in each Workspace and future Chromebook gadgets for the all-in-one managed expertise Chrome OS Flex is part of.
That being mentioned, for all of its similarities, a transformed Chrome OS Flex pc will lack a number of the advantages you get with a full-fledged Chrome OS system. Foundationally, it is not attainable for a transformed system to have the identical end-to-end safety mannequin an precise Chromebook can present, when the processor and verified {hardware} are all a part of the only similar bundle.
Beyond that, Chrome OS Flex computer systems will not presently be capable to entry the Google Play Store and benefit from the Android apps on Chrome OS benefit. That’s one thing Google steered might change finally however wasn’t attainable on this present early model of the hassle (which, by the best way, is technically nonetheless in an “early entry” state).
The aforementioned Windows-app compatibility setup additionally will not be obtainable throughout the Chrome OS Flex atmosphere, which could be factor — as we would be going through some dizzying M.C. Escher-esque moments if we transformed Windows computer systems to Chrome OS after which ran Windows inside ’em (probably even with Chrome operating throughout the Windows window inside the Chrome OS working on the previous Windows pc — yeesh! My head hurts).
But the core Chrome OS Flex expertise genuinely is free and extensively obtainable, and updates for transformed gadgets will proceed kind of indefinitely — as long as the related {hardware} is ready to assist it. (Officially, Chrome OS Flex could have a “licensed system record” with dates for the way lengthy full assist is assured — identical to CloudReady did — however you possibly can set up the software program on any pc you need, even when it is not on that record, after which proceed to get updates with none actual cutoff. Google simply cannot assure full compatibility outdoors of the gadgets and dates on that record.)
As for anybody who was already utilizing CloudReady, as soon as Chrome OS Flex strikes out of its present testing section and into a completely secure state, all current clients will obtain an over-the-air replace that’ll seamlessly shift them from the latest CloudReady construct to the newest Chrome OS Flex equal — a transition that was fastidiously deliberate to make sure “no one feels punished or disincentivized,” as former CloudReady product director Forrest Smith, who’s now working as a Google product supervisor on the Chrome OS group, instructed me.
The different million-dollar query in my thoughts is that if/when the identical easy transition might work on current Chromebooks as effectively. After all, a full-fledged Chromebook has a set period of time by which it receives ongoing working system updates — and whereas that window of assist has been prolonged significantly in recent times, it nonetheless places a agency finish date on a Chrome OS system’s lifespan and the time by which it is advisable to make use of.
CloudReady by no means supported that chance, because the absolutely built-in nature of official Chromebook {hardware} made it tough to override the default working system and guarantee full compatibility. Now that the software program is an official a part of Google, although, that would at some point change — perhaps.
As of now, Chrome OS Flex does not formally assist set up on current Chromebooks — solely Windows and Mac computer systems. But broadly talking, Smith tells me he thinks they will “shoot lots larger on broad, stable {hardware} compatibility” as time goes on. And he and Riedl each emphasised that that is very early days for this system and that issues will solely develop from right here.
In different phrases, time will inform. But the ambitions listed here are excessive, and just about something’s attainable.
The larger Chrome OS image
So that is the sensible facet of this. From a bigger-picture perspective, although, the implications of Chrome OS Flex are monumental.
When Google first acquired CloudReady again on the finish of 2020, I wrote that the corporate had “quietly set the stage for a Chrome OS explosion.” Go, go, gadget time-machine:
The very definition of what a Chromebook is might develop exponentially. Instead of a Chromebook being a pc created and bought explicitly to run Chrome OS, a Chromebook might basically turn into any pc on which Chrome OS is put in. Converting an outdated Windows or Mac system right into a Chromebook … needs to be nearly the identical as shopping for a brand new pc with Chrome OS, virtually talking.
And which means individuals — and maybe most critically, firms — might take an deserted outdated Windows or Mac pc out of storage and switch it into a completely useful, official-update-receiving Chromebook, with minimal price, ample benefits, and few to no asterisks hooked up.
Fourteen months later, and right here we’re. That’s precisely what’s taking place.
Make no mistake about it: This is a large leap ahead for Chrome OS and its means to invade the desktop computing area — particularly within the enterprise and schooling realms, the place easy streamlined administration is crucial and dusty outdated computer systems are aplenty.
Big issues are most actually a-brewin’ right here within the land of Googley issues. And what we’re seeing now might critically shift the state of desktop computing — once more.
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