This is WARRRRR!!!!!!!!!11!!!!

Hope it's better then the chrome browser.

I wanted it to be good, I really did.

@Blinden: /agree

Call me old fashioned, but I don't like the idea of an operating system that does not crash on schedule, does not attract viruses like a magnet and does not need to be upgraded every year when the "new" and "improved" version comes out.

No sir, I don't like it at all.

@Moosehawk: But was Chrome really worse than M$ Exploiter?

That would kinda suggest that the new OS will be better than Winblows.

I wonder if it will use cloud based apps...

When is Google going to start giving out the free computers?

And cellphones?

Waiting....

Chrome is fast.

And light.

I like it.

But, but, but--LINUX IS TOO HARD!

(And it's a cancer on software, etc, etc)

So exactly what do people do with these Ubuntus and Google OS systems? I suppose they spend half their time getting software to actually work on them? I know they aren't gaming on them, or if they are, they have to run through emulators like WINE, etc. I just don't see the huge advantage here. "Oh hey, I paid $0 for this OS, and I don't support "the man! I am all set to...umm... email, browse the web and use this archaic spreadsheet someone made for free. Weeee!" I'm not MS fanboy, but I do appreciate having something that works with a wide array of applications with the least amount of effort possible.

@twophrasebark: Me too. I liked firefox, but it was just an absolute resource hog. Chrome is much more lightweight and significantly faster.

Try PuppyOS. Runs off a CD, loads into ram. 100 megs gets you the OS, Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Mail, SeaMonkey Browser, etc. Runs fast, was easy to configure. I use it on an old laptop when we travel. @Saboth:

@Saboth: This OS won't really be for desktops, at release. It will mostly be for netbooks, low-end laptops, and some enterprise applications, as far as I can tell.

If you're a PC gamer, you'll still want either Vista or Windows 7.

@Saboth:
I know you are being a troll, but I will bite...

Maybe because most people dont buy computers to play WoW and Half Life on them?

Open Office is a well supported mature product that gets stuff done. And it is neither buggy nor bloated.

I have a windows machine and an Ubuntu machine, and the Ubuntu machine does everything that my windows machine can, except play Age of Empires.

One thing I loved about Ubuntu is that how everything worked out of the box. Best thing: I did not have to fire up IE to get firefox. It was already there. As were the mail clients, and IM clients, and IRC clients.
I'd have spent an hour with windows just getting those and clicking through install screens.

Installing new software is four words worth of work: "sudo apt-get install ". And those repositories are large enough that you rarely ever have to look outside those.

And with todays computing activities being heavily net-centric, it pays to have a secure system thats not a magnet for viruses and works out of the box.

Oh and it plays my DVDs too.

And even if you only have one machine, you can always dual boot it.

And as for the Google OS... way to diss something without even knowing what it will be like or what it will do.

Question to ulta-computer-literate consumerists: Any truth to this?

Excerpt from "'Mafiaboy': Cloud Computing Will Cause Internet Security Meltdown"
Jun 30, 2009 By Kelly Jackson Higgins

"Reformed black-hat hacker Michael Calce, better known as the 15-year-old "mafiaboy" who, in 2000, took down Websites CNN, Yahoo, E*Trade, Dell, Amazon, and eBay, says widespread adoption of cloud computing is going to make the Internet only more of a hacker haven.

"It will be the fall of the Internet as we know it," Calce said today during a Lumension Security-sponsored Webcast event. "You're basically putting everything in one little sandbox...it's going to be a lot more easy to access," he added, noting that cloud computing will be "extremely dangerous."

"This is not the last you're going to hear of this," he said.

Paul Henry, security and forensics expert for Lumension, says cloud computing, indeed, will open up new avenues of risk. "We haven't even handled the fundamentals of [securing it] in our existing environments," Henry said during an interview after the Webcast. "Now we're going to push it up to the cloud?"

(end of excerpt) Full article at Dark Reading:

[www.darkreading.com]

@Blinden: I liked Chrome. Admittedly, I miss the addons from Firefox, Chrome runs so much more smoothly and efficiently... and I definitely prefer the minimalist Chrome interface from the Firefox one (which is at least twice as wide).

but hopefully the cheap (free?) cost of adding it to netbooks will mean lower prices, or possibly better specs, when it comes out.

I dont know about that. From what I have researched while looking for my computer, is that Ubuntu machines cost basically the same as XP/Vista machines with comparable specs. Sometimes it looks like the Ubuntu machine is cheaper, but turns out it has a gig of ram less, or that the cpu is slower.

But then, maybe Google has enough clout to be able to force that kind of change? It would be great if it did.

@Saboth:

I have a big ugly PC that I use at work that is a fortress of Microsoft crapitude, but at home, on my subnotebook (not a netbook) that is not the latest and greatest I want to surf the web, order pizza, figure my checkbook and take notes about project ideas and so on. all of this I accomplish through google chrome, google search, and google docs. I'm not a Google fanboy, but I find it suits my needs and it's very convenient. The only weak link is the arcane Windows XP I have to sog through to get to chrome. I could see a lot of people appreciating a google-branded cloud-centric OS with fewer steps to get to doing what you want to do (and hopefully no more blue screens).

I'm not a gamer, and I have no unrealistic ideas about what its capabilities are.

although I am concerned about driver support. If the different distros of Linux have a common weakness, that's it. Some have great hardware support, some totally suck, some can be coaxed into working but only excruciatingly, and I say this as someone who is not afraid to monkey around with the command link and POSIX.

Doesn't sound like they're really trying to compete head to head with Microsoft. Also doesn't sound like it'll be any more appealing than Ubuntu for Linux-averse people. It does sound like it's perfect for netbooks though.

Don't count on saving much money though; MS sells their OSes to OEMs for ridiculously low prices. And there's no way Chrome netbooks would be cheaper than Ubuntu netbooks unless Google pays manufacturers to put Chrome on their systems.

@usa_gatekeeper: Yeah, but then, I did not need an "expert" to tell me that theres a down side to putting everything on the "cloud".

Basically it has the same issues as with any system with centralized data that is accessible from anywhere(because all your info will be stored in a huge server farm somewhere). For instance, email.

If you already have a gmail/msn/yahoo email address that you use for signing up for different services, and use it to send emails that contain personal information, you wont be any worse off than you already are now.

Sure it will increase the size of the target, if people start storing their docs online, but seeing as how big it already is, it wont make much of a difference. The curve will flatten out... (think diminishing returns).

Great! I hope it doesn't spend five years in beta though.

@MostlyHarmless: "I know you are being a troll, but I will bite..."

Um, I don't think you know what "troll" means. Asking a well thought-out question isn't trolling.

@Brian James Schend: No, it's not worse than iexplorer. During IE6 days, I put explorer at the bottom because of blatant security flaws. When IE7 came out, I considered it a whole 'nother browser and actually would put that below IE6 because security flaws still exist, but usability sucks now. As far as I'm concerned the only good thing that came with IE7 was tabbed browsing.

Firefox > Safari > Opera > Chrome > IE6 > IE7

@Blueskylaw: Hehe!

I can dual boot into Winbloze when I need to, but otherwise I don't touch the thing. Of course, being an IT kinda guy Windoze does keep me gainfully employed.

@Saboth: I game on a Mac. Wine has come a LONG way, and using Crossover Games (which uses Wine) my framerates aren't reduced at all from actually using Winbloze. And it's seamless too.

How is this not like Microsoft? How long before we're all going after Google for Billions because "we no longer have a choice"

People are getting so excited for an advertising company...yes, they make their money selling ads... to have all of their personal information, browsing history and behaviorial information.

I like my OS out of the cloud, so if a Rackspace server goes down or something like that I'm still able to use my computers. An OS installed on a hard drive with local data never fails as long as the OS holds tight. The "cloud" is cool - but it seems like people are ignoring the inherent dangers.

@MostlyHarmless: As always, "it depends". I actually just ordered a new (regular-style) laptop from HP, and I had the option of not buying Windows on it, which saved $100. Obviously, Microsoft is pricing Windows lower for netbooks, but there's still savings to be had (YMMV).

One of the huge advantages, though, that Linux offers is that it doesn't have to run on x86 processors from Intel/AMD/Via. In fact, it's being specifically pointed out that Google is going to make sure that this platform runs on ARM chips, which use much less power and are drastically less expensive. (I have an ARM-based Linux tablet that can go for a few days on a battery charge, and two weeks if I turn of WiFi.)

@Brian James Schend: I had nothing but problems with Chrome constantly crashing. I did find that it was worse than IE.

@MostlyHarmless:

Google has clout in the search engine and internet advertising business. The OS business belongs to Microsoft... period. And I don't see that ever changing. Who uses chrome? Yes, there are those few people, but the vast majority of computer users still use IE. Furthermore, businesses aren't going to switch to a product that's untested and shady. And if I'm using Microsoft at work and am happy with it, why switch at home?

Google might be able to get some ground in the netbook space, but the PC space is squarely in the hands of Microsoft.

@chrylis: That tablet of yours sounds awesome. Where can I find it?

( Because, you know, you can never have too many computers in your one bedroom bachelor pad >_< )

@GuinevereRucker: Winbloze... How CLEVER!

@Blueskylaw:

Huh, what are you running then? OSX has an expensive new version almost every year, most Linux builds have 3-6 new versions a year and Windows usually has a service pack every year?

Either you're using some magical new OS, or your implying that only Windows needs updates.

@Gramin: The whole point of the Netbook business is the "home" segment. Businesses typically dont use netbooks at all. This will be focused squarely on home users, students, freelancers, etc.

One thing about Google is that it seems to know what battles to pick. An assault on the desktop market with a "net os" is a surefire way to fail.

So will you have to provide all sorts of personal information and be tracked for this free OS?

I'm sure Google's new OS will allow me to install my own browser in place of Chrome because anything else would be anti-competitive, right folks?

@Saboth:

Well, let's see. I loaded Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my wife's laptop yesterday. To do that I downloaded Ubuntu to a USB stick, popped it in the netbook, set it to boot off it, and choose the "Install to HDD" option.

I answered some very basic questions, like "What kind of keyboard do you use?" and "What language do you speak?", along with "What username/password would you like to use?".

About 30 minutes later, I was greeted by an automatically logged in account (I choose the "log in automatically" option since this laptop won't be doing anything secure). I entered my WAP2 password, chose the "install updates" option from the auto-updater popup, and gave the laptop to my wife.

She's already playing games, watching movies, listening to music, surfing the internet, writing letters, and instant messaging me. She can't install her own software in windows, either, so I doubt she's installed anything on it yet.

I don't see how you can make an OS any easier than that.

Now, the windows box she owns? Gawd, what a pain for both of us. CD burning, so many settings I had to change, so many special updates I had to download (Java isn't built in? WTF?), antivirus to find and install, spybot, daemon tools, etc, gah!

And then, every few days on the windows machine I hear "My printer won't print!", "How do I make it so X works like Y?", "What's this 'Debug' thing that popped up?", "Can you make it so it doesn't crash every time I do this?", "What's this antivirus thing that keeps popping up and telling me I need to buy it because my version doesn't have enough features", "The volume control disappeared when I started this game!", etc. HELP!

@Saboth: It takes me way less time to set up a working Ubuntu system with all necessary software and codecs and updates installed than it does a Windows system. I don't have to take time getting software to work because I don't run Windows software in it. These days, there's comparable software for everything I do daily. There's nothing archaic about OpenOffice. It works fine with the vast majority of MS Office files, which is all that most of us need. You make fun of these OS's by saying that all people can do with them is browse the web and email. What do you think the vast majority of people use Windows for? Unless you're a gamer, or have to specifically run a certain Windows program like Photoshop, there's no real need for running Windows. Unless of course you have a bloody ATI video card with shitty Linux drivers like I do.

Application support, speed, stability, and security. If Google delivers all four, for free, without ads? Congratulations to our new OS overlords.

But I won't use an ad-supported OS. And if they're planning on monetizing a whole OS platform via search ads used by the built-in browser, well, I'm concerned about their margins.

@Brian James Schend: "That would kinda suggest that the new OS will be better than Winblows."

If they did that, the market is there's. But it seems like it's a stripped down version of linux that pretty much is setup to let you run google chrome. So the focus is that everything you do is through the web browser. So no, it will not be better than windows. And it's definitely not going to encourage faster hardware. It's a one app OS.

Why design their own OS.. it would be easier to just invest in the so many already free OSs

@umbriago: Oh it will. And hopefully not riddled with security flaws that the browser has had.

Sounds great, where do I sign up to beta test it?

@Blinden: I came from using the hog of a browser IE, and I don't know what version of Chrome you guys have, but it's fast, light and I've not had it crash once. Even if it did crash, the tabs are separate system processes so you would only need to close the tab that is having a problem. It's the cleanest(read asthetic) and fastest web browsing experience I've had, though to be fair I've not used Safari and heard it's good.

@cmdrsass: Oh that was clever! :D No bundling Chrome browser with Chrome OS!

@INsano: I wanted to like it too, but it couldn't handle some pages and scripts that I used frequently and did crash quite a bit. Back to Firefox for me.

MEMO

Google,
We would like to congratulate you on announcing your new Chrome OS. Just a heads up, you may want to reconsider that heavy Chrome browser influence. We really got bit in the ass on that one.

Your Pal,
Microsoft

p.s.: See you at the party Saturday. I hear they asked Apple to DJ again. I don't know why...

@temporaryerror:
Yes it will. For those of you old enough to remember, this revert back to the days of main-frame computing. Once loaded your computer becomes, in essence, a dumb terminal with all applications on a remote server. If the inter-webs go down, you are left with a box that has limited functionality. I'm no fan of windows, but this does not seen like the answer to me

I'm a little leery about Google producing an operating system. My concern is that it will be Unix based, but they'll find new and interesting ways to serve ads to your desktop. Everyone has a way to make money off their products:

Linux: Business Licensing (looking @ you Red Hat)
Mac: Profits from Hardware/Accessories ($30 headphones?!)
Windows: Licensing Profits (Businesses, Office, etc...)
Google: Advertising Revenue (Take a closer look at a google page, or your gmail in-box)

Everyone is in this to make some money, and google is no exception to the rule. The OS may be free, but I wouldn't be surprised if the EULA says that they can send advertisements to your computer at their discretion.

Until the majority of software is available on non-windows platforms there is no point for the average user to even look at a non-windows OS. It's all fine and dandy when you got Ubuntu or Google OS until you have to call software support and they dont have a script to tell you what to do or driver support.

Developers Developers Developers!