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Comment by darklajid | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. I noticed in a recent thread about Firefox that people like Chrome far more than I can understand. I still have an open tab with the recent 'Setting up a Chromebook Development Laptop' article - that really sounds interesting.

But why would any single person in this world run chromeos on a machine that runs Windows 8? The very same machine already either runs Windows (if that's your eco system) or is powerful enough to run Linux. Why would you _ever_ run Chrome OS here?

Put differently: What's the whole point of Chrome OS, unless bundled with cheap/slow hardware, as a kind of Damn Small Linux, the Web 2.0 version?

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"What's the whole point of Chrome OS...?"

I don't get ChromeOS either. I find it completely unappealing. I'm guessing that Google realised that many computer users (perhaps the majority) spend most of their time in the web browser. Yet, to run a browser you need a complete desktop operating system. Perhaps Google considered this overkill and thought a browser-based operating system would make sense. Plus, as an internet company, they could integrate all their online apps and services into one seamless experience and gain even more users.

To me, the whole experience of using a browser-based OS like Chrome feels like a giant step backward, especially since you have to be signed in to a Google account to do anything. Want to set up your printer in Chrome OS? Yes, sign in first. Seriously, does that actually appeal to anyone? Plus, for your locally connected printer, you have to go through Google's cloud print service (and route all your print jobs through them).

As for their apps, they are too clunky and basic for many tasks (in my opinion). Take their word processor. You cannot even span a table cell (hardly an advanced function). Worperfect 5.0 could do this over 20 years ago. This is not progress.

It's not that users are spending most of their time in a browser, it's that browser technologies are quickly becoming an ubiquitous platform. The OS is not changing in a browser, the browser is changing in an OS.

The fact is many peope don't care about the word processor. The computer isn't an accounting and mail-printing device anymore. People buy phones and tablets, use iOS and android. ChromeOS is perfect for them.

The best thing that could happen to open source today would be to have an html5 desktop to replace gnome and friends for consumer devices.

An environment, which many already have installed, sync'd across devices with bookmarks, history, applications, and full integration into Google's services all within the same application. Even though I would probably not use it, I could see it being a simple solution for a lot of people. Just open chrome and that is all you need. It is a little hilarious actually since it is exactly what Microsoft was trying to achieve with Metro (or whatever they call it nowadays).

I see it as a way to get people into the ChromeOS ecosystem without having them jump in the deep end with a machine that can only run it. Consider you're a business ... you are already Google Apps users, your users spend most of their time in Google Apps. But not all of their time. There are still bespoke apps that only work in windows, a smattering of people that can't do without real PowerPoint or Photoshop or something.

Now you're going to purchase new laptops. For support you want to get the same thing for everybody. Are you going to get ChromeBooks? No, you can't. But could you get Win8 laptops and then rig them all to boot up straight to ChromeOS with a small escape hatch back to Windows land for those who really need it? Absolutely.

Of course, none of this flies just yet, but Google is all about skating to where the puck will be. So they are skating hard to this world where we are all more than satisfied to do everything in the cloud, and running anything locally seems a bit like changing your own engine oil or running a generator to make electricity would seem to us.

Because these days, most users spend 95% of their time in the browser. And most of the time spent outside could still be spent inside (using Word, playing games, etc). ChromeOS is not just something designed for cheap hardware, it's a new user paradigm that recognizes the current and future trends of the way people use computers.

From Google's point of view, so people can "switch" without figuring out how to reinstall an OS. The upgrade path from "Windows 8 machine with Chrome OS" to "Chrome OS machine" is very attractive, especially when so many users were left with a bad taste in their mouth after upgrading from 7.

Most users would do so without really understating what they were doing. As Google discovered through interviews on the street, most people don't understand what a browser is.

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