Geek with an Attitude

In the great Microsoft-Google wars of the 00′s-01′s, I am mostly a Google supporter because while both giant corporate behemoths are hit or miss, Google’s misses don’t cost me money.  Also, they seem less evil.  So why can’t I get behind the Google product that aims for the very heart of most of my complaints against Microsoft?  Why can’t I picture a world free of viruses, Windows Activation, and upgrade mafias?

I’m writing, of course, about Google Chrome OS, which Google debuted to much fanfare and question-marks last week.  They’re seeking to redefine what an operating system is, and by that I mean they’re trying to turn an operating system into a browser.  Or is it browser into an operating system?  In either case, it seems like they’re cutting off their nose to spite their face, so to speak.  Only this time, their nose is the ability of desktop computers to, you know, compute stuff (their face is Windows 7 in this analogy…I realize it’s not a very good one.  Sorry).

For those of you who don’t know, Chrome OS is the new Google OS for netbooks (smaller laptops) that is nothing but the Google Chrome browser and whatever web apps you can find with it.  There is no desktop, no applications besides the browser, and no functionality besides surfing the web.  Yes, you can do a lot on the web these days, but do you want to be solely dependent on the internet to use your computer?  Let’s say you want to type something.  Process some words.  Make a document.  With Chrome OS, you would have to go on the web, pull up something like Google Docs (which explains why Google designed it this way), create the document, save in on Google’s servers, and export it to a format (like Word’s .doc format) if you want to use it in real life someday.  Except exporting to Word from Google Docs doesn’t work very well, so your document either stays on the web or gets messed up.  If you want to show your document to your grandma, who doesn’t have internet access, you have to either drive over to her with the actual netbook so she can view it in Google Docs; or, print it out like a neanderthal.  Now, you would have had to do that anyway with a traditional computer, except you could have taken the document over to her on a jump drive because you would have composed it in Word like a normal person.  But you don’t have Word.  You have a browser.

While Chrome OS is an OS in the traditional sense (meaning, the “software that runs the computer and defines how all the other software on the computer runs”), it’s less a platform than an artificial restriction on what you can do with your hardware.  It would be like getting an OS that turns your computer into a giant Speak-And-Spell.  While that would solve most of your computer problems, so would hitting your computer with a sledgehammer.

What I think will happen is manufacturers will work with Google to design ultra-cheap netbooks (sub-$100) with bare-minimum functionality, and put the Chrome OS on those.  They’ll be like giant phones you can’t use to call anybody, or giant iPod Touches with no app store.  Some people will like these because they worship Google, some will like them because they’re cheap, some will like them because they live in Europe and they’ll want to be cool in front of their Euro friends.  And I’ll fly over there and be like, “Don’t you get it?  It’s just a browser!  You bought a computer and received nothing but a free web browser!  And that browser isn’t even Firefox!  Look, you’re still seeing ads!  Look, those ads are crashing your cheap video card!  Well, at least it reboots in seven seconds, right?”

As always, nobody will listen to me.  Will Chrome OS change the way we think about computing?  Man, I hope not.