[andrewmutz]

I use Chrome OS daily to do my job and I think it is fantastic. IMO it is the ultimate work machine for your average knowledge worker.

At my company, all the software that we use is web-based (SaaS), with the exception of software engineers, who are using local tools to develop web based applications.

For non-engineers, the OS provides an extremely simple client to use to do their job. The OS is a slightly better web browsing experience than the Mac, and since all you need to do your job is a browser, it works great. The OS presents your google drive cleanly as a local filesystem, so you can even avoid any local storage completely. The OS is security-first, and is far more resistant to malware than a Mac or Windows machine.

For engineers, you get all of the above and a well functioning linux distribution on which you can build software. Since everything we deploy is on linux, it's closer to our production environment than the mac.

The best part of the experience is how the cloud oriented nature of the OS lets me treat my laptops like cattle rather than pets. If you lose your device, just grab another one. All your stuff is up in the cloud. Strange bug? just power wash the machine and start over.

I also think that journalists or hobbyists may have a hard time appreciating the OS. Yes, it is terrible at things like video editing, games, audio editing, etc. But for a work machine in an enterprise environment, it's fantastic.

[zouhair]

I don't think relying on a third party and especially one that is as fickle as Google to do the most basic workload is a sound idea.

I won't be surprised if Google kills Chrome OS in the near future, as they killed a lot of stuff already[0].

I don't trust Google anymore.

[0]: https://killedbygoogle.com/

[kbenson]

While Google hasn't been the best at supporting products (and support in general), I always find statements like this with sites like that distasteful, as they leave out a lot of context that mitigates how bad it is. Sure, Google is EOLing Hangouts, but they provide a replacement. Sure, they've turned down a lot of products (like reader), but many (possibly most of the very large number presented on that site) were beta products.

I clearly remember telling people that asked me about whether they should worry about it saying beta on some Google product I had recommended that Google always leaves stuff in beta for years and not to worry. Well, now we all know better. I'm not happy about it, but I don't feel like I can blame them for that either. They were pretty up-front about services being beta in most cases.

[ghaff]

And, as far as Chrome OS specifically is concerned...Yes, I'd be more than annoyed if they pulled support for my new PixelBook in anything less than a reasonable support window.

But my use of Chrome OS creates far less lock-in for me than most products. Other than my hardware investment--which I don't expect to last forever--I could basically switch to anything else with a browser next week basically without skipping a beat.

[Ygg2]

Here is the thing. Google has one primary source of revenue. Ad tech. If Ad tech fails, all their other sources of revenue won't be able to pay for their other services, so the fear they'll cut them is warranted.

Disclaimer I use Google services, but I'm definitely looking for alternatives.

[ac29]

> Here is the thing. Google has one primary source of revenue. Ad tech.

This is changing though - the most recent quarterly report has YTD ad revenues as 84% of overall revenues, with the corresponding previous year's period at 86%. The non-ad revenues are in the tens of billions of dollars - hardly nothing.

https://abc.xyz/investor/

[andrewmutz]

If your other preferred client is the Mac, you have the same challenge with Apple. Their entire mac product line is only 10% of their revenue.

[awinder]

Do google developers get issued chromebooks these days? Either way, there’s a large scale difference in the amount of money (because Apple makes more money than google in addition to 10% being 4x the 2.5% of revenue google is devoting to chromebooks). On top of that, Mac revenue is eaten into by iOS device revenue, which is a pretty close product category. Much closer than ads, at least.

[mattzito]

Yes, they do. The default machine you get is a pixelbook, that’s true of basically everyone at Google. You can request a Mac, which is what I did, but I later also got a pixelbook and found that I quite like it.

Literally the only thing keeping me from using it as my primary work machine is that it only supports one chrome browser profile per login, so I can’t be logged into my work account at an OS level and my work and personal accounts at the chrome level. But I went and paid out of pocket for a pixelbook for home because I thought it was a great all around home laptop.

(Disclaimer: I work at google, but not on chromeos or hardware, this is just my personal experience )

[afshin]

It isn't the same challenge because Apple doesn't sell Macs at a loss.

[d1zzy]

Are you saying that Google sells Chrome OS at a loss?

[m-p-3]

They do make a substantial amount of money with G Suite subscriptions, and they're bound to SLAs.

[lazylizard]

I on the other hand avoid vendor lockin like the plague and self host open source applications where i can.

But as long as you can install another linux on a chromebook(i once bought a refurbished x131e for less than $100,upped the ram to 8gb, put a seagate sshd hybrid in it and dual booted windows10 + ubuntu on it. Its just like any other laptop except no function keys) there's really no issue here..

[StudentStuff]

Google EOLed Chromebooks that were sold 3 years ago, they do not give a crap about maintaining a stable ecosystem.

These 3 year old Chromebooks don't even get Chrome security patches, you would literally be better off with any other laptop when it comes to security.

[gowld]

Beta means prerelease testing, not EOL.

[kbenson]

Beta means not meant for general use/production, and all that implies about people being upset about beta products being diacontinued.

I was covering two distinct cases, one where Google discontinues a production product, and generally they have a different product to migrate to, and one where Google discontinues a beta peoduct, where it seems they usually don't care if you were reliant on it.

Beta does mean prerelease testing, and while it implies they are moving towards a release, there's no guarantee implied or otherwise that a release is forthcoming.

[gowld]

And non beta is no guarantee that a product won't be discontinued.

[brunoTbear]

This is a confusing and boring take.

A) You have to trust third parties.

B) It's boring to point out what Google has killed. But when you look at that list there's nothing as substantial as ChromeOS.

Finally, ChromeOS is incredibly widely used internally, and is a revenue generating product in the Chromebook family sold to enterprises alongside Cloud products. It is not an area where Google is going to capitulate or kill without a sufficiently long runway and carefully considered EOL plan.

Disclosure: am Googler. Am tired of half-considered takes on Google.

[Analemma_]

> But when you look at that list there's nothing as substantial as ChromeOS.

Google+ got way, way more investment than ChromeOS and was considered a top priority at the C-level. Still killed.

[gowld]

The context of this thread is Enterprise, where G+ was not killed.

[signal11]

In the enterprise context, I guess the Google Search Appliance would be a good example.

Before you say "it wasn't widely used" -- that's probably why it was killed. Google customers who use a product that doesn't lead its market and/or make megabucks should be worried.

We know there are other products that are failing to gain traction in the marketplace -- like GCP. While I'm not saying GCP will meet Search Appliance's fate, it has already been reported[1] that there will be financial consequences if GCP is unable to get a #2 position in the cloud marketplace by 2023.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21815260

[heavenlyblue]

What’s the margin vs Google’s ad business?

[xorcist]

There not much relying involved. It's not like Android, which is considerably less useful without the Googley bits. It's just a regular Linux desktop with Chrome pre-installed.

Even if Google would kill all of Chrome in its entirety you could still run other software on it. You would lose secure boot but that's about it. It's more like a PC than an embedded system.

[stiray]

Exactly. I am running android with microg without any google software installed. I cope with it, I had to reverse and patch banking software as it was using "safety net" but it works perfectly with few smali gotos added. If you take chrome os you have installed spyware as an os.

Sorry, maybe "I have nothing to hide as a person, but as a bussiness I have plenty to hide.

Or just avoid Adobe scenario (I live in EU): https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20904030/adobe-venezuela-...

[gowld]

What Enterprise spyware is in ChromeOS/GSuite?

[theamk]

But there is no lock-in there.

If Chrome OS is dead, we switch to regular Linux|MacOS|Windows laptop running Chrome. It is more annoying and less secure, but all the software still runs.

And Chrome-the-browser is pretty unlikely to be killed.

[takeda]

> https://killedbygoogle.com/

Looks like they are missing DejaNews / Google Groups (it started as an index /browser to Usenet, but was transformed as a tool for mailing lists)

[pier25]

> I won't be surprised if Google kills Chrome OS in the near future

I think both Chrome OS and Android will be replaced by Fuchsia at some point. Native apps will be written in Dart/Flutter and they will also support web Chrome apps like Chrome OS does today.

[dontblink]

Honestly this trope is tiring. FUD.

[steego]

You might be tired of it, but what it underscores is that Google has developed a reputation for creating experiments and killing them off when they no longer serves Google's purpose. It reminds Google's users that they're not customers, but proverbial farm animals whose attention is being auctioned off to advertisers.

I get why they need to kill off products. I took a few minutes to look through https://killedbygoogle.com/ and there are a lot of fleeting, gimmicky things on that list that should have never been released in the first place.

Google has an image problem with this. By releasing all these unfocused products into the wild, they've signaled that they will create unfocused products and kill off the ones that aren't hugely successful.

Now when they launch a new idea, people are no longer excited, but legitimately suspicious. When Google launched Allo and Duo at the same time (while Hangouts still existed), it sent a clear message that they really didn't care about product management and continuity or communicating to their users. They would rather be the ADD company that built 3 competing things and measure usage than to nurture and improve already successful products.

People don't like having the rug pulled out from under them and the repetition of this trope will continue to echo so long as it resonates with readers. Even if it's FUD, this is a big problem for Google.

I don't think Chrome OS will be on this list anytime soon, but if something shinier comes around, can you honestly tell me Google won't drop Chrome OS for the shinier thing?

[gowld]

Enterprise products are not ad financed.

[hylaride]

FUD is exactly what it is, with good reason given Google’s habits with “poorly” performing products lately. Mind you, in chromeOS’s case it’s easy to go back to a regular computer.

[zouhair]

How is it FUD? They literally keep killing years old projects. A lot of those project had a lot of regular users that added them to their workload for years just for Google to scrap them with no alternative.

How one can trust them is beyond me.

Then there is horror stories like this one[0]

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWaz7ofl5wQ

[Spooky23]

That’s a really lazy argument.

The entire business world relys on a third party product (Microsoft Windows) whose business model has already changed and has already mostly killed its once flagship product (perpetually licensed windows).

Google writes contracts for chrome enterprise support that are 5-7 years long, so it’s unlikely they would just make the product go poof.

[StudentStuff]

The enterprise support contracts state that the EOL date is the one listed publicly: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

This means the Thinkpad X131e had under 3 years of support if you bought it brand new like many school districts did in 2015.

[arthurfm]

> This means the ThinkPad X131e had under 3 years of support if you bought it brand new like many school districts did in 2015.

The ThinkPad X131e Chromebook was originally released in February 2013 [1] and has received five years of Chrome OS updates from Google. From March 2017 onwards, new Chrome OS devices receive 6.5 years of support [2] and in November 2019 many received a further year of support on top of that [3] so the update situation is a lot better than it was.

School districts purchasing X131e Chromebooks would have known at the time of purchase that they would stop receiving updates in February 2018 [4]. Being two plus years into their lifecycle is not really Google's fault. The districts need to do better due diligence.

As you mentioned, EOL dates for all Chrome OS devices are published in an article on Google's website [5]. To get the most life out of a particular Chromebook model it needs to purchased as close to launch day as possible. That's what I always try to do when purchasing Chromebooks where I work.

It's also worth mentioning that the X131e is supported by Neverware's CloudReady until 2025 [6] so the Chromebooks don't have to be thrown away when Google stops supporting them.

[1] http://www.notebookreview.com/news/lenovo-releases-thinkpad-...

[2] https://chromeunboxed.com/googles-end-of-life-policy-for-chr...

[3] https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/11/05/google-gives-most-c...

[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20151120005811/https://support.g...

[5] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

[6] https://guide.neverware.com/supported-devices/#LenovoThinkpa...

[gowld]

Due Diligence == Not buying ChromeOS.

My 2011 Windows desktop runs Win 10 and drivers just fine.

2012 Macs work fine with Catalina.

[Spooky23]

If you buy old stuff late in the lifecycle you’ll have that problem.

This issue exists with Windows as well. PC OEMs will only commit to a few years of driver support. I have a few thousand PCs that are 2018 purchases that will not be eligible for the next major branch of Windows 10 and will need to be replaced by mid 2021.

[m-p-3]

Considering how much the education sector uses Chromebook for their students (a big market they managed to capture early), I doubt they'd pull the plug on ChromeOS out of the blue without a long heads-up.

[vidarh]

That's an issue for the web services, not Chrome OS, given that the appeal of Chrome OS is not installing apps or keeping data locally.

You can switch to 'anything' running Chrome as a replacement.

[hurricanetc]

I’m more concerned that ChromeOS is essentially a spyware operating system.

[gowld]

How so, for GSuite?

[stiray]

Well as a work machine in enterprise environment you want to have data under your own control and Google not even fails to deliver, but it is increasing security risk for your data (corporate espionage on USA government level is just one thing that comes to my mind). I have shown this post to a few security guys and they had quite a good laugh. I personally wouldn't use it even if it was free. But I don't live or work in states, maybe google is ok for USA companies.

[watermelon0]

Now more than ever, businesses are moving everything to the cloud. Unless you are big enough to afford sysadmins, netsec and other knowledgeable personnel, your data is safer at big cloud providers, than in your own hands.

Even if you have all that at your disposal, it's probably still safer (and more reliable) there, unless:

  a) you actually have to worry about espionage from Google and various governments,
  b) you cannot legally use them (I think some health/financial data under GDPR cannot be hosted outside of the EU), or
  c) you are doing something illegal.

GSuite and GCP are ISO/SOC/HIPAA/etc. compliant, so if there is a breach on their side, you are legally covered.

Not necessarily my opinion on cloud vs self-hosting, but it makes sense from a business perspective.

[reaperducer]

I love your pets vs. cattle analogy. I hope I remember that. But I think this is key:

But for a work machine in an enterprise environment, it's fantastic

You're using it as a thin client, and that's great; it works for you. But outside of a controlled environment, ChromeOS becomes less and less useful, especially as connectivity deteriorates or becomes less predictable.

To continue with your analogy — the pets will find their way home. Once the cattle are off the ranch, they're gone.

[tracker1]

If you have a network connection, https and sound logins, I'm not sure how it's less useful outside the controlled environment?

[tonyarkles]

> especially as connectivity deteriorates or becomes less predictable

That's exactly the situation I have for about half of my computing: if I'm not at my home office, I'm either at a coffee shop, on-site with a client, or at one of my rural properties. In all three cases, who knows what I'm going to have as far as reliable Internet goes? With Windows/OSX/Linux, the majority of things will work with spotty Internet (although that too is sadly becoming less true over time)

[gimboland]

More on where "pets vs cattle" comes from: http://cloudscaling.com/blog/cloud-computing/the-history-of-...

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> Yes, it is terrible at things like video editing, games, audio editing, etc. But for a work machine in an enterprise environment, it's fantastic.

Unless it runs Excel, that seems unlikely to apply to the enterprise in general.

[andrewmutz]

Microsoft Excel has a web-based version and Google Sheets is pretty good. So unless your enterprise needs spreadsheet features that those don't have, it's fine.

[freeone3000]

Which are: VSTO plugins, pivot tables, equation editing, database connectivity, import-from-file, document protection, ... The list goes on. Excel on web is not at feature parity with Excel on desktop.

[derefr]

The real answer that already exists to "having a thin client with native Excel" is to stand up a Windows Server instance with Excel installed and a Citrix gateway, and have your thin clients connect to it. My bank does it.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

The kinds of people who rely on Excel to do their job assure me that Google Sheets is not even remotely sufficient and the web-based Excel isn't quite there either.

[tracker1]

The Office 365's Excel online is pretty usable. I'm on Linux at home, so use it quite a bit... there's a couple sheets I have to use and interact with others on.

[ghaff]

I increasingly travel with a ChromeBook. There's very little on my MacBook that I have to run locally and I find that GSuite works pretty well offline. (And that's where a lot of my files would be even if I were carrying a full laptop.)

Yes, ChromeBooks make you somewhat more dependent on networks. But, truth be told, I'm not getting a lot done other than reading or maybe writing if I don't have a network connection anyway whatever device I'm carrying.

There's not much I do day-to-day on my laptop that requires anything other than a browser.

[signal11]

I have a Chromebook myself and the situation is much less rosy than you describe. It's not all bad, and I'd definitely like to continue to use a Chromebook as a secondary system if possible. But I'd also hate it if it was my only machine. I'd also shrug my shoulders if I could no longer use a Chromebook, e.g. if it was discontinued.

A big issue with ChromeOS is its only browser, Chrome. Google has repeatedly demonstrated it's willing to put its ad-tech interests ahead of user demands (reader mode, good adblocking).

Yes, you can enable Linux support and install Firefox. A very small number of ChromeOS users will do so, if they're even allowed to. Note that Linux support is beta and comes with a lot of known issues. For organizations that support Linux, there are better routes to getting Linux into their engineers' hands.

The cloud-oriented nature of the laptop is sort of secondary. Dumb terminals have always had a place in the enterprise, for so-called 'tethered' users. It's entirely unsurprising that Chromebooks are similarly popular, they're better designed than most dumb terminals, and the BeyondCorp (zero-trust) approach to security is a good one.

> journalists or hobbyists may have a hard time appreciating the OS

While there are scenarios (e.g. travel) where Chromebook may be useful for journalists, journalists who need to keep their sources secret would be particularly ill-served by Chromebooks. People who're working on stuff that competes with Google (or indeed Microsoft, as Office 365 also works on Chromebook via web/Android), may also worry.

In short, if you're a 'tethered' user at work and could conceivably use a Wyse thin client, Chromebooks are great and probably superior to most other dumb terminals.

[ckrailo]

I have to respectfully disagree on the "well-functioning" adjective attached to their linux container system. Comparing Windows 10 WSL Ubuntu (default), Termux on a Pixel phone, and Debian (default) on a Pixel Slate... the slate is the worst. It renders text worse than the pixel phone and has about as much runtime capability as Termux on Android. Windows 10 WSL2 is going to be even better.

Every OS can be treated like cattle now. Games are in the cloud (Steam), package managers exist for every OS (homebrew, linuxbrew, chocolate) and installed-software manifests can be backed up to GitHub. It took Google years to add basic backup to its Linux system, and if you've customized the text settings for the console then ChromeOS is still not like cattle and you will have more setup to do.

(Termux is a phenomenal project. So glad it exists.)

[lowdose]

I second this 100%. But this needs to be advocated more. Yesterday on a trending ask HN question how to prevent technology scams for family members I recommended a chromebook. But every negative windows os comment gets downvoted so hard that it left me 0 points at the bottom.

Ask HN How do you protect your parents against tech scammers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934736

My answer:

> Give them a chromebook. No virus scanner or firewall needed. It's 2020 and the "Personal Computer" paradigm is past its expiration date. Want to keep hobbying with Windows and manage your "PC" like a pet, good luck with that! Hardware should be managed like cattle with a cloud native setup if you ask me. Racehorse owners loose 90 cent on every dollar invested, cowboys fly helicopters.

[stevenwliao]

There's a direct link at the "x days ago" timestamp:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21935330

[gamblor956]

I upgraded my mom to Windows 10 last year, with automatic updates, and she hasn't had any computer issues since then.

As a bonus, I don't have to worry about whether Google's ambivalence will eventually make the computer useless.

[zelly]

> lets me treat my laptops like cattle rather than pets. If you lose your device, just grab another one. All your stuff is up in the cloud. Strange bug? just power wash the machine and start over.

This is my argument for

- Nix or Guix as my main package manager

- having daily backups--encrypted and stored off-site

I don't want to rent my right to use a computer.

[derefr]

> At my company, all the software that we use is web-based (SaaS), with the exception of software engineers, who are using local tools to develop web based applications.

And interestingly, Google has a clear "complementary solution" to ChromeOS for software-engineering use cases: Google Cloud Shell (https://cloud.google.com/shell/docs/), which gives you a "personal POSIX environment as web-app."

I feel like ChromeOS and GCP have an obvious idiomatic relationship to them, sort of like Windows and Azure do.

[terminaljunkid]

I feel if google had brought android to desktop, with terminal and all, it would be a good developer experience and also nice for normal user. There's sandboxing, it requires less and less maintenance than other OSes and UI is quite intuitive. Plus all the google integration.

Sure some of people here do not like google integration. But in a practical world, it solves many problems to normal people.

And android the OS is really better than what people seem to think.

[3xblah]

"All your stuff is up in the cloud."

What happens if the knowledge worker loses their connection to the "cloud".

[c_s_guy]

As in a temporary loss? It's been a while since I've used this, but I believe some of those services support an "Offline Mode". Not perfect, but it's something.

[dbbk]

If I had no internet connection at my job at a tech startup I could literally do nothing.

[brunoTbear]

ChromeOS has offline support for docs editing. Everywhere, even airplanes, have reliable wifi these days. Connections to the cloud are only becoming more reliable. Your take is FUD and old.

[jiofih]

Is Google Drive faster in Chromebooks? The web version makes me want to rip my hair out.