But what’s so special about Chrome OS? The Google blog mentions three aspects that distinguish it from other operating systems:

First, it’s all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

This means that Chrome OS is storing all data in the cloud. Many web applications handle data in this fashion already, think about Gmail, blogs or photo hosting websites for example. Privacy advocates on the other hand might find this problematic depending on the privacy and security regulations.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we’re going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys. If you dig security, read the Chrome OS Security Overview or watch the video.

Chrome OS implements some security features like sandboxing to secure the operating system and data from taking harm. The operating system is also checking its code on every startup to verify the integrity. Would be interesting to know how this affects boot time. Most of this is already available in today’s operating systems or by using third party software like Sandboxie.

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.

This does sound interesting but there are already other options to boot a computer in a significantly lower time than today’s average (a Phoenix bios showcased a much faster boot time a few months ago).

It will nevertheless be interesting how this turns out. According to the blog posts first consumer releases can be expected at the end of 2010. Here is a short – well done – video about Chrome OS.

What’s your first impression of Chrome OS?

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Google Chrome OS is basically Google Chrome running inside a new windowing system and Linux kernel that is compatible with both x86 and ARM chips. Applications for it can be written using web technologies which has the advantage that they are also working in other standard web browsers even if they run on operating systems like Microsoft Windows, Linux or Mac.

On the differences between Android and Google Chrome OS:

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

The operating system will obviously require an Internet connection to work. Even if many web applications can be run locally there is still the need to run some that cannot. That’s a bummer for users with no Internet connection and those with slow Internet connections. What happens if the Internet connection becomes unavailable. Google will have to answer many questions like these in the near future.

What’s your opinion on the matter? via Google Blog