The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 15)

This is just a quick run down of the Pros and Cons of Chromium OS (Chrome OS included) vs Windows 7.

Chromium OS vs Windows 7

Chromium OS Pros

• A lightweight OS that uses minimal system resources with plenty of HDD space left for Downloaded files.


• Easy to try out without installing, and easy to install if you decide to try it out properly.


• Doesn't need any Hardware Drivers as everything just works.


• All your Apps sync when you have to restore your Chromebook as they're web apps.


• Chromium OS is cheap as it's freely available, and official Chromebooks aren't that expensive.


• Easy to maintain as it just updates when a newer version is available (Chrome OS on Chromebooks only)


• Lightweight Laptops with long battery life.


• Boots up & Shutsdown fast.


• Sleek modern looking UI.

Windows 7 Pros

• More powerful OS.


• Plenty of specialist Programs.


• Works on a wide range of hardware.


• Can function just as easily Offline as it does Online.

Chromium OS Cons

• Works to its full potential Online, but has some limited Offline functionality.


• Not guaranteed to work 100% on all hardware.


• Only has a limited number of Offline capable Apps.


• Don't get as longer Battery life on regular PC's has you do on Chromebooks.


• Not guaranteed to get updates as it's down to the people who build Chromium OS to post an updated build.

Windows 7 Cons

• Close to reaching End Of Life, and virtually impossible to get hold of.


• Resource Hungary.


• Takes up a lot of HDD space.


• Prone to Viruses and Malware.


• Needs time to maintain as not all updates install automatically.


• Heavy and bulky Laptops with poor battery life.


• Slow Boot time even on Windows 8/8.1 & slow to Shutdown.


• Clunky UI.

Conclusion

Chromebooks are worth considering if you're in the market for an Ultra Portable lightweight Laptop with plenty of battery life as long as you don't need any specialist Programs or need to do masses of work Offline, as long as you can live with doing limited Offline work in Google Drive or have a Mobile Phone with Tethering or a portable WiFi hotspot for when you're not near a public WiFi Hotspot.

Star  Rating

Chromium OS/Chrome OS: 9.5/10

The lack of Offline Apps is the only drawback of Chromium OS/Chrome OS but other than that it does exactly what it says.

Windows: 4.5/10

The resource hungry nature of Windows combined with the potential for viruses and Malware and the lack of 100% automatic updating without some user intervention is a major drawback.

I've found one issue with running Chromium OS on my Toshiba Laptop in that the sound card doesn't seem to be compatible meaning I don't get any sound out of the speakers, also Flash Player seems to be broken meaning that YouTube videos don't play (I've not added these issues to the cons list as it could just be due to the particular sound chip set used in my Laptop isn't on the compatible list, and the Flash Player issue won't be present in a Chromebook running official Chrome OS built and supported by Google).

Other than the two little niggles with Chromium OS on my Toshiba Laptop it does everything that I need and boots up faster as well as shutsdown faster than Windows.

I'll definitely be sticking with Chromium OS for the rest of the remaining two weeks doing this experiment and into the future until I can get an official Chromebook.

Roland

Next        Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 14)

After spending two weeks living in Chrome I've decided to go one step further and install Chromium OS on My Toshiba Laptop.

Chromium OS

Chromium OS is the open source version of Chrome OS. Chromium OS isn't as polished as Chrome OS and isn't guaranteed to run properly on your hardware compared to buying a Chromebook.

Getting & installing Chromium OS

I Googled Installing Chrome OS Onto A Laptop and came across this handy little tutorial that also then gave me links to where to get the software required to install Chromium OS.

I then downloaded the latest build of Chromium OS from the 20th of April 2013 from here and followed the instructions for Windows and downloaded Image Writer for Windows from here and wrote the Chromium OS image to a 4GB Sandisk USB stick.

I then downloaded Plop Boot Manager from here and burnt it to a blank CD if I was unable to boot from USB.

Installing Chromium OS

The first thing that I did was boot my Laptop from USB and try out Chromium OS without installing to make sure that the WiFi Card worked. I then re-booted back to Windows and did a backup of my pictures and downloaded files.

I then booted back into Chromium OS from USB and once logged in I:

pressed Ctrl+Alt+T to bring up the command prompt

Typed install followed by pressing Enter

when asked for a password i entered facepunch

Chromium OS then Installed, I then followed the prompt to re-boot and remove the USB Stick.

Setting up Chromium OS

I then selected my language, Keyboard layout & WiFi Network, entered my WiFi password and was presented with a standard Google Login/Signup prompt. I then logged into my Google Account, set the correct Time zone and waited for all my Chrome apps & bookmarks to sync.

Initial impressions

Chromium OS is a lightweight OS compared to the likes of Windows, Linux & Mac OSX, the 1TB drive in my Laptop has 908.2GB of free space remaining compared to the just over 800GB of free space that I'd got free when I was running Windows or Linux.

Roland

Next            Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 13: Halfway There)

After living in Chrome for two weeks I'm finding it increasingly harder to switch back to using traditional Windows programs.

Since I've lived in Chrome for two weeks I've become more productive as everything I do is within a web browser any way I can't see the point in using traditional programs.

I can see why people are finding it hard to switch to Cloud Computing when for a long time the norm for an Internet Connection  was a slow 56k Dial-up connection that was knocked out when someone accidentally picked up the phone, but with always on Broadband over a phone-line or a cable Broadband Connections more common  it paves the way for lighter power friendly Ultrabooks.

I'm going to slowly upload all my none Program Installers up to my Google Drive and possibly my Microsoft SkyDrive as well creating more space on my 1TB HDD for my Google Drive & Microsoft SkyDrive Offline cache.

Halfway there conclusion

To wrap up my two weeks of living in Chrome. I like the idea of Chromebooks as they suit my needs. All I need to do now is finish off this 1 month experiment, & probably keep living in Chrome until I've got the money together to get a Chromebook.

Roland

Next            Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 12)

After some searching on the Chrome Store I found a Chrome Extension called Save to Google Drive that allows you to take Screen shots in Chrome and directly Upload them to Google Drive.

[caption id="attachment_1595" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Save to Google Drive, a handy screen capture Chrome Extension[/caption]

I've managed to only take 1 screen shot using Save to Google Drive of my blog stats screen using the WordPress Chrome web app.

[caption id="attachment_1596" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Screen shot taken using Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension[/caption]

I've come across one little annoyance with this Extension though, as it seems to have issues taking screen shots of Chrome windows, but yet it has no trouble with Chrome web apps. I don't know if this is a bug in Save to Google Drive o down to the fact that I'm using a Canary build of Google Chrome, and as I've now only got Chrome Canary installed and not got the regular stable build of Chrome installed as well I'm no longer able to check if it's a problem caused by Canary or just a bug.

[caption id="attachment_1597" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Save to Google Drive bug[/caption]

If I had a Chromebook to hand I'd be able to check the Save to Google Drive functionality from within Chrome OS, so it's probably worth me keeping the Extension again when I've got a Chromebook to test it out on.

Roland

Next           Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 11)

For anyone thinking that the lock screen in Chrome Canary locks out Chrome altogether, it only locks out the  browser window that you initially locked and new browser windows and Chrome web apps can be opened.

[caption id="attachment_1586" align="aligncenter" width="585"] The Lock screen in Chrome Canary Build can easily be bypassed by opening a new browser window[/caption]

Roland

Next            Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 10)

Since starting this experiment I've switched to the Google Chrome Canary channel, the builds in the Canary channel are seriously cutting edge and can be considered an Alpha build, if you want something more stable than thee Canary channel then a full list of all the channels from Canary up to Stable can be found here.

[caption id="attachment_1571" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Chrome Canary Build 34.0.1769.2 canary[/caption]

How to make Windows 7 look more like Chrome OS using Google Chrome Canary

To make Windows 7 look more like Chrome OS while using a Canary build of Chrome you need to edit the hidden Chrome flags, editing the Chrome flags is as simple as enabling or disabling different options. Chrome flags enable experimental features so can break Chrome, especially when you combine them with using a Canary Build of Chrome.

[caption id="attachment_1572" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Chrome Flags Screen[/caption]

The flag that needs enabling is:

• chrome://flags


• Enable new profile management system


• Relaunch Chrome

Once set you'll have a drop down menu just to the left of the Window buttons o  the right hand side of the screen. Login to your Google account and your name appears in on the menu and you get a few other options when you open the menu

[caption id="attachment_1573" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Chrome OS Style User Menu[/caption]

When you select lock it locks your open Chrome session and brings up a Chrome OS style login screen.

[caption id="attachment_1574" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Chrome OS style Login screen[/caption]

This is a cool feature to have especially in a Coffee shop as you can lock your browser while you go for a refill, but other than that it's purely a cosmetic feature for anyone trying to get a Chrome OS style going on as the underlying Windows 7 Desktop is still unlocked.

Making Windows 8/8.1 look like Chrome OS

If you use Windows 8/8.1 you can easily have the Chrome OS feel just by using the Google Chrome Beta Channel version of Chrome as in Modern UI mode Chrome mimics the Chrome OS Desktop.

[caption id="attachment_1575" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Chrome OS Mode of Chrome Beta in Windows 8 Modern UI Mode[/caption]

Roland

Next            Previous

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 9)

Today's post will be a short little update as I've not had much time to write a proper one today.

I've not spent much time in Chrome today as I've mostly been Gaming as well as out of the house visiting family, so not had a great deal of time to computing, but my time within Chrome is going well as I've not ventured into any Windows applications to get things done other than Gaming.

One good thing about using Chrome for everything is that I don't need to install the Printer Driver for my Kodak esp 1.2 AIO WiFi Printer as it's got Google Cloud Print built-in meaning that I can just Print from within Chrome, this is a good thing as I never got round to installing the Printer Driver when I reverted back to using Windows 7 Ultimate from Ubuntu 13.10.

Roland

Next       Previous