Clues to Chrome OS lie within the browser

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The bonnet

What about under the hood, though? Speed is the cornerstone of Google’s ambitions with Chrome, and the same is true with Chrome OS.

It’s the streamlining of essential functions under the bonnet that do the damage to waiting times, and while Chrome the browser isn’t always as zippy as Google would like to believe, it really isn’t for the want of trying - that’s why we’re getting a regular pattern of updates, which will also follow with Chrome OS we’d wager.

The early demos suggest that Chrome OS is having far more success, with lightning fast cold start up times, and it system footprint appears minimal. But it’s in day-to-day operation too where the work should most notably pay off.

The Chrome browser is basically embarking on a mission to harness the hardware power of a PC – with features such as GPU access and multicore support – and apply it to web applications too.

These web applications currently have limited features, simply because there’s only so much technology by their nature they’re able to get access to. Chrome’s development is focusing on fixing that problem.

As you’d expect, Chrome OS is a vital part of the that jigsaw. And if Google’s vision of us all using web applications is to hold, then the current gap between such software and the full breadth of hardware power has to be closed up.

That said, most users of Chrome will be unaware that Google is even trying to do that, but then that’s just the way the firm likes it. It wants to present surprisingly complex applications with a very simple face, and to put across an image as a friendly company that’s a genuine alternative in the new markets it’s exploring.

Ethos

While it’s the visual clues that most closely tie Chrome and Chrome OS together – and the name itself is a big giveaway – it’s the ethos underpinning them that’s the key. They understandably go hand in hand.

Google wants them both to work, with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of speed. Given that it’s still a way from achieving that goal with Chrome, in spite of the inroads it’s made and keeps making, then it’s a mission that will keep it busy for some time yet.

But by wrapping both products up in similar-coloured clothing, and by keeping the front end as fast and furious as it can, Google is cutting both Chrome and Chrome OS from similar cloth.

As such, when new updates are applies to the Chrome browser, you can bet that somewhere along the line, there’s some kind of parallel with Google’s operating system project too.

Click here for our review of Google's Chrome OS.

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