Just like we reported earlier this week, Google has released the source code for their new operating system made specifically for netbooks, Chrome. They made a few interesting announcements at their press event today and one was that it will be around a year before Chrome is available to consumers.
If you’re a programmer though you can download it here, but there are no beta releases ready. Another interesting note was that every application built into the OS will be web based, which will make it light, fast and responsive. That is assuming you have a good internet connection, but you can’t really do anything on your netbook without one anyway.
You won’t be able to go buy or download Chrome when it comes out, instead it will be offered only on specific devices and will come pre-loaded. So if you want Chrome you’ll have to buy a Chrome device.
Chrome OS netbooks will not have traditional hard disk drives, but will rely on non-volatile flash memory and internet-based storage for saving all of your data. Another interesting fact is that users won’t even have to bother with anti-virus software: Google claims it will monitor code to prevent malicious activity in Chrome OS web apps.
Oh and did we mention that the boot time will be around 7 seconds? Not too shabby.
It will be interesting to see what these netbooks will ultimately be like when they come out.
