I downloaded Google’s Chrome OS today and tried it out using VMWare Fusion. I wasn’t anticipating much, but what I saw didn’t come close to meeting my expectations. From what I had read, I knew it was just an operating system with a browser, but I figured that meant there was something else built in that no one was talking about, but no, it is really just a browser. I am confused why anyone would use the free Chrome OS on a computer when they could use Linux, also a free operating system. You could run Google’s Chrome browser in Linux if you really wanted and then have everything Chrome OS has and more.

You do have a network-enabled login, which means once you log in to the computer, you are automatically logged into your Google account. But that was the only special feature I came across.

Clearly I downloaded a preview version and they still have work left to do before they release it for wide adoption. I hope that they add a few more features that make it feel like a operating system. Something like Apple’s Dashboard would allow you to get information quickly and could still be based on the OS’s core rendering engine, Webkit.

Ultimately I was expecting something more like Jolicloud and Chrome OS fell short. It will be interesting to see which direction this OS takes, but I am hoping they add something besides just the browser that it is currently.