AfterDawn: News

Chrome OS will be able to run PC apps

Until this week, the answer to whether the upcoming Chrome OS could run Windows apps was "no."

The Chrome OS is completely in "the cloud," so all apps had to be accessed through the Chrome Web browser, and installed and "saved" to the Chrome OS.



This week, however, Google software engineer Gary Kačmarčík has announced "Chromoting", a feature that will give users a chance to access "legacy PC applications" through a remote desktop connection process.

Says the engineer: "We're adding new capabilities all the time. With this functionality (unofficially named "chromoting"), Chrome OS will not only be great platform for running modern web apps, but will also enable you to access legacy PC applications right within the browser. We'll have more details to share on chromoting in the coming month."

While that leaves details on Chromoting scant, most believe that the process will be a sharing function that will require a home/office computer to be kept on, while the Chrome OS computer uses remote access.

We will keep you updated.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 Jun 2010 19:32

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• 6 comments

• LeeMathews

  Your title is a little on the sensational side -- and a little on the wrong side.
  
  Chrome isn't going to be able to run Windows apps. It's going to be able to handle RDP/vnc/remote terminal sessions -- like hundreds of existing thin client and remote computing solutions do.
  
  And the details really aren't all that scant. It's in the Chromium source code right now if you want to check it out.

  12.6.2010 20:16 #1

• Josipher

  well,then i guess i hope what "most people believe" is wrong

  12.6.2010 22:30 #2

• MrPuffin

  i personally don't really like chrome os
  
  like android on a phone awesome put it on a laptop eh
  same with the chrome system it's just like a webbrowser on a computer and if you don't have 3g you will have to stay at home for wifi or a coffee shop
  
  just doesn't seem general user friendly to me
  more so the people who travel alot and always have a 3g data connection
  
  i have chrome installed on vmware fusion And it's Just Eh to me nothing with an awe factor
  

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  12.6.2010 23:21 #3

• TheAdvisor (unverified)

  I don't like Chrome OS i Don't like any OS !
  
  They give me trouble. I don't like Trouble.
  
  Here your OS givin you trouble ?
  
  Well sock it one nothin like a good dose of zero fill!
  
  Available at all participating drive utilities.

  13.6.2010 05:34 #4

• xnonsuchx

  Yeah, who wrote that totally misleading article title? Remote desktop IS NOT "run(ning) PC apps" in any sense. It's VIEWING them being run on another computer.

  13.6.2010 22:07 #5

• oappi

  PC!=Windows so maybe it is not OS independent...
  
  I wonder how much it would really cost google to add virtualmachine to chrome os and give same amout of space they give to gmail users? (of course ppl who want to use windows would have to buy a copy of windows)

  14.6.2010 08:00 #6