Browser Based Operating Systems

Imagine sitting down at any computer connected to the world wide web, entering the URL of your operating system provider, and logging into your desktop. This is a reality, even though no major companies have produced a solution to rival smaller companies' versions of this product. As such, many if not all of these online operating systems are free to use.

Once you've signed up and logged into your virtual desktop, there are many things that you can do. You have a virtual hard drive to save files and install new programs that work with the virtual operating system. An operating system without storage wouldn't be of much use, so the creators of these various systems allow their free users a certain amount of space to store their files.

After signing up for a few of these operating systems, I noticed their similarities and differences. The majority of them sport a mp3 or media player, third party support of an online document service such as Google Docs, as well as their own browser. Yes that's right, browser in browser browsing.

The concept of loading a browser inside a browser seems like a bit much to me, since the browsers offered by these operating systems are functional, but not up to par with IE or Firefox. If the browser based operating system was running locally on a computer, then perhaps browser in browser would make more sense. For the time being, this is a weak feature of online operating systems.

The ability to login to your desktop from any computer connected to the internet is a very strong feature. While your storage space is limited now, in the future if a company offered an online operating system with a traditional amount of storage space, this would be a very powerful tool. Also the usage of online office solutions such as Google Docs is on the rise. These two types of applicatoins go hand in hand, providing the computing environment of a productive desktop computer without having to purchase an expensive operating system or office suite.

The only real feature of a true operating system that the online versions have not created yet is the ability to play 3D games. Unfortunately, you cannot login to your virtual desktop and install your favorite third person shooter or mmorpg. Perhaps in the future, we will be able to.

The browser based operating systems are a bigger hit on Linux machines, even though they are usable no matter what type of computer you own. No matter whether you browse the net on a Mac, Windows, or Linux machine, you can view your browser based operating system.

One down side to the online operating system is security. If someone figured out your username and password, they would also have access to your account from any computer with an internet connection. This would be a hackers heaven, as they would be much more difficult to trace or catch. One thing is for certain; if you create an account to use an online operating system and store sensitive material on your account, be sure to have a sturdy password and never be fooled into handing over that password.

I am not sure if browser based operating systems will be a big hit at some point in the future, but the concept is interesting. I do think we will see Google and competitors in their market continue to produce online products one after the other, moving away from expensive software suites.