Google announced that its Web browser-based operating system Chrome OS will go to market in one year. It will be free and targeted mainly at netbooks.

Google have also open-sourced the code this week and its open to developer community to test and customize it. The product manager also added that OS will run only on Google certified hardware.

Chrome OS is different approach to computing.  Since an average computer user spends most of his or her time on the Internet, so Google wants to cut out the middlemen: the traditional operating system, which sits between a computer’s hardware and a Web browser.

Chrome OS is a operating system that is a Web browser – or a Web browser that is an operating system. Essentially, it is Google’s current browser, Chrome, bulked-up with systems for browsing files, connecting devices, printing documents and keeping the computer secure.

The operating system is designed only for using the Internet. Google is taking advantage of the fact that, these days, just about anything can be done on the Web.

They believe that in ‘ Chrome OS, every application is a Web application,  and there are no desktop applications.’ If anyone wanna do stuff like video-editing, playing high graphic games, developing an enterprise application , would need traditional OS like Windows or Mac. The chrome OS majorly meant for Web browsing, a role largely filled by netbooks.

In case if you are wondering where the data will be stored, Google plans to make use of solid state memory, flash drives for the time being and plans to store data online, or in the cloud.

“We’ve really gone, with Chrome OS, and cut out all of the intermediate processes we can,” said Matt Papkipos, the Chrome OS engineering director.

And that makes it faster. Way faster.

“We want Chrome OS to be blazingly fast,” Pichai said. “We want it to be like a TV – turn it on and it’s booted up.”

To turn Chrome, the browser, into Chrome OS, the operating system, Google had to include ways for users to easily access files and applications like they would with Windows or Mac OSX.

Chrome OS includes stationary application tabs, located above the browser window, for frequently used apps. A file browser organizes local and Web-hosted documents, which can be opened up in the appropriate Web-based applications.

For example, opening an Excel spreadsheet brings up Microsoft Excel Web App, which is currently in technical preview with the other Office Web Apps.

“It turns out, Microsoft just came out with a killer app for Chrome OS,” Pichai said to laughter from the audience.

Any media temporarily stored on a computer’s local drive, such as photos, will sync with Google’s online services. This storage cache also allows a computer to play media or run applications that don’t require Internet access.

“I think we are going to go through a paradigm shift in computing,” Pichai said, “which is what we’re excited about.”

Chrome OS is unlikely to make traditional operating systems, such as Microsoft’s Windows, obsolete. But it could decrease demand. Chrome OS is designed for only Web use on a secondary computer – though that secondary computer might be the one on which a user spends the most time.

Watch the video ! What is Google Chrome OS?

Tags | Chrome OS, google