Not actually Google Chrome OS, but it may look something like this :)

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS,"

That is how Google broke the news that they are developing a brand new OS. Surprised? Well yes actually I am. It's a bold move for starters, diversifying into a market where Microsoft has had such a monopoly for many years. But then again Google have never shied away from bold moves, maybe at long last we can have a truly competitive OS market.

"Re-think what operating systems should be."

So what is it going to be/do? Well initial reports and speculation seem to point towards some sort of browser that sits above a cut down Linux kernel. So I wouldn't expect tons of propriety PC apps to work on it, Microsoft Office for example, but it's designed for a netbook/notebook not a desktop PC. That's not to say it wouldn't work well for some people on a Desktop and I'm sure Google will produce their own apps, they've shown in the past there pretty good at that (Google Docs/Gmail anybody?). Google Chrome OS is definitely aimed at targeting users who just want to boot up and logon to the net and interestingly Google are talking of boot up times in seconds not minutes.

Being web designers and developers what does this mean for us? Well in the grand scheme of web design and development, sat in Rochdale on a rainy day, not much, certainly not until we can get hold of it, but I would say it's safe bet that the chrome browser framework will be used extensively in the OS as well, so as long as we keep catering for Google Chrome all will be well.

We loathe Internet Explorer here at Sizzle. Not only is it insecure (i.e. you're more likely to get spyware or viruses), slow, and non-customisable, but the browser also has a history of being non-compliant with web standards. This means when we build a website using nice, neat, and well-structured code, Internet Explorer often fails to render it correctly, despite us doing nothing wrong. This means we have to resort to complicated hacks and time-consuming workarounds to get sites displaying properly.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, this wasn't too much of a problem. Websites were simple, uncomplicated affairs, and so displaying a site in a cross-compatible way was fairly easy. However, it's now 2009, and websites are often dynamic, graphical behemoths compared to their svelte, simple ancestors. Creating lean, adaptable code is the name of the game, and Internet Explorer's stubborn refusal to display such code correctly often significantly extends development time. And with almost 50% of web surfers using IE as a result of it being installed by default on every Windows PC, they're too big a crowd to ignore, much as we'd love to.

That's why we welcome today's 'Release Candidate' download of Internet Explorer 8. For the first time, Microsoft seem to have realised that progression is important, and that proper rendering of websites is essential to the development of the web as a globally-useful commodity, and so they've focused on standards compliance and proper rendering. While IE8 is still nowhere near as flexible as alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, or Chrome, it's an awful lot better than their previous editions.

We urge all of our clients, and every reader of this blog, to either update or switch browsers altogether. The more we can abandon the use of such antiquated browsers as IE7, 6 or the abysmal-but-somehow-still-in-use 5.5, the sooner the web can begin to evolve as it properly ought to!