ChromeOS

ChromeOS (sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS) is a proprietary operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS operating system (which itself is derived from Gentoo Linux), and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface. Google announced the project in July 2009, initially describing it as an operating system where applications and user data would reside in the cloud. ChromeOS was used primarily to run web applications. The operating system first shipped with Chromebooks in 2011. It is also offered since 2020 as an installable Linux distribution as ChromeOS Flex. ChromeOS supports progressive web applications, Android apps from Google Play and Linux applications. In 2025, Google announced that ChromeOS would merge with their mobile Android operating system as part of a new project which uses the Android system instead of the old "vanilla" Linux kernel based on Gentoo.