ChromeOS Flex now generally available to more PCs and Macs

Today Google announced in a blog post that starting next week, ChromeOS Flex will graduate from its early access period to becoming generally available to over 400 certified devices. This is a major feat considering its humble beginnings just five months ago when it supported a much smaller subset of devices, and the version of ChromeOS it shipped with ran on the Developer channel.

Thomas Riedl, Director of Product, Enterprise and Education, shared the good news by revealing that during the early access stage, user feedback was considered, and over 600 reported issues were addressed and resolved. Additionally, while squashing bugs, they continued to certify more and more devices to effectively run ChromeOS Flex properly and bring the platform to scale. Riedl said:

Today, we’re excited to announce that ChromeOS Flex, the cloud-first, easy-to-manage, and fast operating system for PCs and Macs, is now ready for your fleet. Just like too much sun, software bloat, clunky hardware, and security vulnerabilities can cause unwanted damage. Thankfully, ChromeOS Flex is just the sunscreen your legacy devices need.

Thomas Riedl, Director of Product, Enterprise and Education

One ChromeOS Flex success story that continues to surface is the story of how Nordic Choice Hotels were able to recover from a ransomware attack that nearly shut down their daily operations by quickly replacing the operating system on the compromised devices with ChromeOS Flex. This allowed them to get 2,000 computers back online in under 48 hours. Not only did this conversion save their company financially, but it will also help them achieve peak sustainability by saving them 1.5 million kilos of CO2 over the next eight years, which will, in turn, lessen their impact on the environment.

ChromeOS Flex promises the same enhanced security and protection from ransomware, malware, and employee errors as regular ChromeOS while allowing all types of users – from enterprises to sole proprietors – to leverage old hardware that would normally be disposed of. This can all be done with a USB drive and an optional Chrome Enterprise Upgrade to easily deploy software en masse.

Google states that you can try it even if your device is not on the updated certified models list. However, do exercise caution and run it first directly from the USB and not via a full install as we did here. Otherwise, if your older device is on the list and you want to breathe some new life into it, you can try out ChromeOS Flex from this link.