Google is taking its time splitting Chrome from ChromeOS, and I’m glad

It’s pretty hard to believe, but we’ve been talking about Lacros – the new Chrome browser that will be split away from the ChromeOS operating system – since September of 2020. I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me, but I just took a look and our first post about Lacros was on September 11th, 2020. And that is pretty wild.

We thought over and over again over the years that Lacros would finally arrive, and yet here we sit in the earliest stages of 2024 with the Chrome browser still firmly attached to ChromeOS at its roots. Though moves were made in August of 2023 to really start pushing the wider availability of Lacros, as of ChromeOS 119 that launched not long ago, we’re still waiting on its official arrival. And I think that’s a very good thing.

Google rushes a lot of things

In the past, I’ve seen many examples of Google rushing things to market before they were ready. In the ChromeOS ecosystem, the most glaring example of this is the Pixel Slate and the ill-fated ChromeOS 70’s new tablet UI. The whole thing was a catastrophic mess and the overall timing of both completely tanked what could have been a successful, well-made Chromebook tablet.

But that’s one of many examples of Google shipping Beta products to general consumers before really taking the time to fix up all the issues that could come along. Between this and Google’s propensity to kill off services left and right, it makes me far more grateful these days to see them take a more measured approach to launching such a big, important change to Chromebooks.

Lacros needs to be right on day one

With Lacros, the implications are too big for mediocrity. If you consider all the ways that Chromebooks rely on the Chrome browser, you quickly gather how important this transition will be when it happens. For system settings, PWAs, account handling, and more, Chromebooks deeply integrate with the existing version of the Chrome browser for all of it. Breaking this functionality would, in essence, mean breaking the very underpinning of every Chromebook in use.

And that’s why it has taken so long to pull this off. When you think about all the different ways Google has to unbind the Chrome browser from ChromeOS, you begin to understand why this entire project is so complex. And with all that complexity comes long timelines. When you do things the right way, that’s just the way it goes.

And this is how it needs to be. I frankly don’t care if it takes another year for Lacros to ship: Google must get this right the first time. Small bugs here or there will be fine, but they simply cannot afford the big ones. When you think of all the schools and enterprise outlets that rely on ChromeOS to work the right way, an update that borks everything simply cannot happen. And that’s to say nothing of the millions of consumers out there (like me) that rely on their Chromebooks to work properly for all sorts of things.

So, Google: take your sweet time on this one. Maybe roll out a very public beta test that’s easy to enroll in and get real world feedback a few months before launch from real users across all verticals and see how things are working. Those of us that have been keeping track of Lacros and the eventual detachment of Chrome from ChromeOS will gladly wait for it to be completely, utterly perfect. We’ve held out this long, and too much is riding on this one to force it on users too early.