Lacros is gone, so Google should bring account switching to the ChromeOS browser

A few weeks ago, the disappointing news came down that Google was abandoning the experimental Lacros browser for ChromeOS and Chromebooks across the board. Never was this new, detached version of Chrome ever made completely official or taken out of experimental status, but that didn’t stop many users from using it daily and beginning to rely on specific parts of the Lacros equation: mainly account switching.

If you are new to all of this, let me quickly explain what Lacros even was. A few years back, Google decided it was time to separate the Chrome browser from the ChromeOS operating system. We knew it would be a massive task, and as the years wore on, it became increasingly clear just how difficult this would all become.

Still, the team pressed on, all the while maintaining that the goal of a detached browser for Chromebooks would mean easier updates, security patches, and bug fixes. After all, if the Chrome browser on a Chromebook was basically the same as its Windows, MacOS and Linux counterparts, that’s a far more efficient update process for everyone involved.

During Lacros’ development, news dropped about the new 4-week update cycles for ChromeOS and more recently, the fact that ChromeOS will be moving to the Android Linux Kernel over the next couple years. With these changes in place, the security issues will decrease and efficiency of updates will increase, leaving no real need to keep the Lacros project going. So it was scrapped.

Many users love account switching in Chrome

For the past year or so, flipping the flag to enable Lacros has been simple enough that a lot of users have started making it their daily driver. Sure, it was still an “experiment”, but it was one that had been in the works for so long by this point that it felt like an eventuality. Thus many began using it as such.

Now Google has killed it off, and as of ChromeOS 128, it will no longer be supported. This means all those folks who had begun relying on this new browser Google was openly working toward are left in the lurch with no way to replicate the main feature they wanted in the first place: account switching at the browser level.

I don’t use this feature, but I’ve also been a Chromebook-only guy for over a decade at this point, so my workflow simply never evolved to take advantage of it. But I totally see the utility in having multiple instances of Chrome available to you for different scenarios. Mainly, work versus personal stuff. Settings, history, and bookmarks are the biggest part of that whole benefit for users, and I suppose I’m left wondering why we can’t simply get this added to the ChromeOS version of Chrome, too.

If, at the end of the day, we were going to have Lacros and the account switching that came with it, why not simply add this option to Chrome on Chromebooks? I understand that ChromeOS allows for multiple accounts at the OS level, but switching back and forth between two different users isn’t a great workflow at all. Being able to switch instances of Chrome makes far more sense.

If Google can get this added, I think the disappointment from the loss of Lacros will largely be quelled. Truthfully, using Lacros felt no different than using the regular version of Chrome we’re all used to on a Chromebook, minus that one, main feature. I don’t see much reason it can’t be added, so I’m hopeful it will be at some point in the future. For now, however, I’m not sure what to tell all those folks that got invested in using Lacros come September 3rd. It’s going to be a tough transition for many.