Google has
started rolling out tab syncing officially for the Chrome browser. For the uninitiated
tab syncing allows you to recover whatever tabs you have open on one computer
on another computer. To use it you first have to have the latest version of
chrome installed on the computers you use. Then you have to sign in to your Google
account in the browser and enable syncing. I've been using this feature on my
tablet since the beta came out and it is a true game changer.
When I
wrote last year that your next computer was going to be the cloud I broke out
the corporate advantage of cloud computing. The idea being that for security
purposes cloud computing chrome books have a substantial appeal. This is particularly
true if you factor in the ability for corporations to disable access to
proprietary information offline. Still for the average consumer the benefits of
cloud computing are less tangible. Google is trying to change that and this
latest update is just another example.
What Chrome
syncing does is allow for something Microsoft has been struggling to achieve
for years, a persistent work environment. For years Microsoft has tried to make
it easy for users to move from different computers and retain the same
environment. In the corporate environment they have achieved this but it
requires servers and quite frankly a fairly competent IT department to pull it
off well. This is not exactly in the budget of the average consumer. Windows 8
is promising to allow you to transport your desktop on a thumb drive, which is
better, but I lose thumb drives, and I imagine I'll have to sync the thumb
drive every time before I take it with me. The potential for this to be more
frustrating than useful seems high despite the legitimately good engineering
behind it.
By using
the cloud and your web browser, Google has done an end run around both
Microsoft and Apple. I could already carry my documents with me from one
computer to the next through Google docs (now Google Drive), and not too long
ago they allowed me to sync bookmarks, and chrome extensions which at this
point are as good as many desktop applications. Now with tab syncing even my
browser sessions are remembered from computer to computer, mac or pc. In a very
real way if you wanted to you could right now make chrome your OS, and
exclusively use the web browser for everything from watching Netflix to making AutoCAD
drawings and have the same experience no matter what computer you picked up.
Google
still has a way to go. Right now logging in to a chrome browser syncs
information (such as bookmarks and extensions) permanently on to machines, even
after logging out. This makes using it on a computer that is not your own less than
ideal. In addition extensions still have a long way to go before they truly
replace a full featured desktop program. Finally chrome has become available on
android (ice cream sandwich only right now) and rumors are they are in the process
of getting approved for IOS, but currently it doesn't support extensions and it
will be a feat of brilliance if does anytime soon. That said, Google is playing
the long game and this one step closer to a truly new kind of computer.
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