With Google's Chrome OS, There's No Need for Your Personal Computer's Hard Drive

Would you live inside a browser window all day and night? Well, Google (News - Alert) is making major improvements enhancing its software. Users have the ability of doing a whole host of things like downloading or saving files via the browser. With that said, Google has developed Chrome OS, an operating system for laptops that does just about everything inside a browser window.

Google has already planned Chrome OS laptops from Asus and Samsung (News - Alert) due down the pipe line (later this year) that will be lightweight, low-maintenance and, most of all, inexpensive. To test Chrome OS, Google has a prototype-laptop floating around called the Cr-48. The Cr-48 boots up Google’s Chrome browser in seven seconds, and reawakens instantly from sleep. What’s cool about the Cr-48 is it has no disk drive because the Chrome OS operating system is only sixteen gigabytes, it weighs less than four pounds and runs silent and blows cool.

Here are some Chrome OS features:

Chrome Web Store full of apps that install inside its browser (Many are free). Some even work without a live Internet connection.

Email Services. Use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo for e-mail.

Microsoft (News - Alert) Office. Edit and review Microsoft Office files on the company’s Office Live site, or switch to Google Docs (which should work offline by the time Chrome laptops are available).

Finances. Manage your personal finances on Mint.

Photos. Edit and store photos with the free Aviary Photo Editor app.

Music. Build your music library on Grooveshark, Pandora or one of many other apps.

Phone calls. Make phone calls using Skype (News - Alert) or Google Talk.

When it comes to uploading and downloading personal files you can plug a disk or thumb drive into the Cr-48’s USB jack, or pop in an SD card. With HP planning to sell printers this year that will let a Chrome laptop print directly, there will be really no flaws on performing general task. Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt, has said the target price range will be $300 to $400 (for a model).With such a competitive price planned, Google has its sights set on being very consumer friendly.