It’s time to give your old Mac a new lease of life as a Chromebook.
With Chrome OS Flex, you can transform ageing PCs and Macs into Chromebooks “within minutes,” according to Google, which has revealed early access to the operating system.
Individuals, schools, and organisations may “simply test contemporary computing with cloud-based management” by downloading Chrome OS Flex, which the firm hopes will help reduce the amount of e-waste generated by outdated machines.
A bootable USB stick may be used to install Chrome OS Flex on an old Mac that can’t run macOS 12 Monterey and then you can test out Google’s cloud-first operating system. A direct quote from the site:
Here it is, the long-awaited free upgrade for all of your Windows and Mac computers.
In order to keep your computers up-to-date, safe, and quick at booting and managing updates in the background without slowing them down, consider installing Chrome OS Flex on them.
Due to its use of the same code base and inclusion of the Google Assistant, the Chrome browser, and Nearby Sharing, Chrome OS Flex, according to Google, has the same look and feel as the Chrome OS provided with every Chromebook. There is presently no Google Play Store, and Google has stated various system-level restrictions of OS Flex that separate it from Chrome OS on native Google devices. However,
After Google purchased the startup Neverware, which developed a software called CloudReady for converting outdated PCs into Chrome OS computers, Chrome OS Flex was born.
When Chrome OS Flex is ready, Google says it will automatically migrate CloudReady home, education, and corporate customers to it. Schools and organisations utilising CloudReady will continue to pay a fee and a subscription rate even if OS Flex is free to people.
On the Chrome Enterprise website, you can learn more about Chrome OS Flex and download it for free. Although the OS may be loaded from a USB stick if you don’t want to make a long-term commitment to installing it, there may be some issues. The operating system is scheduled to be released in the next several months.