Google prepares to rebrand ‘ChromeOS’ to give up space [Update: Live in Canary]

It looks like Google has decided to give up on the space altogether and rebrand its desktop operating system to “ChromeOS.”

update: With the changes visible in the pre-release builds of Chrome OS, Google has gone ahead with the rebrand.

For more than ten years now, Google and its affiliates have introduced laptops that run an operating system centered around the Google Chrome browser. Of course, these devices were called “Chromebooks”—all in one word. Meanwhile, the system they run on is officially “Chrome OS” – two words – although in some places it is referred to as “ChromeOS” (with a lowercase “c”).

Unsurprisingly, this has caused a bit of confusion, or at least inconsistency, in the Chrome OS community, with some including the space and others not. Now it seems that according to the newly posted code change, Google has decided to switch sides in this particular debate. While still a work-in-progress, Google turns nearly 1,000 instances of “Chrome OS” in the code—from text visible to Chromebook owners to internal comments only seen by developers—into “ChromeOS”.

According to the description listed, the purpose of these “branding changes” is to “unify” the name across the board. If nothing else, it could bring some much-needed stability, though it remains to be seen how long it will take for Google’s mixed documentation and official websites to switch completely to the new name. Another tweak happening at the same time is that the fully open source version of the Chromebook software will also drop space, a rebranding from “Chromium OS” to “ChromiumOS”.

Given the timing of the code change, it’s likely we won’t see this widespread rebranding of Chrome OS to “ChromeOS” until version 102 arrives in late May.

Update 4/29: Over the past few weeks, Google has continued to make progress on its “ChromeOS” rebrand, which includes breaking down the changes into a handful of smaller pieces. [1, 2, 3, 4] which has since been accepted. Somewhat humorously, Google refers to the rebranding effort as “Chrome No Space OS” or “chromenospaceos” in some places.

Also, on recent builds of ChromeOS Canary, you can effectively see the rebrand with generic instances of “Chrome OS” now showing up as “ChromeOS”. The latest version of Canary is based on version 103, which means we should see Google’s “re-integrated” ChromeOS branding for all Chromebooks no later than the end of June.

What do you think of this comprehensive but minor rebrand for Chromebooks? Do you prefer “Chrome OS” or “ChromeOS”? Tell us in the comment below.

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