Old Chromebooks can soon be safely used again?

Lacros offers the solution, or the disconnection of the Chrome internet browser from ChromeOS. This way you can safely continue to use old Chromebooks.

A Chromebook was supported for up to eight years last year. At the end of 2023, Google announced that Chromebook models launched from 2019 onwards can count on ten years of security updates. Do you have a Chromebook that is no longer supported? Then you have a problem today. No ChromeOS updates also means no more Chrome updates, which makes the internet browser very vulnerable to hackers.

Google now wants to address this with the launch of ‘Lacros’ shortly before Linux and Chrome OS. Within Lacros, Chrome runs as a separate internet browser in ChromeOS. The main advantage of this is that Chrome will then receive security updates separately, as is now done on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Linking Chrome to ChromeOS reduces the risk of continuing to work on a Chromebook that no longer receives security updates. ChromeOS remains a risk, but Chrome will remain up to date in the future. Additional benefit: switching profiles in Chrome no longer requires you to log out of ChromeOS.

In the Canary test version of ChromeOS, the most experimental variant, Lacros was suddenly the default version in ChromeOS version 124. In ChromeOS 125 everything was normal again, without Lacros, within Canary.

Google wants to make the transition seamless and barely communicates about the evolution. Suddenly the day will come when it works. Until then, we don’t recommend using old Chromebooks long past their “expiration” date.

Do you have a device at home or at the office that no longer receives updates? It is unlikely that it will support Lacros, since it no longer receives ChromeOS updates. Maybe, it’s up to Google to surprise us. For devices that have 2024 as the last year of support, we believe there is a good chance that a ChromeOS update with Lacros will be feasible this year.

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