back to article Creaking Chromebooks getting Meltdown protection soon

Older Chromebook owners should keep an eye open for Chrome OS updates, because Google has announced they'll get Meltdown protection soon. The fix for the now-notorious speculative execution side-channel attack will arrive in Chrome OS 66. This went to the beta channel for Android last Friday (March 16). Older Chromebooks …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Creaking Chromebooks

    Nothing creaking about mine. 3 years old, used daily and as fast as the bay it was unboxed. A Chromebook isn't a Windows PC and doesn't suffer from any of its inherent problems.

    Anyone that owns one will know this, it's a total breath of fresh air from what you are used to on Windows, Mac, Linux.

    1. Anonymous Bullard
      Thumb Up

      Re: Creaking Chromebooks

      It's how a consumer computer should be.

      I got myse^W my wife one christmas before last. Zero problems, highly recommend them.

      Got the in-laws one last summer, haven't had a "tech support" call yet (compared to every other month, previously).

      1. TVU Silver badge

        Re: Creaking Chromebooks

        "Got the in-laws one last summer, haven't had a "tech support" call yet (compared to every other month, previously)"

        Let me guess, they were using versions of Windows?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Creaking Chromebooks NOT

      My family has had some Chromebooks for years now, just as fast as when new. 100% Reliable. Never looked back. Never think about updates, reboots, licenses, etc. Just do my stuff, and move on. Dont bother with Windows, Linux or Macbook anymore, dont even know where they are anymore.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Creaking Chromebooks NOT

        Like the previous commentards, I came here to post a "not creaking at all, simply works every time" message, but taking that to the next and obvious question, could a Chromebook operate in a "white collar productivity" sense?

        Ignoring the reasonable claim that white collar productivity is an oxymoron, and that heavy lifting still needs a fast processor and shed loads of both RAM and local storage, I'm thinking that the role I undertake in the office could be better done on a Chromebook than an expensive and complex W10 laptop. Even complex financial modelling should be a breeze for a Chromebook.

        Any experience or observations?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Creaking Chromebooks NOT

          Excellent question - really wish I could answer!

          Provided everything they do is web-based, yes. It's something we're moving towards, in time for the Win7 cut-off.

          (Microsoft have even optimised their Office Android apps for chromebooks)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Creaking Chromebooks NOT

            You can use all the Microsoft office Android apps on a Chromebook (as long as it's a recent ish one with Android support), which opens up huge potential, but really Chromebooks work best with web (and offline web) apps, so gsuite ideally

        2. Henry Hallan

          Re: Creaking Chromebooks NOT

          My Samsung Chromebook 2 (quad-core ARM) does typesetting (LaTEX) and cover art (Gimp) -- but I use Ubuntu with Crouton.

          Alternatively it'll do development work (C/GTK application) just fine.

          It also does it for 14 hours without a recharge.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Fix for speculative execution side-channel attack

    "The fix for the now-notorious speculative execution side-channel attack will arrive in Chrome OS 66"

    Wouldn't a cure for these types of 'speculative side-channel attacks' be to use obfuscated code that ran randomly chosen execution paths. Therefore any such attempt to extract information from the other pipline would return random garbage. But then again, what do I know, I don't work for a company with US$62.76 billion annual revenue.

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