But wait.  The Google Chrome OS may give that old PC a second life.  Google is claiming that the Google Chrome OS is being built to target the netbook monitor, but that should mean it should help infuse new energy into any old Pentium 4 PC running Windows XP or even Windows 2000. 

And that’s exactly what I’m planning on doing with an Windows XP system I recently built.  It has decent specs.  A Pentium 4 2.25 GHz Processor with 1 GB of RAM.  I originally purchased it around 2002, then put it into a closet when I bought a new Vista capable desktop.  Just recently, I dusted it off, reinstalled the operating system and put it into use in an office where I’m doing some contract work.  Two big things I’ve found out in the past month:

First, even Firefox tends to bog the machine down.  Sure I’ve got a lot of extensions running, but its pretty clear that much of today’s software wasn’t built with older processors in mind. 

Second, I’ve yet to install Microsoft Office on it.  It’s been a month and to be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it this far without having to cave in and load up Office.  In fact, the Office DVD is currently sitting within my eyesight.  Collecting dust on the corner of my desk.  Instead I’ve been easily getting by with Google Docs.

Go I’m fairly certain I can get by with GMail and Google Docs; Meebo.com for IM; Pandora, Hulu, and Netflix Watch Instantly for entertainment; and the other 500+ bookmarks in my browser. 

I’m with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch:

The Internet Is Everything. All the OS has to do is boot the damn computer, get me to a browser as fast as possible and then stay the hell out of the way.

I’ve agreed with that sentiment for a long time.  It’s one of the reason’s I pursued a career in web development.

Now, I disagree with the ridiculous statements that many blogs are making. The Google Chrome OS is not a stake to the heart of Microsoft’s business.  This is a very cool possible step forward for technology.  But not a groundbreaking move that will make a big dent in Microsoft’s OS business.  I think Fake Steve Jobs did a good job of keeping things in proper perspective.

You also may not have noticed, but nobody uses Chrome. I mean think about it. Do you know anyone who uses Chrome? Really?

Now Fake Steve’s post is rich in comedy and snark, but he’s right.  Mainstream America is not using Chrome simply as a browser.  There’s no way their going to flock to a Google Chrome Operating System.

But me?  I’ve got another reason to keep my old PC’s around. 

Yes, it loads super fast.  And that is definitely a welcome improvement from my beloved, but sometimes hated Mozilla Firefox.  Firefox currently takes almost a minute to boot up on my laptop.  True, this may be because of all the extensions I’ve got loaded into Firefox, but still a minute to load a web browser is a frustrating one when all my data is in the computing cloud and Firefox is keeping me from it.

I also like the idea of each browser tab having its own processing space.  Hate it when one crappy website takes down the 15 other tabs I’ve got running in Firefox.  The “Restore Session” feature of Firefox has helped back me from jumping off the top of a building on more than one occasion, but those occasions still exist where you can still find me thinking of taking the stairs to the roof.

The other thing I noticed about Chrome?  I really missed those Firefox extensions.  Especially the Gmail Notifier extension that tells alerts me to new messages in my various inboxes.  Even after 30 minutes I knew that without the ability to extend Chrome, it would be almost impossible for me to switch to it.  I’m sure community contributed Chrome evolutions will come in due time. 

Chrome’s not a bad browser, but…

In the end, I’m not sure I want yet another web browser in the marketplace.

What I’m most afraid of is that web development test plans will become that much more of a pain.  That Chrome will reach significant market share without putting a large enough dent in any other browser.  So what that means is just another browser that I have to plan for testing web sites on and possibly hack at so that it works in everything that people use.  For web site designers and developers, the best case scenario with Chrome is that IE 6 usage finally dies.   We can dream, right?

But what should John Q. Public do?

Remember, I’ve test driven Chrome for about 30 minutes.  But if you’re just looking for a basic web browser and you’re not into all the extensions that live in Firefox, then I  jumping onto Chrome just for the performance gains alone is worth consideration.  If you’re a web developer of power user, I don’t see any way you can abandon Firefox at this time.