The vast majority of people think that a laptop can only be Windows, unless you have a lot of money to spend on a Mac and unless you have a certain desire and time to experiment with a Linux system. Few still know, however, that there is a great alternative to replace the normal computer, the Chromebook, invented by Google, which uses Chrome OS, a modified version of the most used browser in the world as the operating system.
Switching to a Chromebook is that solution that allows you to spend little and still have a real computer capable of doing everything, as fast as the best Mac and much easier to use than a Windows PC.
Why spend still 500 or 800 Euros for a PC when you can buy a Chromebook at 200 or 300 Euros that works even better "> Acer Chromebook from 300 Euros, with 4 GB of RAM, NVIDIA Tegra processor, 32 GB SSD disk, screen 15-inch USB ports, HDMI and audio.
To make the move to a Chromebook easier, Google gives 150 GB of space on Google Drive for two years.
You then turn on the Chromebook the first time ( ignition is almost instantaneous for 8 seconds, ), you log in with a Google account and you can immediately start working by connecting to the internet and opening the desktop with a start menu where you can launch the applications that they are all based on the Chrome browser.
The Chromebook, at first, simply looks like the Chrome browser, which only seems to work if the computer is connected to the internet.
In reality it will be discovered that there are many applications designed for the Chromebook that also work offline when the computer is not connected to the internet.
So if you were worried about this, you should immediately dispel the myth of the Chromebook only online.
In addition, many of the applications open in a separate window, not inside the Chrome browser, but like programs running on Windows (to do so, click on the icon with the right key and then press on "Open as window").
For example, from the Start menu, you can search and start the calculator or the File application to browse the folders and files stored on the disk.
The first impact can also be traumatic, also because there is no possibility of installing those programs that you have been used to for years, such as the Notepad, Irfanview, Microsoft Office or Acrobat.
By opening the Chrome web Store, the site where the applications for Chrome are collected, it will be discovered that for each program there is an absolutely valid alternative, including also Microsoft Office .
You can therefore work comfortably to write documents, spreadsheets and presentations using Google Office applications or, if you must, also the Word, Excel and Powerpoint Online applications.
Google Office apps also work without internet connection.
As for the other programs, speaking of the most important ones, we have already seen in another article the 5 best Chrome Apps to replace PC programs .
There is therefore an excellent Notepad, a simple and complete photo editor, Skype and many other Chrome apps that also work offline .
Among these there is the Music Player and also Gmail, which works as a mail management program (not necessarily with Gmail.com address) and which also works without internet connection if you want to read the messages received.
In fact, for everything you do on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 you can find a perfect equivalent (or better) from the Chrome store.
READ ALSO: Cheats and Chromebook guide to work online and offline
The Chromebook's disk space is limited and made to keep only the most important documents.
Everything else can be saved in Google Drive or in Google Photos, Google Music or other cloud spaces such as Dropbox.
However, if you want to increase the disk space, you can always insert an additional memory card or connect an external hard disk.
However, the best feature of the Chromebook is its speed .
Even with 2GB of RAM, the computer never slows down and even by opening twenty tabs on the browser between websites and applications, there is absolutely no delay in execution, as is the case on some Windows PCs using the Chrome browser.
Another highly competitive aspect is security .
If it is true that a Mac is safer from viruses than a Windows PC, it is also true that no computer is more immune to malware than a Chromebook.
The Chromebook has internal verification to check that the Chrome operating system and the Linux kernel have not been tampered with.
If there were also some security problems, just do a quick system restore that cleans everything automatically, which even on a Mac you can't do.
The file system encryption system ensures that nothing and nobody can read any of the data stored on the local disk.
If then some friend or colleague wants to use our computer, we can use the access as a guest so that he cannot spy on what we have on the computer and, at the same time, guaranteeing this person that we ourselves will not know what he looked up internet, being the guest mode the equivalent of the private mode of the Chrome browser.
The Chromebook automatically downloads the latest security patches and updates without letting anyone know, therefore without ever having to worry.
Finally, the Chromebook requires almost no maintenance, there is no virus scan, there is no defragmentation, there is no junk files to clean up, there is no system settings to fix.
Basically, it turns on, is used, turns off everything without ever wasting time in other activities.
Not secondary is also the possibility of being able to easily install Linux Ubuntu on Chromebook .
If all this is not enough, I refer to the article on 10 reasons to buy a Chromebook PC to broaden the overview of everything that can be done with this particular computer.
