Google says Chrome OS on Android was, sadly, just a fun proof of concept
Earlier this week, we broke the news on an exciting new Google project that we uncovered: Ferrochrome. Ferrochrome is a special build of Chromium OS, the open source version of Chrome OS, that’s designed to run in a virtual machine alongside Android. In essence, this project would let you run Chrome OS on Android devices. We even managed to get it running on an actual Pixel phone! Sadly, Google confirmed to me that this project was basically just a fun proof of concept.
For a bit of context, I reported earlier this week that Google demonstrated Chromium OS running in a virtual machine on a Pixel 8 at a “privately held event.” This “privately held event”, from what I was told, was a conference where Google showed off the latest capabilities of the Android platform to its closest Android partner companies. At the event, Google talked about the latest virtualization features in Android 15, and they capped things off by showing a demo of a Pixel 8 projecting Chromium OS onto an external monitor.
Given the context of the event and how this project was shown off, I suspected it was possible that Google merely used the Pixel 8 as a test bed for Android 15’s virtualization capabilities and that they had no intention of ever shipping Chrome OS on any of their own devices. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what seems to have happened.
