ChromeOS Flex is a great operating system to install on old hardware for most people. An install off a USB drive took 3 mins. Power on to login screen take 11 secs and shutdowns 16 secs on my old Fujitsu 11th gen Intel laptop with 8GB RAM.

ChromeOS vs ChromeOS Flex

ChromeOS was designed to run on Chromebooks.

ChromeOS Flex is a lightweight, cloud-first operating system developed by Google that allows you to repurpose older PCs and Mac computers by converting them into Chromebook-like devices. It is designed to provide a fast, secure, and easy-to-manage environment, making it an excellent way to breathe new life into aging hardware that may no longer receive official support from its original operating system. While it offers most of the familiar benefits of standard ChromeOS—such as quick boot times, automatic background updates, and built-in security features—it is important to note that it lacks some features of native ChromeOS, such as Google Play Store support for Android apps and the same level of hardware-backed security verification.

Installing ChromeOS Flex

To install ChromeOS Flex, you will need a USB flash drive with at least 8GB of storage and a computer to prepare the installation media. The most straightforward method is to install the Chromebook Recovery Utility extension from the Chrome Web Store.

You may not be aware, but you can run Chrome extensions - not just Chromebook Recovery Utility - in Microsoft's Edge browser as well.

Once the extension is installed, open it, click "Get started," and select "Google ChromeOS Flex" from the list of models. After the tool creates the bootable USB drive, insert it into your target computer, restart the device, and access your system's boot menu (typically by pressing a function key like F12, F10, or Esc during startup) to boot from the USB. From there, you can follow the on-screen prompts to either test the OS in "live" mode or proceed with a permanent installation.

Installation speed will depend on your USB flash drive speed and the USB port speed. On an old Sandisk 15MB/s SD Card, I was able to install ChromeOS Flex in just 3 minutes.

ChromeOS Flex awesomeness

Microsoft 365 (M365) integration is so darn good with ChromeOS Flex. Google has done a better job with delivering the M365 "web apps" to the OS than Microsoft has on Windows. The UI is better with fewer sign-ins and OneDrive looks like it has always belonged on the system. WOW.

Learn more at https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/chrome-enterprise/5-ways-chromeos-uplevels-the-experience-for-microsoft-365

Minor limitations of using ChromeOS Flex

ChromeOS Flex does many things as well as the Windows installation preceding it. In the case of speed from power on, to getting to the login screen, it takes 11 seconds now, which is faster than on Windows 11. Unfortunately I did not time how long Windows 11 took, but it was probably 20+ seconds.

The biggest adjustments for me are not being able to:

  • use my face to login (Windows Hello) anymore.
  • use my fingerprint to login.
  • add a printer without Google access; could only add a scanner.

While most people will have Google access, if you are offline or Google is blocked for whatever reason, it's a bit frustrating you cannot add a printer because of that.

It was a pleasant surprise to find out that Google even included a scanner app in the OS. The app works well and is quite user-friendly. My only wish is it supported saving to TIFF format which offers higher image quality.

Chrome browser; missing key Edge features

While many of you may be used to Chrome, I have been using Edge, because it offers some really useful features to me. First is vertical tabs; Chrome has caught up now years after Edge offered them. Second is multiple user profiles, so you can store separate sets of bookmarks, etc. This is useful is you have a profile for work and a profile for personal use. In Edge you can even create a third profile, for school perhaps.

To workaround the lack of profile support in Chrome I had to install Edge via a lengthier process involving enabling Linux and downloading Linux:

Step 1: Enable Linux on your Chromebook

  1. Click the time in the bottom right corner to open your Settings (gear icon).
  2. On the left sidebar, click Advanced then Developers.
  3. Look for Linux development environment and click Turn on. Follow the on-screen prompts to set up your Linux environment (this may take a few minutes).

Step 2: Download the Edge Linux Installer

  1. Open Chrome and go to the official Microsoft Edge Download Page.
  2. Scroll down to find the Linux section.
  3. Choose the Linux (.deb) file format and click Accept and download.

Step 3: Install Edge

  1. Open the ChromeOS Files app and go to your Downloads folder.
  2. Find the downloaded .deb installer file (it’s usually named something like microsoft-edge-stable...).
  3. Right-click the file and select Install with Linux.
  4. Click Install in the pop-up window, and click OK to confirm.
  5. Once the installation is finished, open your launcher, find the Linux apps folder, and launch Microsoft Edge.

After Edge is installed

I can now do almost anything my Windows Edge can. The downside of running Edge on ChromeOS Flex is that it runs in a Linux container, which means more resources (CPU and memory) used.

If you're doing light browsing it's OK, but if you're a 15+ tab user like me you may run into more system slowdown if your system is like mine and only has 8GB RAM.

Would I recommend ChromeOS Flex?

I would only recommend extending the life of old hardware with it if you do not have the budget to buy new hardware.

While things may seem to work and not be any different to you, new hardware does can come with more hardware security. Ultimately though, no operating system is perfectly secure.

While ChromeOS Flex receives the exact same browser and core system CVE patches as dedicated Chromebooks, its vulnerability profile differs slightly due to the hardware and architecture, so I would not compare it directly with the perceived level of Chromebook security.

Hardware dependency

Many of the security protections in ChromeOS, such as verified boot and encrypted data at rest, rely on specialized hardware chips called a TPM (Trusted Platform Module). Because ChromeOS Flex is installed on aging PCs and Macs, its hardware-level security is heavily dependent on the capabilities of the host machine's motherboard. e.g. TPM 1.2 is available, and not TPM 2.0

Architectural difference

As ChromeOS Flex lacks Android app support (for now anyway), it is not susceptible to Android-container specific CVEs. In other words, this means ChromeOS Flex is not susceptible to many Android security vulnerabilities.