Chromebooks

A Chromebook is a laptop running the Linux-based Chrome OS as its operating system. The devices were originally designed to be used primarily while connected to the Internet, with most applications and data utilizing Cloud technology. The original Chromebook was an example of a thin client^[1][2][
The first Chromebooks for sale, by Acer Inc. and Samsung, bgan shipping on June 15, 2011.^[4] In addition to laptop models, a desktop version, called a Chromebox, was introduced in May 2012, and an “all-in-one” device was introduced in January 2014, by LG Electronics.

Chromebooks are primarily sold both directly from Google and from the company’s retail partners. By 2012, schools had become the largest category of customer. That October, Google broadened its marketing strategy to include first-time computer users and households seeking an additional computer.

In October 2012, Simon Phipps, writing in InfoWorld, said, “The Chromebook line is probably the most successful Linux desktop/laptop computer we’ve seen to date”.^[5] From January to November 2013, 1.76 million Chromebooks were sold in US business-to-business channels.^[6] ABI Research (and others) have shown them most popular in the US K–12 education market (and growing elsewhere, at least, in Western Europe) and “anticipates Chromebooks to continue to dominate the education market in 2016”.^[7]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation states that Chromebooks are still spying on students without consent from their parents, two years since a formal complaint was made against Google.^[8]