Google OS gOS - if at first you don't succeed...

Google Piggyback

I suppose the only semblance of hope this company has is piggybacking on Google's name. gOS is technically shorthand for “Good OS,” and there is even a disclaimer on the bottom of their page that they are in no way affiliated with Google or their partners. Said disclaimer is in small text that is very close to the background in color, just the type of thing that will shut the lawyers up. But the rest of their website screams 'THIS IS A GOOGLE PRODUCT."

Google.com is the web page shown in the screenshot of Cloud, along with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheet, YouTube, and Blogger in the dock. The homepage has a slideshow presentation hosted on Google Docs. There's a Google custom search bar at the bottom of every page. The company blog is hosted on Blogspot.com, just as Google's official blogs are. There's a page advertising "gOS 3 Gadgets" which runs Google Gadgets on your Linux desktop. The company uses Google Groups to run their support forums.

But no, this software product is distributed by Good OS, LLC, and they want you to be very clear on that. So clear, in fact, that they put screenshots of the OS displaying Yahoo and MSN Search in their slideshow - behind the Google screenshot, of course.

You can't blame them for trying (though you can blame them for failing). I had previously talked trash on using the browser as an “OS” from a technical perspective on my personal blog because the application stack sucks. These guys heeded my words and slimmed the stack down quite a bit. In fact, they even pillaged the images that I spent countless hours creating in their slideshow:

A browser-based OS is a shitty idea from every perspective: technical, usability, and business. Fortunately, the justice of fail is swift. ®

Ted Dziuba is a co-founder at Milo.com You can read his regular Reg column, Fail and You, every other Monday.