It is not locked, after it stops receiving software updates it is considered outdated and not supported with software provider contracts by schools in the US. Now it’s a very costly vendor lock in. It’s unlikely that a third world country will be able to efficiently repurpose them, where are better alternatives.
Luckily, most Chromebooks come with unlockable bootloaders. That's not really the problem.
I worked at a coding after-school program. We had a bunch of Chromebooks which worked fine, but were no longer receiving security updates. Since all coding teachers need to be moderately technical people, I briefly considered installing some lightweight Linux distro.
I then immediately discarded the idea, because I was absolutely not going to install Linux by hand on upwards of 30 Chromebooks, plus deal with supporting them in the future.
A real school would have much more than 30 Chromebooks. Admittedly they might also have a dedicated IT staff for a project like this, but I bet it's still more economical to just replace the computers. (Which doesn't necessarily mean they can afford either of these things.)
Good point—I didn't actually get that far into the idea. It would still be a ton of manual work, however. Even just the bootloader unlock, while not overly difficult, would be laborious on 30 computers.
Windows and Macs have much longer support for OS updated, after which Chrome and other browsers still will receive updates for many years
Second the student testing software/services that schools are required to use is only certified for ChromeBooks that are officially supported by Google.
Once the units are no longer supported for testing, they have almost no value to schools even if the are otherwise still fully functional
> Second the student testing software/services that schools are required to use is only certified for ChromeBooks that are officially supported by Google
Well, that's just dumb. Does the policy apply to Macs and PCs as well?
I don't really think the education system has anyone but themselves to blame for that then. It's their policy that's the problem, and they who failed to consider its sustainability when they implemented it. I realise I'm grouping a hell of a lot of people and layers together in one collective noun, but it's certainly more reasonable than blaming Google because you just assumed a device would be supported forever
Perhaps it was not entirely altruistic of Google to get into the K12 Education market to begin with.
Consider that kids who grow up are often inclined to choose computers (or whatever they used in school) as a familiar thing that they have experience and skills with. For example, introducing me to Unix in college cemented my career as a sysadmin, and I eagerly ran Minix/BSD/Linux at home at the first opportunity.
So if Google could earn itself some brand recognition and some product-based goodwill from young students by furnishing a Chromebook for everyone to play/work on for their formative years, I think it's a win that doesn't even need them to calculate the backlash from rapidly-obsolete eWaste in the future.
I mean I hate Chromebook, or more like any crappy Laptop Which is what 99% of Chromebooks are. But
> Google imposes expiration dates, even if the hardware still works.
The article doesn't even say what does it mean by expiration. The link [1] which expiration points to talks about Auto Update Expiration.
> “I hit the update button and found out it couldn’t update,” Mr. Nielsen said.
Well yes. That is like every MacBook or Windows 8 - 10 Laptop etc. Software update isn't free. Your iPhone dont get infinite iOS update, the same with Android.
So what exactly is the expiration, which the submitted article takes about, it turns out as listed in the second article [1] it meant,
> Immediately after a Chromebook’s expiration date, you won’t experience much of a difference. In fact, you’ll likely be able to use the device normally for months. But some sites might start to act funny.
It turns out Chrome inside Chromebook don't get updated like the original browser. So Chrome ( browsers ) may get outdated. And some shitty website will act funny. How the heck is that a Chromebook expiration? You could install Firefox on your Chromebook and it would still work. Complaining about Website not working on your expired Chromebook? That is a website problem.
Again I hate Chromebooks, they are shit, just like pretty much every Google product ever existed apart from early days Gmail and Google Reader. But you know what is even worst than Google, modern mainstream media reporting.
Chromebooks conceptually are fine, they only need to be powerful enough to run a word processor and play youtube videos and most of them pass that bar.
I don't think it's a great idea to give kids an OS and web browser that can be remotely exploited, Chrome gets patched to fix zero days as much as add new features. Firefox can work as an alternative but runs in an Android/Linux VM which impacts performance, it's a worse experience.
Software updates are free for a lot of things, as much as anything can be free. Most web browsers are free, all open source software is free. The Linux kernel that Chromebooks run upon is free. You can use a decade old Windows 7 key to activate a copy of Windows 11. It's not like Google stop getting "paid", they're a software as a service company supported by advertising.
Continuing to update Chromebooks would be a support burden, particularly if the hardware is reliant on proprietary driver blobs. But Google have a responsibility not to create a bunch of e-waste, so they should get their shit together and figure it out.
-gets on soapbox- I think giving kids locked down appliances is a terrible idea and a great way to limit the number of people who become software engineers in the future.
In this case they are an appliance, the hardware is owned by the school and user accounts are managed through them. Those taking an interest in coding could be given access to a Linux VM with an IDE and compiler, they don't need ring 0 access to the computer they're currently using to learn to code. Given these computers often change hands between students, it would actually be somewhat dangerous to allow one of those students to, say, install a rootkit.
Once the school (or any other org) is done with them I'm all for removing all locks on the hardware so it has a fighting chance of staying out of landfill.
There’s no reason why tests administered in-person have to be on a computer anyway for the typical school situation, other than some disability accommodation circumstances which might also have other solutions. They can just be proctored the traditional way, whether they are graded by scanning machine (as can be done for multiple-choice bubble tests) or by a human.
If a computer test is legally mandated with no option for the school or the district to pick a paper version, then that’s the politicians’ or administrators’ fault for forcing a wasteful budget of purchasing and replacing simple but short-lived devices (or paying more to maintain and support longer-lived devices) just for that reason.
> That is like every MacBook or Windows 8 - 10 Laptop etc. Software update isn't free.
It's not about being free, it's about being possible. The only time I wasn't able to update a Windows laptop was when 32-bit support was dropped with Windows 11 and when the hardware was just too slow (and even then I was able to, it just sucked to use).
We're not talking about personally upgrading devices, these schools can easily switch to a linux distro if they want. It's about software support, so in that same sense, Microsoft wouldn't support you for updating on hardware that isn't in their support list.
Depends on what you mean by "support you". You can install and regularly update Windows on any device that complies with certain standards and the general minimum requirements and Microsoft will provide you the same level of support as somone buying a laptop with Windows today (which is basically none, but neither does Google). There is no "supported device list" that Windows Update checks and refuses to run if you device isn't on it. At worst it checks a few system components (like the recent TPM).
Most companies outline what constitutes as support for organizations, especially ones like schools that have signed contracts with them for their offerings.
I know that consumers don't usually care about support for windows, as they just use random advice online to fix things, but technically if you were to talk to Microsoft for help and you are out of support, they will refuse to help you. Just like if you were to try to ask Apple for support on getting iOS 16 on your iPhone 5.
Unrelated, but windows update does use a supported device list, and they use it regularly for a variety of reasons one of them being to note when to release an update for users on X hardware. As they have multiple times for AMD processors. They also use it to prevent you from updating to a newer version of windows, and therefore ending your support window. Microsoft published lifecycle dates regularly so you can go check that out and see when you officially aren't supported anymore.
Your state or locale usually has a government surplus place and you can buy them from there.
It’s always a mixed bag and you have to know what you’re buying. I try to surplus equipment intact and with the cords jammed inside the case if I can, with re-use and buyers in mind.
I think this phenomenon should be known as "software-defined garbage". We're sending electronics to the landfill entirely for reasons written in code that could be changed.
The culprit is really that Google wants the device to be only usable with connections to Google. However, being unable to update risks security and Google. I agree this is unnecessary and probably entirely about profit. (how hard is it to allow creating local non-Google account?) Faced with profit, all the public relation persona must give way.
In the early netbook/Chromebook years there were some nicely built devices available. Sure most were a bit underpowered but still. Now it's mostly garbage with even worse chips and more case flex than a rubberband or the premium d vices are as expensive as a MacBook air or a decent windows laptop. I just don't get the target group...
The software also lost its focus. When they first launched I thought it was a straightforward idea, and sensible for many use cases - an OS with a single purpose: launch Google Chrome. Easy enough to implement with Linux and a "kiosk" single-window manager, and then there's very little else needed except an interface to configure wifi. No other programs, no user-accessible filesystem. The perfect fungible, stateless thin-client for the web age
Then they decided to try and ape a "real" OS, with stacking windows and utility programs. I'm confused why they didn't just fully switch to Android at that point, rather than make another Linux-but-not-Linux. I guess this is Google we're talking about. They probably couldn't work out which of the six in-house comms platforms to contact the Android team on
Love them or hate them, the current Chromebook market allows schools to afford to put a computing device in every student’s hands.
A close second reason is that managing ChromeOS devices is pretty easy and doesn’t require highly-trained people.
To crack the market, you’ll need dirt cheap hardware and dirt cheap and easy management. Doesn’t sound too profitable.
But yes, stuff gets thrown away way before the hardware goes obsolete, due to the limited ChromeOS lifecycle.
Not a lot of schools are going to spend much time trying to get Windows or Linux going because that requires more FTE money than just discarding and buying a new Chromebook. I know this from experience (n= US state level)
Somehow on most European countries we manage with parents having a computer at home, and while some schools have computer labs, it is mostly a rich school for rich kids, kind of thing.
As far as I know there's an even shorter shelf life beyond the software Chromebooks run. Which is their flash memory and RAM. Those components are almost always soldered to the board as part of the Chromebook specifications, meaning if Google pushes a ChromeOS update that exceeds the 2-4GB of RAM these all ship with (you can easily exceed the 4GB by just leaving ten Youtube tabs open with adblock running for about two hours), that means it's constantly pushing into swap memory. Even worse, if the flash memory on the SSD burns out because ChromeOS has been constantly writing to the swap the entire thing is dead. This is a much rarer and thus smaller concern these days considering the push for SSD reliability, but for everyone except those with soldering or reflowing skills once the onboard storage is dead the device is effectively bricked.
Having worked in a district where we ewasted as many CBs as we ordered, it was painful to see, but even more painful was how much wasted potential these students had except for those with a lot of curiosity. ChromeOS is great because it allows for some semblance of security, student account organization, and lots of happy shareholders who see that infosec audits are passing.
The wasted potential is due to the fact that the students aren't learning how to use computers, they're learning how to push data from one SaaS app to another without digging into how and why its happening. They don't understand file directories, file extensions, HID concepts, etc... they aren't learning ANY of the components of a machine in the first place. There is next to no digital literacy training happening other than "make a strong password" and "don't share it with other people", which is great, but that is just creating more consumers who don't know how their devices work and get irate/disregulated when they stop working. (I'm speaking in generalities here, FYI)
In my district, I had a group of kids who came to learn about computers, we took apart ewaste, replaced LCDs, swapped power supplies and RAM sticks, wiped and imaged hard disks--they built shitty little PCs that they were able to use and understand to some degree. Naturally, most of those students saw how limiting ChromeOS really is and went on to dipping into Linux, playing with Windows, and just expanding their horizons more than they would if they hadn't joined me.
Sitting kids in front of these machines and making them the consumers of the bullshit SaaS "teaching and learning" apps that administrators keep buying licenses for is doing the education industry a massive disservice. Kids need to start learning how these things work.
I dunno. It's nice to have the CBs, especially in terms of students who are in data deserts and have LTE connectivity, or socioeconomically disadvantaged families having access to web services, all fine and dandy, but it doesn't solve the problem of the general populace being completely in the dark about how their devices work.
>...but that is just creating more consumers who don't know how their devices work and get irate/disregulated when they stop working...
I am not sure how this has anything to do with Chomebooks. Those who dig into a technical system are always going to be the minority. I also drive a car, but have little understanding of what makes it go vroom.
Respectfully, I couldn’t disagree more. I have younger family members who I’ve setup windows pc’s for, replacing CB’s and they definitely don’t fit the ‘technically interested mould’ and they’re digging deep and even asking ‘what’s this black box thing?’. It was cmd and they’re now, among other things, playing around with commands for fun… it’s great to see but I’m waiting on the call to come fix their busted machine anytime soon.
It's still the minority. People are interested in what they like whatever that might be. Kids that want to understand the nitty gritty of computers have and will always be a minority. For those that want to learn more, they have the option of looking it up on the web to expand their knowledge. It has never been easier.
>>> I am not sure how this has anything to do with Chomebooks. Those who dig into a technical system are always going to be the minority. I also drive a car, but have little understanding of what makes it go vroom.
> It's still the minority. People are interested in what they like whatever that might be. Kids that want to understand the nitty gritty of computers have and will always be a minority. For those that want to learn more, they have the option of looking it up on the web to expand their knowledge. It has never been easier.
You're being too binary. The issue isn't whether it's a minority or not (which you seem to be focused on), it's how big that minority is. The issue with Chromebooks is they provide extra hurdles to digging deeper, and that's going to discourage some kids at the margins or that minority.
That is extremely biased anecdata. People around you, especially family members and friends, are much more likely to share your technical interest. If you leave your bubble, you'll find that the "average" student couldn't give fewer shits.
The real question is: how do we re-use the expired laptops? Seems to me that the better deal for everyone involved is to create a leasing program where CBs go back to the manufactures and they have to figure out what to do with them. They would ultimately find the best way to reduce the waste.
I have an expired CB that has a very well made body. It's solid and has very little wear and tear. It can easily do another 8 years of service. I can see a situation where a manufacture can renew it and put it out for service again. The manufactures would have to build them to be renewed but that's not out of the possibility.
The term, 'reduce, reuse, recycle' has been pushed on consumers for decades but ultimately the manufactures have to be part of the solution too.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadI worked at a coding after-school program. We had a bunch of Chromebooks which worked fine, but were no longer receiving security updates. Since all coding teachers need to be moderately technical people, I briefly considered installing some lightweight Linux distro.
I then immediately discarded the idea, because I was absolutely not going to install Linux by hand on upwards of 30 Chromebooks, plus deal with supporting them in the future.
A real school would have much more than 30 Chromebooks. Admittedly they might also have a dedicated IT staff for a project like this, but I bet it's still more economical to just replace the computers. (Which doesn't necessarily mean they can afford either of these things.)
Windows and Macs have much longer support for OS updated, after which Chrome and other browsers still will receive updates for many years
Second the student testing software/services that schools are required to use is only certified for ChromeBooks that are officially supported by Google.
Once the units are no longer supported for testing, they have almost no value to schools even if the are otherwise still fully functional
Well, that's just dumb. Does the policy apply to Macs and PCs as well?
Consider that kids who grow up are often inclined to choose computers (or whatever they used in school) as a familiar thing that they have experience and skills with. For example, introducing me to Unix in college cemented my career as a sysadmin, and I eagerly ran Minix/BSD/Linux at home at the first opportunity.
So if Google could earn itself some brand recognition and some product-based goodwill from young students by furnishing a Chromebook for everyone to play/work on for their formative years, I think it's a win that doesn't even need them to calculate the backlash from rapidly-obsolete eWaste in the future.
> Google imposes expiration dates, even if the hardware still works.
The article doesn't even say what does it mean by expiration. The link [1] which expiration points to talks about Auto Update Expiration.
> “I hit the update button and found out it couldn’t update,” Mr. Nielsen said.
Well yes. That is like every MacBook or Windows 8 - 10 Laptop etc. Software update isn't free. Your iPhone dont get infinite iOS update, the same with Android.
So what exactly is the expiration, which the submitted article takes about, it turns out as listed in the second article [1] it meant,
> Immediately after a Chromebook’s expiration date, you won’t experience much of a difference. In fact, you’ll likely be able to use the device normally for months. But some sites might start to act funny.
It turns out Chrome inside Chromebook don't get updated like the original browser. So Chrome ( browsers ) may get outdated. And some shitty website will act funny. How the heck is that a Chromebook expiration? You could install Firefox on your Chromebook and it would still work. Complaining about Website not working on your expired Chromebook? That is a website problem.
Again I hate Chromebooks, they are shit, just like pretty much every Google product ever existed apart from early days Gmail and Google Reader. But you know what is even worst than Google, modern mainstream media reporting.
[1] https://archive.is/RqE36
I don't think it's a great idea to give kids an OS and web browser that can be remotely exploited, Chrome gets patched to fix zero days as much as add new features. Firefox can work as an alternative but runs in an Android/Linux VM which impacts performance, it's a worse experience.
Software updates are free for a lot of things, as much as anything can be free. Most web browsers are free, all open source software is free. The Linux kernel that Chromebooks run upon is free. You can use a decade old Windows 7 key to activate a copy of Windows 11. It's not like Google stop getting "paid", they're a software as a service company supported by advertising.
Continuing to update Chromebooks would be a support burden, particularly if the hardware is reliant on proprietary driver blobs. But Google have a responsibility not to create a bunch of e-waste, so they should get their shit together and figure it out.
-gets off soapbox-
Once the school (or any other org) is done with them I'm all for removing all locks on the hardware so it has a fighting chance of staying out of landfill.
The Student Testing can ONLY be done on systems verified to be CURRENTLY SUPPORTED and UPDATED. These tests are legally mandated.
While you or I can continue to get many years out of a unsupported ChromeBook, schools loose the most critical usage immediately.
If a computer test is legally mandated with no option for the school or the district to pick a paper version, then that’s the politicians’ or administrators’ fault for forcing a wasteful budget of purchasing and replacing simple but short-lived devices (or paying more to maintain and support longer-lived devices) just for that reason.
It's not about being free, it's about being possible. The only time I wasn't able to update a Windows laptop was when 32-bit support was dropped with Windows 11 and when the hardware was just too slow (and even then I was able to, it just sucked to use).
I know that consumers don't usually care about support for windows, as they just use random advice online to fix things, but technically if you were to talk to Microsoft for help and you are out of support, they will refuse to help you. Just like if you were to try to ask Apple for support on getting iOS 16 on your iPhone 5.
Unrelated, but windows update does use a supported device list, and they use it regularly for a variety of reasons one of them being to note when to release an update for users on X hardware. As they have multiple times for AMD processors. They also use it to prevent you from updating to a newer version of windows, and therefore ending your support window. Microsoft published lifecycle dates regularly so you can go check that out and see when you officially aren't supported anymore.
hopefully schools/companies will abide the graveyard-- take note of it... and maybe reduce their re-"liability" on google.
It’s always a mixed bag and you have to know what you’re buying. I try to surplus equipment intact and with the cords jammed inside the case if I can, with re-use and buyers in mind.
The culprit is really that Google wants the device to be only usable with connections to Google. However, being unable to update risks security and Google. I agree this is unnecessary and probably entirely about profit. (how hard is it to allow creating local non-Google account?) Faced with profit, all the public relation persona must give way.
Then they decided to try and ape a "real" OS, with stacking windows and utility programs. I'm confused why they didn't just fully switch to Android at that point, rather than make another Linux-but-not-Linux. I guess this is Google we're talking about. They probably couldn't work out which of the six in-house comms platforms to contact the Android team on
A close second reason is that managing ChromeOS devices is pretty easy and doesn’t require highly-trained people.
To crack the market, you’ll need dirt cheap hardware and dirt cheap and easy management. Doesn’t sound too profitable.
But yes, stuff gets thrown away way before the hardware goes obsolete, due to the limited ChromeOS lifecycle.
Not a lot of schools are going to spend much time trying to get Windows or Linux going because that requires more FTE money than just discarding and buying a new Chromebook. I know this from experience (n= US state level)
Plus there is always the great wall of EU, if we need to go hart at it, it is doing wonders for Chinese startups.
Did anyone stop to think if this step was necessary?
The pandemic lockdowns really made it a reality across the board.
The wasted potential is due to the fact that the students aren't learning how to use computers, they're learning how to push data from one SaaS app to another without digging into how and why its happening. They don't understand file directories, file extensions, HID concepts, etc... they aren't learning ANY of the components of a machine in the first place. There is next to no digital literacy training happening other than "make a strong password" and "don't share it with other people", which is great, but that is just creating more consumers who don't know how their devices work and get irate/disregulated when they stop working. (I'm speaking in generalities here, FYI)
In my district, I had a group of kids who came to learn about computers, we took apart ewaste, replaced LCDs, swapped power supplies and RAM sticks, wiped and imaged hard disks--they built shitty little PCs that they were able to use and understand to some degree. Naturally, most of those students saw how limiting ChromeOS really is and went on to dipping into Linux, playing with Windows, and just expanding their horizons more than they would if they hadn't joined me.
Sitting kids in front of these machines and making them the consumers of the bullshit SaaS "teaching and learning" apps that administrators keep buying licenses for is doing the education industry a massive disservice. Kids need to start learning how these things work.
I dunno. It's nice to have the CBs, especially in terms of students who are in data deserts and have LTE connectivity, or socioeconomically disadvantaged families having access to web services, all fine and dandy, but it doesn't solve the problem of the general populace being completely in the dark about how their devices work.
I am not sure how this has anything to do with Chomebooks. Those who dig into a technical system are always going to be the minority. I also drive a car, but have little understanding of what makes it go vroom.
> It's still the minority. People are interested in what they like whatever that might be. Kids that want to understand the nitty gritty of computers have and will always be a minority. For those that want to learn more, they have the option of looking it up on the web to expand their knowledge. It has never been easier.
You're being too binary. The issue isn't whether it's a minority or not (which you seem to be focused on), it's how big that minority is. The issue with Chromebooks is they provide extra hurdles to digging deeper, and that's going to discourage some kids at the margins or that minority.
I have an expired CB that has a very well made body. It's solid and has very little wear and tear. It can easily do another 8 years of service. I can see a situation where a manufacture can renew it and put it out for service again. The manufactures would have to build them to be renewed but that's not out of the possibility.
The term, 'reduce, reuse, recycle' has been pushed on consumers for decades but ultimately the manufactures have to be part of the solution too.