Google will disconnect Chrome browser from ChromeOS in upcoming version

Google wants to decouple the operating system from the Chrome browser in a future version of ChromeOS. In practice, this will not change much for users, but it will make it easier and longer to maintain the browser.

About Chromebooks discovered that Google has added new documentation in ChromeOS 116 that refers to Lacros. That project, also written as LaCrOS, has been around since at least 2020, then 9to5Google discovered it. Lacros is an attempt to separate the browser from the operating system. Now ChromeOS consists of the Chrome browser, which means that if a laptop is no longer supported, Chrome will no longer receive security patches and therefore become unsafe.

Lacros is an attempt to offer the browser as an essential, but separate part of the operating system. This means it remains possible to receive security updates for at least Chrome itself after the support period.

In ChromeOS 116, code appears to have been added stating that Lacros will be enabled by default. About Chromebooks also noted that the chrome://flags#lacros-only flag can be enabled. When the user does this, the browser is updated and Chrome can be launched separately from the operating system. Users will hardly notice this in practice, but it may be that updates are implemented more quickly in the browser. ChromeOS 116 is coming according to the release schedule out on August 22.