Last month, Google partnered with Back Market to launch an emergency recovery kit for aging PCs: the ChromeOS Flex USB Kit. It’s essentially a USB drive with ChromeOS installation files on it, so you can convert just about any old laptop into a Chromebook in the space of a few minutes.
The kit costs just $3 / £3 (and €3 in Europe), and according to Windows Central, has sold out pretty quickly. A fresh batch of USB drives should be available soon, but in the meantime, the popularity of this plug-and-play solution for outdated hardware is vindication of something I’ve always said about Chromebooks (and ChromeOS).
These lightweight laptops offer all the computing power that most people need these days, and come with advantages over Windows and macOS that maybe don’t get talked about enough. I’ll make the case below — and explain how you can take advantage of ChromeOS Flex yourself.
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What is ChromeOS Flex anyway?
ChromeOS is the operating system running on Chromebooks — essentially just the Google Chrome browser, with a few extras — and ChromeOS Flex is an installation package you can use to turn older computers into Chromebooks. It works with most PCs running Windows or Linux, and with Macs powered by Intel chips.
You don’t actually need a USB stick from Back Market to install ChromeOS Flex. If you supply the USB drive, and follow these instructions, you can create your own kit. It’s easy to do, and free (aside from the cost of the USB drive), and is a great way of being able to carry on using a laptop that’s slowed right down.
Both Windows and macOS laptops will eventually become laggy and sluggish, no matter how speedy they were when you first bought them — and rather than adding to the world’s e-waste problem, you can install ChromeOS instead. It’s much less demanding in terms of system resources than the Microsoft or Apple operating systems.
Unless you particularly need a desktop app like Photoshop or Excel — both of which now have streamlined web app versions available, by the way — chances are you can do most of your computing inside a web browser these days. From Spotify and Slack, to Gmail and Google Docs, web apps have become the norm, and that’s partly why ChromeOS works.
Why ChromeOS (and Chromebooks) work
If you’re as old as me, you’ll remember Google launching its Chromebooks in 2011. At the time the reaction was rather lukewarm: why buy a laptop that was essentially just a Chrome browser, when Windows and macOS give you the Chrome browser, any other browsers you want, and a whole lot more besides.
Chromebooks and the ChromeOS platform were criticized for being limited, and useless without Wi-Fi. However, I loved the idea from the start, and would explain this to anyone I could find — I would corner people at parties to talk about it. The classic ‘less is more’ principle applied, and it still does to Chromebooks today.
First of all, Wi-Fi is more or less ubiquitous now — and if you can’t find a connection you can use your phone as a hotspot. Secondly, apps like Gmail and Google Docs work offline anyway, so you can stay busy. Third, doesn’t the same criticism apply to Windows and macOS laptops? Internet access is essential for most computing tasks nowadays.
A computer that’s just Chrome comes with myriad advantages: it’s fast, it doesn’t slow down (much) over time, everything is instantly backed up, and you don’t need to worry about background apps or system bloat. Updates are seamless, as are upgrades to new Chromebooks — which is why I’ve used ChromeOS consistently since 2011.
The Chromebook present and future
Much as I love Chromebooks, beyond the education market they haven’t taken off in any kind of spectacular way as far as sales go — the recent popularity of the ChromeOS Flex USB Kit notwithstanding. That’s maybe part of the reason Google seems keen to evolve the platform into something else.
The ‘less is more’ approach that makes ChromeOS so appealing to me has already been diluted to some extent with support for Android apps on Chromebooks. That can make them more useful, especially if you want to do a little lightweight gaming, but it also means you’ve got more to worry about in terms of app bloat and updates.
It looks as though Google’s Aluminium OS will start to take over from ChromeOS later this year, with more of an emphasis on Android and less focus on Chrome. It’s not clear yet exactly how this will be different to what Chromebooks already do, but I’m worried that some of the simplicity of ChromeOS is going to be lost.
That’s for the future — and most probably, Google IO 2026. For now, I’d encourage you to take a look at ChromeOS Flex if you need to revamp an old laptop, or consider one of the best Chromebooks if you’re after a new model. You may well find the simplicity and ease-of-use a refreshing change from Windows or macOS.
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