Whether it’s desktop, mobile or a smart home device with a screen, every operating system needs a web browser, and while Fuchsia OS already uses some of Chromium’s code, Google is preparing to bring Chrome and all its features to Fuchsia OS.
As mentioned above, Fuchsia OS currently already includes a Chromium-based browser, but for now it’s very small and has few additional features and only simple web browsing. Despite the support of the Chromium project, there has been no indication that Chrome will make its way to Fuchsia OS.
Recently, someone found information on the Chromium bug tracker page that Chrome is coming to Fuchsia OS. According to the information, Google has been working on a new project since as early as May of this year to build Chrome for Fuchsia OS, which means that Google will bring the full Chrome experience to Fuchsia OS, such as account syncing, support for extensions, and consistent update frequency across the platform and the latest web standards. support for the latest web standards.
Getting Chrome to add support for a new operating system is no small feat. There are currently more than 40 separate “bugs” filed on the Chromium bug tracker, all of which are needed to get Chrome working on Fuchsia. Despite the significant challenges, the Chromium bug tracker currently lists the initial build of Chrome for Fuchsia OS as being completed in time for the Chrome 94 release in mid-September.
The only devices that can currently run Fuchsia OS are some of Google’s smart home products, such as the Nest Hub, a simple browser that currently focuses on providing users with search results from the web. It seems that the current version of the browser is sufficient for the current usage scenario, so why did Google go to the trouble of launching Chrome for Fuchsia OS?
In a particularly notable code change on the bug tracker page, a Google employee noted that “for all intents and purposes, Fuchsia is a desktop platform”. Google has previously claimed in public that Fuchsia is an operating system for IoT devices, and not a replacement for Android and Chrome OS.
Based on these statements and the fact that Google is bringing the full Chrome browser to Fuchsia is a strong indication that perhaps in the near future Fuchsia OS will come out of smart home products like the Nest Hub and appear on the desktop or mobile space.