[themoonisachees]

It is not my intention to be contrarian, but honestly this might be the most incorrect comment I've ever read on hacker news, in several different ways. Sure, some of these might be subjective, but for example chromeOS is Linux with a shiny coat in top, how could it be any better than, well, Linux, let alone miles ahead?

[ewoodrich]

ChromeOS uses the Linux kernel but unless you enable developer mode (which has multiple levels of scary warnings including on every boot and requires completely wiping the device to enable) everything runs in the Chrome web sandbox or the Android VM.

A ChromeOS user isn't apt-get installing binaries or copy/pasting bash one liners from Github. If you enable the Linux dev environment, that also runs in an isolated VM with a much more limited attack surface vs say an out of the box Ubuntu install. Both the Android VM and Linux VM can and routinely are blocked by MDM in school or work contexts.

You could lock down a Linux install with SELinux policies and various other restrictions but on ChromeOS it's the default mode that 99% of users are protected by (or limited by depending on your perspective).

[mdhb]

Even when you enable “developer mode” which is essentially Debian in a VM the level of care that went into making sure that no matter what happens there you will never suffer a full system compromise is truly impressive.

To give you a sense of where they were half a decade ago you can already see that it’s as I described miles in front of anything that exists even today in this video: https://youtu.be/pRlh8LX4kQI

When we get to talking about when they went for a total ground up first principles approach with Fuchsia as a next generation operating system that is something else entirely on a different level again.

I genuinely didn’t have a hint of irony in my original comment. They are actually that much better when it comes to security.