Chrome OS: Google has set an internal expiration date

Aluminium OS is coming, but according to court documents, it will likely be later than previously assumed. Google officially confirmed the new operating system last September during Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit. At the time, Android chief Sameer Samat also said that the first PCs based on the ChromeOS successor would go on sale this year. However, this seems to be just a warm-up phase. The court documents also suggest that Google already has an expiration date for ChromeOS.

Earliest launch apparently end of 2026

Samat likely drummed up too much hype at the Qualcomm Summit by hinting at the first PCs based on Aluminium OS in 2026. At least, that's what court documents obtained by The Verge suggest. According to them, he said in August 2025 that the “fastest way” to market would be initial availability for commercial testers at the end of 2026. Full market launch, including for the enterprise and education sectors, would only occur in 2028.

The document further states, “Even if the new operating system becomes available for Chromebooks, it will not be compatible with all existing Chromebook hardware, meaning Google will have to continue ChromeOS at least until 2033 to fulfill its 'ten-year support commitment' to existing users.” This statement is not entirely new or surprising, as John Maletis, Vice President of Product Management for ChromeOS, already stated this in an AMA (“Ask me anything”) by Chromeunboxed in January. This means that ChromeOS devices that cannot be upgraded to Aluminium OS due to performance limitations or other incompatibilities will continue to receive ChromeOS updates until the end of their update guarantee.

The year 2034

The documents also suggest that Google will let ChromeOS expire after the current support period ends. The company promises 10 years of support for Chromebooks, but this period does not start from the purchase date of a device but from the release of a hardware platform specified by Google, the current one of which came onto the market in 2023. This means that Google must support the latest devices until 2033. The “timeline for the ChromeOS phase-out is 2034,” the document states.

It is not surprising that Google intends to phase out ChromeOS. This strategy was already hinted at in a job advertisement by the company, in which a “Senior Product Manager, Android, Laptop, and Tablets” was sought.

The now-removed advertisement stated that Google intends to run ChromeOS and Aluminium OS in parallel – at least initially: The team is to “assemble a portfolio of ChromeOS and Aluminium devices for commercial use across all form factors (e.g., laptops, detachables, tablets, and boxes) and classes (e.g., Chromebook, Chromebook Plus, AL Entry, AL Mass Premium, and AL Premium) that meet user and business requirements.” Furthermore, the team is to develop and maintain a product roadmap “that addresses the results to be delivered and the strategy by which Google will transition from ChromeOS to Aluminium, ensuring business continuity in the future.”

The fact that Google's lawyers revealed all this information in court was purely strategic: in the context of an antitrust lawsuit against Google USA et al. v. Google et al., which began in 2020 and ended in 2025, the US government accused Google of a monopoly in the search engine business. The US court ruled in 2024 that Google is a search engine monopolist. Part of the sanctions could have been the spin-off of the Chrome browser, including ChromeOS.

To prevent the spin-off of ChromeOS and thus also the demise of Aluminium OS, Google's lawyers argued that supporting ChromeOS software on older computers would be difficult. The strategy was apparently successful: In the final decision by Judge Amit Mehta, devices with ChromeOS or a ChromeOS successor are excluded. However, the ruling made by Mehta is being appealed by the Department of Justice and the states, according to a Bloomberg report.

(afl)