Google is ending support for Lacros, the experimental version of Chrome for ChromeOS

Back in August 2023, we previewed our work on an experimental version of Chrome browser for ChromeOS named Lacros. The original intention was to allow Chrome browser on Chromebooks to swiftly get the latest feature and security updates without needing a full OS update.

As we refocus our efforts on achieving similar objectives with ChromeOS embracing portions of the Android stack, we have decided to end support for this experiment. We believe this will be a more effective way to help accelerate the pace of innovation on Chromebook.
↫ ChromeOS Beta Tester Community

To refresh your memory, Lacros was an attempt by Google to decouple the Chrome browser from ChromeOS itself, so that the browser could be updated indepdnently from ChromeOS as a whole. This would obviously bring quite a few benefits with it, from faster and easier updates, to the ability to keep updating the Chrome browser after device support has ended. This was always an experimental feature, so the end of this experiment really won’t be affecting many people.

The interesting part is the reference to the recent announcement that ChromeOS’ Linux kernel and various subsystems will be replaced by their Android counterparts. I’m not entirely sure what this means for the Chrome browser on ChromeOS, since it seems unlikely that they’re going to be using the Android version of Chrome on ChromeOS. It’s generally impossible to read the tea leaves when it comes to whatever Google does, so I’m not even going to try.