Google’s Chrome OS has many virtues. Based on a solid foundation of Ubuntu Linux, it uses the Chrome Web browser as its interface to any and all applications. Chrome OS is also not so much a Windows replacement, as it’s an attempt to get rid of the entire traditional idea of a PC desktop. If Google is successful with this, one big reason will be its vastly improved security.

Before I go into why Chrome OS will be much more secure than Windows, I have to point out that Google has one big, honking huge security problem to fix first: it’s reliance on the fatally flawed login/password model. If they can beat that problem, then Chrome is likely to be most secure ‘desktop’ operating system we’ll have ever seen. Here’s why.

First, Google accepts that it’s impossible to make an absolutely secure operating system. They use a phrase to describe this design philosophy that I think every developer should have tattooed on their hands: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” In other words, Google won’t waste its time on trying to find some perfect system that only exists in fantasy. Instead, Google is spending time on making the best practical security system. This is how it plays out.

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