Google's 10-Year Chromebook Lifeline Leaves Old Laptops Headed For Silicon Cemetery (theregister.com) 29
The Register's Dan Robinson reports: Google promised a decade of updates for its Chromebooks in 2023 to stop them being binned so soon after purchase, but many are still set to reach the end of the road sooner than later. The appliance-like laptop devices were introduced by megacorp in 2011, running its Linux-based ChromeOS platform. They have been produced by a number of hardware vendors and proven popular with buyers such as students, thanks to their relatively low pricing. The initial devices were designed for a three-year lifespan, or at least this was the length of time Google was prepared to issue automatic updates to add new features and security fixes for the onboard software.
Google has extended this Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date over the years, prompted by irate users who purchased a Chromebook only to find that it had just a year or two of software updates left if that particular model had been on the market for a while. The latest extension came in September 2023, when the company promised ten years of automatic updates, following pressure from the US-based Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The advocacy organization had recommended this move in its Chromebook Churn report, which criticized the devices as not being designed to last.
PIRG celebrated its success at the time, claiming that Google's decision to extend support would "save millions of dollars and prevent tons of e-waste from being disposed of." But Google's move actually meant that only Chromebooks released from 2021 onward would automatically get ten years of updates, starting in 2024. For a subset of older devices, an administrator (or someone with admin privileges) can opt in to enable extended updates and receive the full ten years of support, a spokesperson for the company told us. This, according to PIRG, still leaves many models set to reach end of life this year, or over the next several years. "According to my research, at least 15 Chromebook models have already expired across most of the top manufacturers (Google, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo). Models released before 2021 don't have the guaranteed ten years of updates, so more devices will continue to expire each year," Stephanie Markowitz, a Designed to Last Campaign Associate at PIRG, told The Register.
"In general, end-of-support dates for consumer tech like laptops act as 'slow death' dates," according to Markowitz. "The devices won't necessarily lose function immediately, but without security updates and bug patches, the device will eventually become incompatible with the most up-to-date software, and the device itself will no longer be secure against malware and other issues."
A full ist of end-of-life dates for Chromebook models can be viewed here.
Google has extended this Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date over the years, prompted by irate users who purchased a Chromebook only to find that it had just a year or two of software updates left if that particular model had been on the market for a while. The latest extension came in September 2023, when the company promised ten years of automatic updates, following pressure from the US-based Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The advocacy organization had recommended this move in its Chromebook Churn report, which criticized the devices as not being designed to last.
PIRG celebrated its success at the time, claiming that Google's decision to extend support would "save millions of dollars and prevent tons of e-waste from being disposed of." But Google's move actually meant that only Chromebooks released from 2021 onward would automatically get ten years of updates, starting in 2024. For a subset of older devices, an administrator (or someone with admin privileges) can opt in to enable extended updates and receive the full ten years of support, a spokesperson for the company told us. This, according to PIRG, still leaves many models set to reach end of life this year, or over the next several years. "According to my research, at least 15 Chromebook models have already expired across most of the top manufacturers (Google, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo). Models released before 2021 don't have the guaranteed ten years of updates, so more devices will continue to expire each year," Stephanie Markowitz, a Designed to Last Campaign Associate at PIRG, told The Register.
"In general, end-of-support dates for consumer tech like laptops act as 'slow death' dates," according to Markowitz. "The devices won't necessarily lose function immediately, but without security updates and bug patches, the device will eventually become incompatible with the most up-to-date software, and the device itself will no longer be secure against malware and other issues."
A full ist of end-of-life dates for Chromebook models can be viewed here.
Not for my use cases but... (Score:2)
Not for my use cases but I heard Chromebooks are pretty good for some use cases.
Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Linux (Score:3, Informative)
It varies from model to model. Like buying a Wi-Fi router, you need to do some model-specific research ahead of time.
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On 'newer' ones, you need a 'suzy-q' cable. This basically exposes a debug serial port over usb, and lets you instruct the firmware to unlock and accept an out of band update.
'Strangely enough' these are not very plentiful, or so mrchromebox.tech says.
I seem to find chinese clones on amazon OK enough though. Havent bought one, but maybe I should.
If you have one, putting coreboot uefi firmware on is not that difficult.
You can run linux (or windows.. if you really wanted...) on them well enough. For some of
Refurbish biz opportunity (Score:2)
> If you remove the screw, you can install the OS of your choice.
Sounds like a great business: purchase expired Chromebooks at very cheap prices, maybe at bulk from schools and biz's, refurbish their OS with Linux, test, and resell for say $200? I'd buy one!
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that is, you can get a better laptop for $250 or $300. I have a pretty nice AMD laptop which was $300 at Wally world or Target or something. It's got 2C/4T and just enough GPU cores to do video acceleration gracefully, gets nice battery life, is very light and fairly thin... and it's a normal laptop without weird restrictions. I was able to upgrade the RAM (I didn't really need to, but I was able to get another 4GB DIMM with exactly matching part numbers used on the bay for twenty bucks) an
Not to worry... (Score:5, Informative)
I mentor at a Code Club. All our machines are donated, including 5 or 6 Chromebooks. We have installed Mint on all the machines to save ourselves the grief of the machines not being identical. Mint works fine on the Chromebooks.
Footnote: I am fairly certain that all our Chromebooks are older than 2021
The tech discount sites aren't helping here (Score:4)
I'm noticing that the daily discount sites like Woot are offering these near EOL Chromebooks for highly discounted prices like $99, and only showing the EOL date in the fine print under the giant Buy It Now button.
I'd imagine that many of those buyers are contributing to this eWaste problem when they realize that they Chromebook they just bought only has 12 months of updates left.
Re: (Score:2)
"I'd imagine that many of those buyers are contributing to this eWaste problem"
They're not making new units of old models. They're already made, so the eWaste quantity is already set. It's just a matter of when.
ChromeOS "Flex" helps (Score:2)
Re: ChromeOS "Flex" helps (Score:2)
It's just a glorified web browser (Score:2)
Three Years / Five years (Score:3)
I work for a school district. We have a three year replacement cycle, with better conditioned older units as "spares" for another 2 or 3 years.
This isn't a dig on Chromebooks, it is that is the lifespan of these devices in the hands of students. We tear down "broken" units for spare parts, and refurbish what we can. Keyboards and screens being the #1 and #2 victims of student life.
I can't imagine ten years of regular use out of them. That is just wishful (political) thinking.
And grinding them up and recycling is the correct disposal method.
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Would most people have a use for these?
Most people use them for the following tasks:
1. Web browsing
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Quite a few 'newer' models use i3 chips in them.
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I've done design work using OnShape (browser-based CAD) on a Chromebook just fine.
I doubt it would hold up to complex assemblies, but creating basic parts for 3D printing was totally doable.
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I've got a house full of old Lenovo machines
The workstations run kubuntu and the servers run nas4free (bsd)
They're cheap and they do job reliably.
That's a good life for a low cost device (Score:2)
10 years is long by Google standards (Score:1)
Most of their products are retired in 5.
"Cancel fast and break trust"
Update OS (Score:1)
Open it up and set the jumper but the battery... (Score:2)
Open it up and set the jumper so you can install Neverware CloudReady or ChromeOS Flex.
But when the cheap battery dies in two years you're on your own. I put Neverware on my Chromebooks but it wasn't worth the trouble because the batteries died too soon.