If you haven’t heard, Google is releasing Chrome OS sometime late next year.  They say that users of this operating system will not need to worry about viruses or malware.

Bruce Schneier, a (the?) expert on technology security, said this could not be done, and he further clarified that a completely virus-free OS is impossible, though Google may produce a considerably more resistent OS.

From what I’ve read Google assumes any system running Chrome OS will have constant internet-connectivity, a safe assumption considering the trends.  Combined with Google’s ability to compute and aggregate vast amounts of information in the cloud, they have an opportunity to implement the ultimate virus-fighting strategy.

When is the last time you received a spam email in your Gmail or surfed to a truly spamy website using Google search?  Yeah, perhaps once or twice this year?  Considering the internet is more than 99% spam (I cannot find references for this, however we could easily assume 95%), that is incredibly impressive.  How does it work?

Paul Graham illustrates how email spam is combatted easily using statistical analysis.  Basically you start with a body of good email and a body of spam email.  After analyzing the probably of words and phrases being contained in good or spammy email, you can do a remarkable job of sorting email.  Google can do this even better with millions of people pointing out new spam cases for them in Gmail.

Google Search uses links and trust (along with other things) to determine a web page’s trustworthiness.  Basically content creators tell Google something is not spam by linking to it.

Chrome OS could combine these two techniques to seriously counteract viruses.  First, Chrome could identify common chunks of code or binary data on your system and use that like the words or phrases in spam email.  On top of that, it could follow pieces of code/data across the net of Chrome users, watching for actively spreading programs or viruses.  If users could identify malware on their machines, Google could then share that information across all the systems running Chrome OS.  Yes, this is what things like Akismet and virus protection using a dictionary does already, but it could be dramatically improved by Google’s cloud services.

Connectivity is clearly the future, and Google is getting its foot in the door.  Networks create a natural monopoly, and by starting now, Google is poising itself to be that leader.