Bad news if you’re one of the handful of people using Steam to play games on a Chromebook: Google and Valve are preparing to end support for the still-in-beta ChromeOS version of Steam on January 1, 2026, according to 9to5Google. Steam can still be installed on Chromebooks, but it now comes with a notice announcing the end of support.
“The Steam for Chromebook Beta program will conclude on January 1st, 2026,” reads the notification. “After this date, games installed as part of the Beta will no longer be available to play on your device. We appreciate your participation in and contribution to learnings from the beta program, which will inform the future of Chromebook gaming.”
Steam originally launched on Chromebooks in early 2022 as an alpha that ran on just a handful of newer and higher-specced devices with Intel chips inside. A beta version arrived later that year, with reduced system requirements and support for AMD CPUs and GPUs. Between then and now, neither Google nor Valve had said much about it.
The Steam beta was one component of a “gaming Chromebook” push that Google made in 2022 and 2023. It saw the release of laptops with better hardware and high-refresh-rate screens and optimized versions of GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming. Google had reportedly been working to add Steam support to ChromeOS since at least 2020.
Android and Chrome OS have been developed in parallel for years, but Google is planning to streamline its operating systems. In a recent interview, Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat stated bluntly that Android and Chrome OS are merging. This shift, a long time in the making, could give Google more room to maneuver as it plans for new mobile computing experiences.
In the interview, TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff had other things on his mind, but Samat peppered him with questions about how he uses his Apple devices. “I asked because we’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform, and I am very interested in how people are using their laptops these days and what they’re getting done,” said Samat.
We don’t get back to this point in the remainder of the interview, but it’s probably the most interesting thing Samat said. “Combining” can mean many things, but we can certainly speculate. In this case, it might mean the writing is on the wall for Chrome OS as it currently exists.
Chrome OS definitely had a moment during the pandemic as new remote workers and students sought cheap laptops to get them by. Google worked with multiple OEM partners to promote major Chromebook releases, and Chrome OS itself got big updates. Google expanded the support window to eight years, added Phone Hub integration, enhanced desktop management, added the Chromebook Plus certification for high-end devices, and much more.
Things have stagnated since then—we hardly ever hear Google talk about Chrome OS now. In the age of AI, Google still finds time to talk about Android and add new features to the platform, even if they no longer align with new versions. In fact, Android is becoming a bit more like Chrome OS with the addition of desktop multitasking support, which will roll out in the coming months. So Google is making Android into a more capable desktop OS while Chrome OS stays the course. There have been some reports of Chrome OS essentially becoming Android, going beyond Google’s stated goal of using parts of the Android tech stack on Chromebooks.
Google hasn’t been talking about Chromebooks as much since AI became its all-consuming focus, but that’s changing today with a bounty of new AI features for Google-powered laptops. Newer, more powerful Chromebooks will soon have image generation, text summarization, and more built into the OS. There’s also a new Lenovo Chromebook with a few exclusive AI goodies that only work thanks to its overpowered hardware.
If you have a Chromebook Plus device, which requires a modern CPU and at least 8GB of RAM, your machine will soon get a collection of features you may recognize from other Google products. For example, Lens is expanding on Chrome OS, allowing you to long-press the launcher icon to select any area of the screen to perform a visual search. Lens also includes text capture and integration with Google Calendar and Docs.
Gemini models are also playing a role here, according to Google. The Quick Insert key, which debuted last year, is gaining a new visual element. It could already insert photos or emoji with ease, but it can now also help you generate a new image on demand with AI.
Google’s new Chromebook AI features.
Even though Google’s AI features are running in the cloud, the AI additions are limited to this more powerful class of Google-powered laptops. The Help Me Read feature leverages Gemini to summarize long documents and webpages, and it can now distill that data into a more basic form. The new Summarize option can turn dense, technical text into something more readable in a few clicks.
Google has also rolled out a new AI trial for Chromebook Plus devices. If you buy one of these premium Chromebooks, you’ll get a 12-month free trial of the Google AI Pro plan, which gives you 2TB of cloud storage, expanded access to Google’s Gemini Pro model, and NotebookLM Pro. NotebookLM is also getting a place in the Chrome OS shelf.
Schools across the US are warning parents about an Internet trend that has students purposefully trying to damage their school-issued Chromebooks so that they start smoking or catch fire.
Various school districts, including some in Colorado, New Jersey,North Carolina, and Washington, have sent letters to parents warning about the trend that’s largely taken off on TikTok.
Per reports from school districts and videos that Ars Technica has reviewed online, the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system. Students are using various easily accessible items to do this, including writing utensils, paper clips, gum wrappers, and pushpins.
The Chromebook challenge has caused chaos for US schools, leading to laptop fires that have forced school evacuations, early dismissals, and the summoning of first responders.
Schools are also warning that damage to school property can result in disciplinary action and, in some states, legal action.
In Plainville, Connecticut, a middle schooler allegedly “intentionally stuck scissors into a laptop, causing smoke to emit from it,” Superintendent Brian Reas told local news station WFSB. The incident reportedly led to one student going to the hospital due to smoke inhalation and is suspected to be connected to the viral trend.
“Although the investigation is ongoing, the student involved will be referred to juvenile court to face criminal charges,” Reas said.
Enlarge/ A stack of broken Chromebook laptops at Cell Mechanic Inc. electronics repair shop in Westbury, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
Chromebooks and MacBooks are among the least repairable laptops around, according to an analysis that consumer advocacy group US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) shared this week. Apple and Google have long been criticized for selling devices that are deemed harder to repair than others. Worse, PIRG believes that the two companies are failing to make laptops easier to take apart and fix.
The “Failing the Fix (2024)” report released this week [PDF] is largely based on the repairability index scores required of laptops and some other electronics sold in France. However, the PIRG’s report weighs disassembly scores more than the other categories in France’s index, like the availability and affordability of spare parts, “because we think this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates and because the other categories can be country specific,” the report says.
PIRG’s scores, like France’s repair index, also factor in the availability of repair documents and product-specific criteria (the PIRG’s report also looks at phones). For laptops, that criteria includes providing updates and the ability to reset software and firmware.
PIRG also docked companies for participating in trade groups that fight against right-to-repair legislation and if OEMs failed to “easily provide full information on how they calculated their products.”
Chromebooks, MacBooks lag in repairability
PIRG examined 139 laptop models and concluded that Chromebooks, “while more affordable than other devices, continue to be less repairable than other laptops.” This was largely due to the laptops having a lower average disassembly score (14.9) than the other laptops (15.2).
The report looked at 10 Chromebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP and gave Chromebooks an average repair score of 6.3 compared to 7.0 for all other laptops. It said:
Both of these lower averages indicate that while often considered an affordable choice for individuals or schools, Chromebooks are on average less repairable than other laptops.
Google recently extended Chromebook support from eight years to 10 years. PIRG’s report doesn’t factor in software support timelines, but even if it did, Chromebooks’ repairability score wouldn’t increase notably since the move only brought them to “industry norms,” Lucas Gutterman, Designed to Last campaign director for the US PIRG Education Fund, told me.
Enlarge/ The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.
He added, though, that the current “norm” should improve.
At the very least, if it’s no longer financially viable for manufacturers to maintain support, they should allow the community to continue to maintain the software or make it easy to install alternative operating systems so we can keep our laptops from getting junked.
Turning to its breakdown of non-ChromeOS laptops, PIRG ranked Apple laptops the lowest in terms of repairability with a score of D, putting it behind Asus, Acer, Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Lenovo. In this week’s report, Apple got the lowest average disassembly score out of the OEMs (4 out of 10 compared to the 7.3 average)
