How to turn an old laptop into a Chromebook

Not everyone needs a computer with a full set of bells and whistles. A Chromebook’s simplified interface makes it popular with schools—and those of us who serve as IT support for less tech-savvy relatives. You don’t need to worry about managing irritating updates or avoiding malware on a Chromebook, like you do if you simply install Chrome on an old Windows laptop, and the lightweight operating system feels much snappier than Windows on modest hardware. Chromebooks can cost less than a budget PC, too.

You might not even need to spend anything if you have an older laptop already lying about. Installing the equivalent of Chrome OS onto aged hardware takes less than an hour’s worth of elbow grease, and the final result often feels snappier than today’s dirt-cheap Chromebooks. Woot!

Here’s how to do it.

CONVERT A LAPTOP INTO A CHROMEBOOK

For this project, we’ll be using Neverware’s CloudReady operating system, which is based on Chromium OS—the same open-source code that Google built between the two if you’re curious, but all you need to know is that Neverware has made the experience of using CloudReady all but identical to Chrome OS.