1. General FAQ

Why are you calling it an operating system? Isn't it just an advanced web page?

Friend is much more than a web page. The fact that the user interface happens to run inside a web browser can be deceiving. Today, web browsers are very similar to virtual machines. They offer sandboxing. Hardware abstraction. Memory management. And much, much more. They even allow you to execute machine code (read web assembly). We often liken the browser to DirectX. It is a heavily networked, super fast graphics and multimedia engine that can be scripted using Javascript. And the Javascript is run almost as fast as native code (f.ex. compiled C).

On top of this "browser"-virtual machine, we are building part of an operating system – the desktop environment and desktop shell. It does the same as the Explorer Shell in Windows (where you find the Start menu and the icons). But where the Explorer Shell communicates through hardware memory with its kernel, the Friend Workspace communicates through the network with its serving kernel, Friend Core (unless it is running offline on one PC – here it uses the hardware memory).

There is no definition of what an OS ought to do - other than abstracting and managing your computer resources for any purpose. In that sense, Friend isn't really disruptive when using the term "operating system". It is disruptive when using the term "computer". I.e.: "The internet is now your computer".

I do not want to use a cloud OS. Can I run it offline?

Friend OS is designed to allow you to access and use it on the internet. But that doesn't mean that you need to run it in the cloud. As soon as you download and install it on your own PC, it can run offline.

Native Friend is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that is currently in development. Once this one is ready, it will allow you to install Friend on a PC and use it like any other computer.

All versions of Friend allows you to retain the ability to link up to the cloud. This way, you can have a "Friend Book" that works fine in offline mode, but which becomes immeasurably more powerful once it is hooked up to your internet nodes.

Using a browser!? Isn't that slow?

Modern web browsers are hardware accelerated. On most hardware these days, each graphical element is drawn using your graphics card (GPU). Additionally, the Javascript which controls the interactions with the browser application, is compiled in memory to execute as fast as possible. Tests have shown that Javascript is close to running in native speed these days. This means that it can run cutting edge and complex software as fast inside of the browser as outside of the browser.

I can already do everything Friend does on my (insert name) OS at home. Right?

Friend OS is different, in that it allows you to access your computer from anywhere. As long as you have a web browser, you can use your computer at full speed. The interactive parts of your system - the GUI - is rendered on your local device. So the performance is at maximum. Friend is not to be compared to Citrix or other Remote Desktop Protocol applications. Friend's environment is implemented in pure Javascript, running in your browser.

Friend combines a multitude of existing capabilities in one package. This way, you do not have to know how to knit different software solutions together. Everything is already integrated in the Friend Workspace.

Friend is unique in that it allows an unlimited amount of connections using your user account. This way, you can connect with all of your devices at the same time. Each connected device also cooperatively shares resources, allowing you to run multi-device applications.

Finally, Friend is written from the bottom up to be a networked, meta operating system for the internet. This is very different from the existing operating systems out there. At the same time, it is written to co-exist with the operating systems we use today, extending them rather than replacing them.