ChromeOS 118 is here and it brings with it a whole host of new features, some of which are very smart additions, especially in the area of passwords.
If About Chromebooks According to reports, ChromeOS 118 is now rolling out to most (supported) Google laptops, and will come with new password recovery measures, along with text editing improvements for those who have a touchscreen (as well as a bonus for printer users).
That first feature means you’ll no longer be unsure about the files stored on your Chromebook (on the local drive, rather than in the cloud) if you forget your password.
Account recovery can now take place without losing any local data (such as files in the Downloads folder), thankfully.
The second notable addition is for the benefit of those who have a Chromebook with a touchscreen, and comes in the form of improved on-screen text editing controls.
Google tells us that it has introduced a gesture system that is “much more intuitive” for touchscreen users, and that text readability is improved, along with a new magnifying glass that shows the cursor position with greater accuracy.
So if you edit text directly on the screen, these changes should make your life considerably easier.
Finally, Google has made some adjustments for printers, with the operating system offering more help in the form of installation instructions and an easier way to save printers. We’re also told that ChromeOS 118 will offer more help when it comes to troubleshooting a printer.
Analysis: Recovery benefits are great, but don’t forget about backups
It’s good to see this change coming to password recovery, although you might have expected Google to introduce this sooner. There is no shortage of stories online about less tech-savvy users forgetting passwords and losing their local files as a result.
Obviously, you shouldn’t leave important files hanging around in the Downloads folder. And it’s always worth backing up valuable files anyway – whether that’s to Google Drive, one of the best cloud storage services, or even to external storage.
Ideally, you should keep (at least) two backups of all your important data, one in the cloud and one on an external hard drive or similar (as it is not outside the realm of possibility for a single backup medium to fail, such as a external hard drive gets damaged).
Touchscreen improvements are always welcome for those with touch-enabled notebooks, and Chromebooks are pretty neat on that front, as you can get a number of wallet-friendly devices with such a screen. Indeed, the best choice for a portable budget touchscreen in our list of the best laptops is a Chromebook, namely the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5.