Change in hardware/change in software?

Posted by Dr Andus
Jul 28, 2014 at 03:59 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I’m curious about how useful the Chromebook can be when you don’t have
>an Internet connection. What still works, what doesn’t? I gather from
>the comments that none of your files are available to work on when
>offline. Is that a correct inference? Thanks.

Not quite. It’s a common assumption and misconception that Chromebooks won’t work without an internet connection. It really depends on the given app and service you want to use.

If it’s an online service, obviously it won’t work, but neither would it work with a Windows laptop without an internet connection… I’m finding that in an urban environment in a developed country it’s almost impossible to be without either a wifi connection or the built-in (free for 2yrs!) 3G mobile data connection (which came with my HP Chromebook 14).

But there are now quite a few Chrome apps that work offline. They normally either allow you to sync when you’re back online or to save on the hard drive (or connected external drive via USB) or both.

Here are all the offline apps currently available:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/collection/offline_enabled

I mainly use text editors for writing (Writebox, Caret) and WorkFlowy for todos and outlining, and those work offline just fine.