By Evan Ackerman
Back in March, we wrote about a service called OnLive, which outsources gaming hardware to “the cloud,” i.e. makes it someone else’s problem. G.ho.st (which I will herein refer to as Ghost) does sort of the same thing, except with an entire operating system.
‘Ghost’ is an acronym for Global Hosted Operating SysTem, and it’s a sort of virtual computer that lives somewhere out there in the intertubercloud. You access it, in its entirety, via nothing more than a web browser. When you do, Ghost gives you a virtual desktop, complete with programs, file storage, and yes, even the internet (inside the internet). The programs available on Ghost are all open source, but you should be able to mess around with most types of files, including MS Office files. You get 5 gigs of file storage on your virtual computer, along with an email address and the capability to aggregate your other email accounts via POP3. You can keep the rest of your files synced between Ghost and other computers with a small desktop application.
Ghost is a completely free service, and they aim to stay that way. They make their money through affiliate advertising; when you click (say) a Google ad link while using the Ghost browser, Ghost gets paid. The upsides to a cloud desktop like this are many, the chief one being that you can have “your” computer available anywhere with little more than a web browser. Files, email, bookmarks, even cookies… Ghost keeps it all in one place for you. All you need is internet and you’re good to go.
[ g.ho.st ]
