I really love my mom. I'd do anything for her, including walking her through how to do "stuff" to her computer. While that's always a nice way to spend time on the phone with her, it's something I don't have to do anymore since I bought her a Chromebook.

Mom's not a complete luddite — she's been around my computers and gadgets for more years than I like to mention. She also used a computer at work for years, so she isn't afraid to do things, she's just unsure about some of it. When an update would go off the rails on her old laptop, or she wanted to install Firefox as the default browser, she needed someone to walk her through the process. We all have someone in our family or circle of friends who aren't quite sure how to do more than the basics.

The final straw was when she called me because some company she never heard of from a place she's never been wanted $79 to "decrypt her data" and relinquish control of her web browser. Thankfully it wasn't a real extortion scheme and was just a pop-over that hijacked her browser and we were able to fix things. After she was squared away, I immediately went to Amazon and had a Dell Chromebook 13 shipped out to her, with a gift card that said "Call Jerry."

A Chromebook can do everything my mom needs a laptop to do.

A few days later, we had her up and running with Chrome OS and a handful of extensions as well as a short explainer on Google Drive, the cloud and what she could and couldn't do. She loves her new laptop, because it does everything she wants it to do without any fussing.

And that's the important thing — Chrome OS can do everything she needs a laptop to do. She's not writing software or playing immersive 3D games. She doesn't need Photoshop — Google Photos lets her look at her pictures and share them. All her passwords are safely stored in her personal cloud (as safe as a cloud can be, anyway) and her laptop remembers who she is and signs her in when she wants to do some online shopping or visit her bank's website as long as she's signed in with her Google account.

For my Mom, a Chromebook is better.