G.ho.st

G.ho.st (usually pronounced ghost) was the trading name of Ghost Inc. and the service name and URL of the company's hosted computer operating system or web desktop service. Its name is an acronym of Global Hosted Operating SysTem. The old URL G.ho.st was a domain hack (using the São Tomé and Príncipe .st country extension); the service later moved to http://ghost.cc. As of April 2010 Ghost has closed its service due to competition and lack of funding.

Overview

The G.ho.st service provided a web-based working environment that mimicked the classic desktop provided by personal computer operating systems. Users were able to create, save and return to a working environment from different physical computers and mobile phones. G.ho.st called itself a virtual computer. Such services are not considered operating systems in the traditional sense although they are sometimes referred to as Web Operating Systems. Whilst they can include a GUI (e.g. a desktop), a (virtual) file system, application management and security, they do not contain a kernel to interface with physical hardware. Therefore, to use the service an operating system is required, supporting at least a web browser from which the service can be run.