Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

PC laptops with ARM chips rather than x86 processors are a tiny niche of the whole PC market, but they are slowly expanding. Many more applications are beginning to receive updates to take advantage of the ARM platform, and now, Google Drive has decided to jump on the bandwagon.

Google has only recently released a beta version of Google Drive for desktops focused exclusively on Windows 11 ARM64 computers. Google stated that the beta version is nearly as functional as other platforms bar for the Meet plugin compatible with Outlook. It is possible to have gases for cloud synchronization and web access to the files stored on Google Drive.

Google Drive has remained a standard app for several Windows users in as much as it backs up your files to the cloud without having to upload things by yourself through the browser manually. Unlike many other x86 applications that can be launched on ARM Windows using the system’s integrated emulation layer, Google Drive could not be installed if the owner of the laptop had an ARM chip in it. Now, it’s fully supported.

More on NRTC

• Android 15 Beta is now here
• iOS 17.3 Beta 3: Your iPhone could get these new features soon
• Report reveals $1.9bn arms imported into Africa annually
• Tinubu launches National Single Window initiative 
• Arc Browser now natively supported on ARM Windows

The beta version can only be launched with Windows 11 and the Microsoft WebView2 component. If WebView2 is missing from the device, the installer will first ask users to download It from the Internet.

If you would like to try this out, then download it at your convenience on your computer. Please bear in mind that this release is a beta and therefore may include some glitches. You see, Google kindly informs you that in case you are going to try this out, er… you should better make sure that you don’t upload/download any of the sensitive data. We’re not sure if we would say that, but if you want our opinion, don’t use this if you don’t want to run into beta-grade software. If you want to stay safe, just do things the old reliable way: by using the browser and in particular, by uploading each file one by one. Yes, it is irritating that at least if the beta rollout is good and, they release a stable version should not be far off.