Think you can make a better fast-booting, Chrome-focused OS than Google? Want to craft a custom Linux system that boots from a USB stick? SUSE Studio gives you 15 GB to do exactly that, and you do it all online.

SUSE Studio is what powered the fan-made "Chrome OS" we posted yesterday, which, in that case, was a semi-stripped-down system loaded with the developers' version of Chrome, Google webapp links, and OpenOffice. If speed and cloud computing aren't your bag, you can create a fully functional system with Firefox, 3D graphics, and whatever apps you can find installed. Want your system to start up with an AWN dock and Launchy keystroke launcher running? Not a problem.

Even if you don't know all that much about Linux, it's pretty easy to build a system you can boot from a USB stick or live CD/DVD, run inside a virtual machine program, or actually install it—or, heck, even test it out in your web browser.

Opera 10 final is out, Chrome just turned one year old, and Firefox 3.5 has settled into stability. It's time once again to break out the timers and speed test today's web browsers.

Like all our previous speed tests, this one is unscientific, but thorough. We install the most current versions of each browser being tested—in this case, Opera 10, Chrome's development channel 4.0 version, and the final Firefox 3.5 with security fixes—in a system with a 2.0 GHz Intel Centrino Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP.

We use Rob Keir's tiny timer app to time each browser in the common ways that leave users waiting: a "cold start" right after boot, a "warm start" after already having run once, and waiting on eight tabs to load up. We run each test three times and average the results, tossing out any obvious irregularities.

One year ago, Google Chrome came out of nowhere to re-ignite the browser debate. Today, it's reached (development) version 4.0, and it's anchoring a much-anticipated operating system. Here's a look back at where Chrome's been in 12 short months.