Google Releases Chrome 2.0 Pre-Beta 326
Nick Fletcher writes "Just a few short months after the initial release, Google has released a pre-beta version of Google Chrome 2.0. It sports a few new features including form auto-completion, full-page zoom, 'profiles,' and Greasemonkey support. It seems the only notable feature would be profiles, which allows users to separate out their homepage, history, and bookmarks on a per user or category basis. It seems Google is still playing catch-up but they're definitely moving at a pace unknown to some of their competition. The full list of new features is available in the release notes."
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:5, Interesting)
I totally agree in the context of family members sharing a computer, but I find profiles useful because I'm a web developer and I don't want lots of toolbars taking up screen space and development extensions running when I'm just surfing the web normally as opposed to working on a site.
Re:Copy Firefox source code? (Score:5, Interesting)
Gecko is large and unwieldy compared to Webkit. When Apple decided to build a browser, they hired ex-Mozilla developers, who promptly turned around and used KHTML because it was so much leaner and better designed, despite their extensive experience with Gecko.
It's far from obvious that Firefox is ahead in the technology stakes. It trails in many ways and seems like a far less agile project compared with Webkit and Opera. It does have a few areas where it is ahead, but the downsides seem like an albatross to me.
Re:2.0 but still no non-windows (Score:2, Interesting)
That they haven't been yet able of releasing a Mac and Linux port is a hint that they did something really wrong and objectionable with the original Windows version.
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, I know! We can have the email program have profiles too! And the photo editor, and the instant messaging client! Perhaps one day someone will come up with a unified way to have them synchronize, so that I don't have to create and manage a set of profiles on every application. It could also unify password management, and give each profile its own common place to put files.
Or, I don't know, we could actually use the user system that exists. Poorly reimplementing users in every single program is a horrible idea.
That said, there are uses for profiles that aren't just crippled reimplementations of the user concept. But they have more to do with wanting a different, well, profile of settings for different tasks -- things like the private browsing mode. Or, for example, I use a different Firefox profile for browsing Freenet (there are both performance and security reasons for that).
Re:Adblock? (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends which filters the users decide to subscribe to. Google would only be allowing a plugin which provides a framework to use filters to block specific content.
Re:Not a great 2.0 (Score:3, Interesting)
i use multiple firefox profiles - make's it easier to access multiple yahoo and gmail accounts, and try to keep my real work from heavy flash and javascript pages that are more likely to crash the browser. haven't tried chrome, but being able to set profiles on a tab by tab basis would be great. hope that's what they mean
and if i have trouble with a web app, it's nice to pop into a fresh profile so that you know plugins or settings aren't causing the problem. i start firefox from bash, using:
firefox -P myUserName --no-remote &
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:4, Interesting)
The vast majority of people I've seen using windows never log out to switch users.
1) It used to be a ROYAL hassle to switch users in OSX and Windows. To force my wife or kids to log everything out just so I could check or send a quick email was absurd.
Fast user switching technologies have made this less of a hassle, but a lot of people are conditioned against multiple accounts from the hassle it was in Windows 2000 and before or OSX 10.2 and before. I honeslty don't know when exactly Linux added the feature to let you swap desktops easily.
2) Many "family computers" really have no need of the separation between accounts.
My wife has a laptop that's sort of a family unit. She has her email accounts, and IM etc on it. My email goes to another PC, but since hers is usually in the living room if I want to do something I'll usually just use it... whether its just look something up on the web, or check my email (via webmail), or IM my brother or something, there's really no point in having a whole separate account for me on it. Our kids use it too, mostly for games and tux paint. They are young enough they don't really need a separate account (the oldest is in grade 1). Having separate accounts would actually just be a hassle.
(And as you may have guessed from "tux paint" that its a linux laptop, not a windows one... so a single account is really a convenience thing, not a 'because its windows' thing.)
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:5, Interesting)
As my full time job I write fake blog entries. I do a bit of other stuff too but that takes most of the time. There are about four dozen blogs I take care of myself, posting one to two entries to each every week. They are mostly reviews of products, services, etc... Though not all, it can't become too clear what the true purpose of those blogs it.
It becomes bad when you realize how many people actually read what you write and take it all as the truth. When single parent mothers comment my blog about family life (thinking I am a father of two young boys) and not realizing that they were recommended all those products because I am paid to recommend them sometimes sucks.
However, I am happy I haven't investing related blogs as a colleague of mine has. "The most horrible thing is when they email me asking how to best finally invest all the money they have been saving for years and I would just like to answer 'I don't have any idea about it.' but instead I give them advice that pretty certainly makes them lose it all."
Well, believe it or not, I still sleep my nights peacefully. You can also choose whether to believe my post or not. Which ever you choose, just remember that not nearly all of the reviews you see online are honest and the most honest ads you are ever likely to see are the clear and annoying ones that you instantly recognize.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean what if everyone developed your mentality and decided "Well i'm ok with using Google products for free but no taking the advertising with it".
If people as a whole had the same mentality as I do, Google's business model would of course be completely broken: I once clicked a Google add by mistake, and every now and then I notice them and read them to get a sense of what Google's database knows about me, but basically I ignore them. In that case, presumably people would be spending their money on things which actually make lives better instead of this advertising driven consumerism, and this would include donating to useful free services like Google. I'd donate to Google myself if they needed it. This is a silly fantasy though, since people don't think that way, and show no signs of doing so any time soon.
I'm grateful that at least some of the excesses of consumerism go to things that are good and useful. I don't, however, see that I have any moral obligation to help prop up system that I don't like, and I see no problem at all with taking the benefits that the system gives freely.
There is an inherent conflict. (Score:3, Interesting)
They haven't done that yet. If they do, it is anyone's guess whether Firefox add-ons will be supported, or whether the hard-working AdBlock Plus and NoScript teams will want to develop and maintain a new platform.
There is a huge problem here: Making money through advertising makes it necessary that people see the ads. Google has been spending $50,000,000 per year on Firefox. After Chrome is fully developed, Chrome will likely become the new favorite, replacing the buggy, CPU hogging, badly managed Firefox. Then Google can stop spending that money on Firefox.
This may be several years away, but it is a conflict that is certainly there.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:1, Interesting)
I love your anecdotal evidence. Not sure if I'd love it as your boss, management by ad incentive. A bit shallow don't you think? I don't buy a fridge because I see an ad. If I need one, I'll compare the best rated ones on the web and decide. You should decide what you want, not the other way round. Yes that's smart. Maybe you lost 60K on an even better choice.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:5, Interesting)
that's an overly simplistic view of advertising.
it's true that most internet ads are hyperlinks to sites where you can directly purchase a product or service. but advertising has been in use long before the advent of the web. the primary purpose of an ad is to promote a product through increased exposure/visibility. a billboard doesn't sell you a product or service directly; you can't click on magazine or newspaper ads; nor do TV commercials take you to a retailer where you can purchase the advertised product. but companies still spend billions of dollars every year on marketing and advertising to passively promote their products. a superbowl ad that won't result in any click-through sales is still worth far more money than a linked banner ad that actually takes people to a retail site. that's because advertising/marketing is all about mind share & branding. it's about influencing consumers subconsciously.
advertising is a form of passive persuasion. we're bombarded with ads everyday, and most people claim that this has absolutely no effect on them. but the numbers tell a completely different story. that's what makes advertising so insidious. it has practically become a science that can influence consumers in consistently predictable ways by exploiting known psychological quirks and human behavioral patterns. yet this unconscious influence makes us think that we're the ones who are choosing to buy this product or use that service. free will is just an illusion. oftentimes we make subconscious decisions due to external influences and then rationalize the decision only after the choice has been made, giving us the impression that it was a spontaneous choice made autonomously. this is demonstrated most clearly in a study conducted on the effect that music has on wine shoppers.
basically, some researchers played different types of music at a supermarket on different days and found that this had a noticeable influence on the purchase decisions of the wine shoppers--French music sold French wine and German music sold German wine [mindhacks.com]. despite the indisputable statistical correlation, only 1 in 44 surveyed customers acknowledged the store's ambient music as having an influence on their wine choice. this shows that people often fail to realize why they make their purchases, and will even make up reasons for "choosing" a particular product when in reality it was chosen for them by external influences.
so it's not just clickthroughs that advertisers are after. even if nobody clicks on the ads on a webpage, they are still fulfilling their purpose and influencing future purchase decisions. no one is immune to advertising, and especially not if you don't even recognize the power they have over you. time and time again studies have shown that consumers make purchase decisions based on irrational impulses instilled through advertising--like equating large vehicles to safety, or purchasing familiar brands that are a poorer value.
Re:Not a great 2.0 (Score:2, Interesting)
The only real feature I'm interested in (I don't know about the rest of you) is simple :
Linux support
FreeBSD support
If they could get that one done. Preferably with an apt-get option for at least ubuntu intrepid and debian.
I can't imagine that being very hard.