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Comments: 251 +- Technology: Google Announces Chrome For Mac and Linux Dev Builds on Friday June 05 2009, @04:50AM
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Dan Kegel (who admits to being a Chrome developer) writes to point out a post from Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, Product Managers for Google Chrome, with some good news for non-Windows users who want to play with Chrome: "In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux (for a couple of different Linux distributions), but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software." (The announcement continues below.)
"How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.
Meanwhile, we'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible ..." The downloads are available through the Chrome developer's channel.
Meanwhile, we'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible ..." The downloads are available through the Chrome developer's channel.
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Wha...? (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell did they release? A box of crayons where you have to draw the Internet manually?
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Informative)
What Works
* Almost All Websites
* Bookmark pages
* Most visited sites
* Open link in new tab
* Open new tabs
* Omnibox
* Back, Forward, Reload
* Open link in new window
* Drag a tab to make a window
* Launch new tab
* Cut, Copy, Paste
* Keyboard shortcuts
* about:version, about:dns, about:crash, about:histograms
* Find in page
* History with search
* Form Fill
* Delete Thumbnail in New Tab Page
* Window Positions Remembered
* View Source with synatx highlighting and clickable links
What Doesn't Work
* Plugins (No flash -> No youtube)
* Bookmarks Bar
* Print
* about:network, about:memory
* Web Inspector
* Input methods such as Kotoeri (Japanese)
* Preferences (Partial implementation)
* Full Screen Browsing
* Favicon (thanks brin)
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Re:Wha...? (Score:4, Informative)
Unlike the Mac [chromium.org] version. I'm sure they'd appreciate hints on how to use SELinux/AppArmor.
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Linux sandbox progress (Score:3, Interesting)
Several approaches are being investigated; see
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxSandboxing [google.com]
http://lwn.net/Articles/332974/ [lwn.net]
http://www.imperialviolet.org/2008/11/27/sandboxing-on-linux.html [imperialviolet.org]
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not current on development for the Mac, but I've heard that multiple processes can't share a single window in OS/X.
Do you happen to know how Chrome works around this, or is this not an actual limitation?
I'm not a mac dev and what i'm posting here is gleaned from several svn log entries. So it might be wrong and inaccurate :). The chrome architecture is that there is a main process which handles the UI and there is one process per site which is launched but do not handle the UI. In Mac, the one process per site works but if you open up Activity Monitor you will see that the additional processes are shown as "Not responding" though in reality they are.
What is happening here is that OS-X expects the additional processes to respond to UI events and since they don't mark them as "Not Responding". Two solutions have been proposed
1. have dummy code which responds to UI events to keep OS-X happy
2. Rip out the Cocoa code from the additional processes which will make OS-X not expect the process to respond to UI events.
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Re:Wha...? (Score:4, Funny)
Before commenting on Slashdot forum posts you could, I don't know, do something as wild and crazy as perhaps READING about how sarcasm is usually done. If you would have used your eyes before your itchy fingers you'd understand that a sarcastic post is more often done out in the open. Naturally the sarcasm has to start somewhere, right? Or did you think that the stork delivered your sense-of-humor as well?
My original post wasn't a radical post against OSS (though I question whether your's was).
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Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I was waiting for a car analogy.
Here you go. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, my apologies.
Works for posting to Slashdot :) (Score:5, Informative)
I just installed the .deb on this laptop, running Ubuntu 9.10 alpha. So far, seems nice and pleasant :)
I seem some rendering problems, but Hey, I blame google!
timothy
Re:Works for posting to Slashdot :) (Score:5, Informative)
I've installed the DEB also (on my Ubuntu 9.04). It's pretty stable (has not crashed on me once, though neither has Firefox) and fast. However, my Firefox has close to 80 tabs open (all filled with AJAX, Flash, etc. on my slow 1.4 GHz Celeron M with 512 MB RAM), so I'm not sure how they really compare in terms of noticeable speed while browsing regularly.
Also, just realized Chrome has spell-check!
(By the way, you can upgrade to regular Jaunty. There's no need to keep the Alpha.)
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Re:Works for posting to Slashdot :) (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, there are these things called "bookmarks". It's a lot smarter to use those instead of keeping open more tabs than you can use at once. You can even bookmark a group of tabs!
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Re:Works for posting to Slashdot :) (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, bookmarks work pretty well for 50+ new forum threads that didn't exist on your last visit :)
I browse forums by clicking "New posts", then middle-clicking all the interesting threads. Close thread list, read each tab in order. If the wi-fi goes down, I still have lots to read right in front of me.
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Re:Works for posting to Slashdot :) (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, you do seem to have some rendering problems yourself.
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Chromium (not Google Chrome) already works nicely (Score:4, Informative)
I've been using Chromium for some time on my Eee 1000, since FireFox hangs intermittently (slow SSD, which does not like apps that write a lot of stuff).
Chromium is a pleasant experience, fast and snappy. It used to crash all the time (e.g. when doing a copy/paste) but has been improved daily, and is now stable and usable. I don't know what the Google branded version would add on top. "DON'T DOWNLOAD" sounds like reverse psychology. Definitely, download, and use if you have a machine that is a little slower than the average desktop.
Re:Chromium (not Google Chrome) already works nice (Score:4, Informative)
Most Eee PCs have two SSDs: a large, slow one and a small fast one. Firefox became a lot snappier once I moved my profile directory to the fast SSD. Obvious in retrospect, I know...
If you have >512Mb in your netbook you could do what I've done: I keep the entire profile in RAM (on a tmpfs filesystem). On bok the profile is copied in to the ram drive and on shutdown it is rsynced back to the SSD (using --inplace to reduce copy+write operations on the urlclassifier db).
OK so it lengthens boot time a little, but it isn't often the machine is properly shutdown anyway (it tends to be suspended when not in used instead) so doesn't do a full boot often.
The urlclassifier db appears to be the main culprit for the "unexpected" IO in firefox. and even with all the relevant features turned off it seems to keep updating the file. If you don't want to put your whole profile in RAM (there is the risk of losing important bookmarks and cookies and such if the machine unexpectidly loses all power including battery or if normal shutdown scripts otherwise fail to be callde) you could probably just copy this file in and replace it with a symlink.
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How does this differ? (Score:5, Interesting)
How does this differ from the Chromium daily builds [launchpad.net]? Is it identical only officially a Google product, or are there technical differences?
Beta? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll just wait for the final release.. can't take to long.
Of course I do! (Score:3, Funny)
"[...]but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
Of course I do. I used Windows 95 for years!
Yuck, a Chrome developer (Score:3, Funny)
They say it like it's something dirty!
Girl: "Mom, I've got a new boyfriend."
Mum: "Really, pumpkin?"
Girl: "Yes. He's a Chrome developer!"
Mum: "Oh!" *faints*
Dad: *finally looks over his newspaper* "Straight to your room YOUNG LADY! You're grounded for a week with no telephone!"
Re:Yuck, a Chrome developer (Score:4, Funny)
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Still mad at Google (Score:3, Insightful)
Trust me, I admire Google. But I am mad at them for using the "wrong" toolkit in developing Chrome for Linux. Slashdotters, this is *my* opinion having used both toolkits and deployed software though not as complex as a browser on all operating systems.
And I have at least one supporter [purinchu.net] on this front.
What they should have done is to fund development of Chrome using the "right" tool for the job. What would be wrong with that?
Re:Still mad at Google (Score:5, Informative)
Two issues are being confused there. First, do you use a cross-platform toolkit, or do you write a true native GUI for every platform and just keep the backend in common? Google have decided to write a new GUI for every platform, and I think they are probably correct to do this. Qt (and GTK+) are cross-platform, but they are not quite native (though arguably Qt is better at this).
Once that choice is made, all you are doing is picking a toolkit for Linux. GTK+ has the advantages of being familiar to the chrome devs, matching the existing ff dependency, being the most widely-used toolkit (and therefore appearing native for the largest number of users), and being "good enough".
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It would have been smarter to use Qt than to have very Windows- and Mac- customized ports, and then you would have got a Linux port for free. You can use QGtkStyle (included in Qt 4.5, but you can run it yourself now) to make Qt apps look like GTK ones.
This seems kind of retarded because Google Gadgets is already GTK and Qt. Obviously they didn't build a GUI abstraction layer then, and reinvented the wheel then (with Qt and GTK+ versions.) So now they will do it all again for Chrome. I guess someone should
CPU Usage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's why I'm excited about/anxious for Chrome on OS/X:
I used Firefox for awhile, a couple of years back. It bogged down the CPU, especially after running for awhile.
So I switched to Opera (and shortly thereafter went from Windows to OS X). It was a peppier experience. But with newer releases, and the increasing use of Flash (I think) on the Net, it started getting slower and slower. I don't like having my fan run while I'm simply sitting and reading a static page. Turning off all plugins seems to avoid that, so I point the finger at Flash. But not having Flash, or only having it on demand, is fairly annoying. Also, there's some sites Opera just won't render properly. Not many, but some.
So I switched back to Firefox, with the advent of 3.0. Even doing nothing, sitting with a few static pages open (and Adblock, Flashblock) it seems to still hover at 10% CPU usage. Bleh. Enough to keep my fan humming all the time.
When I tried Chrome on Windows, I was quite excited, with the process-per-page approach. I can see *what* page is slowing things down, and kill it if I chose. That's my biggest beef with Opera/Firefox (I won't even let IE into the discussion :P): you can't tell *what* page is slowing down your browser. I've tried JavaScript debuggers, other dev tools to try and found out, but have had no success.
I'm praying that Chrome on OS/X will be my salvation (although I've become dependent upon some Firefox extensions, particularly vimperator :P). Upon first glance, it looks pretty good (and I'm using it to post this article). It seems to suck up 30% CPU for 20 seconds or so *after* finishing loading a page, but then does settle down.
Right now I have about 5 tabs open, and each is using 2-3%, which is slightly concerning. That could add up to be just as bad as Firefox/Opera. But for now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt of being an early release, and keep my fingers crossed that the "Browser That Finally Doesn't Suck [CPU]" is on the horizon...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, i think, high cpu usage in pages that have flash is accurate description. The thing is, combination of sloppy Flash Player bytecode executing in a suboptimal version of Flash Player (i. e. for Linux to name one) really sucks the juice out of the CPU and laptop batteries. I am experiencing all those things. Laptop + Linux + Flash = slow, irresponsive experience.
Perhaps a good solution would be to implement some kind of careful sandbox in which all plugins would run, but not necessarily out of security co
Does the job? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would bet that while you can't print, view YouTube videos or change your privacy settings yet, the core functionality of aggregating data about the user's browsing behaviour and sending it to Google with a uniquely identifiable ID is firmly in place.
Pretty happy with Firefox at the moment (Score:4, Insightful)
Using the Fedora Linux here and have been for a rather long time. I am very much "anti-advertiser" simply because they have a huge propensity to "go too far" with their advertising and data collection. (I have nothing against advertising when it comes to respectful means that the customer seeks out for himself.) Google, for everything else they do in terms of evolving the internet technologies, is still an advertiser. I don't trust them. I can't imagine why anyone else would either.
BETA A.S.A.P.? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, hurry up with that.... so you can keep them in BETA for 5+ years afterwards. :p
Irony (Score:5, Funny)
DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.
How ironic, they announce new Mac and Linux versions and tell you not to download them unless you use Windows.
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Phoning home (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it still send unknown encrypted data back to google at will [foliovision.com]?
Thanks, that's all I need to know about this browser.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NOT amd64 (Score:5, Informative)
A friend wrote up a Gentoo ebuild for it, which I went and installed (for the amd64 version - I run an almost entirely 64 bit system). Try to run it, and got this message:
That's odd ... double check ... yes, /usr/lib64/libgconf-2.so.4 exists ... No ... they couldn't have ...
$ file /opt/google/chrome/chrome
/opt/google/chrome/chrome: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, stripped
*facepalm*
The 64-bit Chrome is *NOT* 64-bit, and will not run on 64-bit systems which are missing a number of 32-bit libraries.
Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:5, Informative)
But they aren't... SEPARATED INTO PROCESSES!
OK, seriously and drama aside, I do think that's a good idea, and it also seem to help as a way to help out with memory management. I always thought Safari sucked a lot of RAM, especially on Windows.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:4, Informative)
But that's kind of the point. Finally, we can severely reduce memory bloat due to memory fragmentation by separating tabs into different processes.
Chrome has a higher memory footprint at first, but then as Firefox continues to use more and more RAM, Chrome's memory usage remains consistent.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:5, Funny)
Why would I need this? I already have a webkit browser with tabs on top.
Because you want one that doesn't suck.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you want one that doesn't suck.
And that would be the one that doesn't let you change the (marketing dept. approved I presume) privacy settings and search engine?
I smell a rat.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, an alpha build is expected to be considered a finished product? They never said we won't let you change privacy settings/search engine, it's called "we haven't even bothered coding features because this isn't stable".
If your ass smells like rats, that explains where your head is.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:5, Interesting)
And how it doesn't suck then? I'd say that Safari and Chrome are comparable.
Chrome is obviously not ready for real use on OS X or Linux yet, but it is an architectural leap forward. It has real sandboxing of tabs so that one tab can't make the others unresponsive or take down the browser is a huge leap forward. With the Web being so central to most people's workflow these days this is akin to the move to a multitasking OS. I think that's what has most of us excited, not speed or new features at this point. It has a long way to go, but the underlying architectural decisions provide for more potential.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:4, Interesting)
Chrome is obviously not ready for real use on OS X or Linux yet, but it is an architectural leap forward. It has real sandboxing of tabs so that one tab can't make the others unresponsive or take down the browser is a huge leap forward. With the Web being so central to most people's workflow these days this is akin to the move to a multitasking OS. I think that's what has most of us excited, not speed or new features at this point. It has a long way to go, but the underlying architectural decisions provide for more potential.
I know they advertise this, but it honestly hasn't proven to be true. I've been using Chrome daily since it came out (less bloat than Firefox, less suck than IE), and when a tab freezes, they all freeze.
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Re:Already have Safari, kbyethnx (Score:5, Insightful)
Because multiple players means competition, and competition means innovation, which leads to a better browsing experience for all of us, regardless of which you're using.
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Re:Speaking of browser innovation... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:It's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think open source software is necessarily about what you want it to be. Just because Firefox is better than the competition today doesn't mean that Firefox will always be the best but if nobody tries to make anything better then stagnation will ensue. Monoculture is bad no matter who is director and I would rather see 20 options than 2.
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Re:It's okay (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the rest of that argument (let's not have competition now that the browser I think is good is winning) made sense and all that matters is killing IE, Chrome is an additive force. In a world with only IE and Firefox, if you disliked Firefox, there'd be no alternative. There are people who like Chrome better than Firefox; if your goal is killing IE, that's *more* switchers, even if a bunch also switch back and forth between Firefox and Chrome.
However, outside of that, there's nothing bad with having many browsers around. What is bad is having many contrary *concepts* around. Chrome didn't drag a new rendering engine in, they used WebKit, which is good. Actually, they used a fork of WebKit, which is bad, but WebKit has been able to handle this stuff by merging in the necessary abstractions in the past.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not on a Mac it doesn't. While Fx 3.0 is far better than previous versions on a Mac, it's still pretty poor. And you can't use Fx 3.0 on older Macs at all.
Adblock and flashblock etc are coming for Chrome. I use Firefox now, but unless Fx4.0 works significantly better on a Mac, and is multi-threaded, my continued use of it is time-limited. That's entirely Mozilla's own fault. They seem to be focusing on rebuilding Firefox as the Netscape suite, rather than actually making th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry for the extra reply. I forgot to recommend Camino [caminobrowser.org] which uses the Gecko rendering engine but is a real Mac application, and has built-in ad blocking.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And why do you think Google is interested in preserving Firefox as an end goal? They are not a non-profit foundation. They are much more like Microsoft or Apple: they want to make money.
One potential way to make money is to control the internet content all the way through end-user delivery. It may enable some things that seem otherwise impossible: delivering protected copyrighted content, for example. If they offered a browser that wouldn't let you save YouTube streams, then maybe the RIAA would let
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm posting using Google Crone, it's probably a bug
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Undoubtedly due to the Javascript JIT.
Re:In related news: chromium! (Score:4, Funny)
$ apt-get install chromiunm
I tried that but all I got was a stupid scrolling arcade game. :(
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