Google Chrome OEM Strategy To Take On IE 290
ruphus13 writes "In an effort to take on IE and make strong headway in its share of the browser market, Google is taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook and working on deals with PC OEMs to include Chrome in their devices. From the article: '[Google] is likely to pursue deals with major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to put Chrome on their computers and devices. ... If Mozilla could get aggressive about this too, we could see Internet Explorer facing more serious competition than ever. ... Google, much more so than Mozilla, has enough global brand recognition, money, and savvy to make a big deal of this. ... Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops. Chrome currently has just under one percent market share, according to NetApplications. That number could rise significantly through this effort. Mozilla doesn't have the kind of money required to get the significant deals in this space, but Google definitely does.'"
Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chrome isn't ready for prime time ... not a good idea at this point.
Why not just get them to include firefox and google apps, giving something of more perceived value?
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet it will be by the time any deal get's done and there ready to start putting it in there process.
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Funny)
Chrome isn't ready for prime time
Agreed. It's quite interesting that it is still loads better than IE, though.
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Funny)
You've got IE to LOAD?
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Firefox and Opera aren't standing still ...
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I bet it will be by the time any deal get's done and there ready to start putting it in there (sic) process.
Y'know, when a post contains at least three spelling/grammatical errors, and you decide to call attention to only one of them, it makes you look just as uninformed as the OP.
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Funny)
But will they still call it beta?
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Funny)
But will they still call it beta?
Uncertain. I don't know how Google's "permanent beta" policy would fly with Windows' "our beta is alpha, our RC is beta, and our SP1 is what we should have released".
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No, they won't. [arstechnica.com]
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chrome doesn't have adblock, and probably never will. Extensions are king, and firefox has that mindshare. Linkify, Greasemonkey, noscript, webdeveloper, firebug, etc.
I played with Chrome for about an hour and then removed it. It's a pretty horrible experience after firefox which makes it a rather pointless web browser.
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However have you checked Chromes Developers tools imbedded in it. They are comparable (not the same) to firebug. As well many of the other controls only appeal to geeks, or people who for some reason doesn't want to follow web standards created past 1994. I would use Chrome if it was available for the Mac. It is faster then Firefox and a more basic UI
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I have not wavered in my support for clown computing.
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Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Informative)
IE crashes [google.com] - 1,380,000 Results.
Firefox crashes [google.com] - 630,000 Results.
Safari crashes [google.com] - 1,110,000 Results.
What planet are you living on?
Googleology (Score:5, Funny)
In Safari's defence, I'm sure half those million+ results are in regards to land rovers hitting elephants and other African fauna.
863,000 +safari +crashes
728,000 +safari +crashes -elephant
697,000 +safari +crashes -elephant -lions
655,000 +safari +crashes -elephant -lions -banana
Apparently, there are many crashes involving elephants and lions which have been mistakenly added to these results. Also, it appears at least 40,000 crashes involved bananas - this warrants further investigation.
On the contrary (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was in two minds about it, until I typed:
about:plugins
and the first line said - ActiveX
then I said no thank you, and moved on.
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Firefox's 20% seems to be doing fairly well *without* ActiveX.
And this is a bullshit reason - ActiveX is a fucking piece of shit from a security point of view. Why would any sane person want to support it if they were not forced into it? With websites now working well with FireFox and understanding that being standards compliant is a good thing, we are now moving back into the "All the world is IE"?
And they call themselves non-evil?!
Mucking Forons, all who support ActiveX in Chrome.
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While I personally agree (I couldn't live without Foxmarks, Adblock, etc), I'm not sure that the internet horde cares that much about extensions. I mean, I work with a lot of smart people (physicians) who have no clue what an extension is and don't really care.
I'd be curious what percentage of Firefox users actually use extensions. I would not be surprised if a quick, simple browser that loads ALL your web pages correctly would appeal to the majority of users.
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Wouldn't it have been easier to just show them the menu item for add-ons, and let them play around a bit?
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I use Chrome all of the time. I like it really well, and it's only getting better. The problem is, Google seems to keep their apps in perpetual beta. What OEM is going to want to install a beta on all of their equipment?
Re:Will it really matter ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Other posters are right. Chrome should not be dealing with OEMs to root out IE. It should be Firefox.
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Other posters are right. Chrome should not be dealing with OEMs to root out IE. It should be Firefox.
Apparently you don't quite understand the concept of competition. There isn't always "The Big Guy" and "One Underdog". Why should Firefox be the only one allowed to compete?
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If you have switched to what you believe to be a better alternative but other people have not yet, isn't it normal to want to try and improve their
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But as far as rooting out IE goes, wouldn't you want the "best browser" to be the one to do it?
Obviously. The part where I disagree is which one is the best. You already know which one you want, so you can choose just fine. Let the other browsers compete at getting chosen by those that haven't decided.
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Chrome should not be dealing with OEMs to root out IE. It should be Firefox.
I said that. It means I wish it were Firefox in this story on Slashdot instead of Chrome. It doesn't mean that I think Google Chrome should be banned from going near an OEM for negotiations, and it doesn't mean that I think the only option should be Firefox. Is that what this whole thread was about, GigaplexNZ? ;)
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Chrome should not be dealing with OEMs to root out IE.
It doesn't mean that I think Google Chrome should be banned from going near an OEM for negotiations
It certainly sounded like you were suggesting that Google should be banned from dealing with the OEMs to supplant IE.
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:D
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It was due to Google fanboys trying to dig for reasons to rate Chrome as #2 (since it was shit compared to FF). Turns out it was shit compared to Opera, too.
Opera is the best browser I've used in terms of design and memory usage.
FireFox is the best I've used in terms of speed and ease of use.
IE is the best I've used in terms of compatibility (It gets this by default simply because of ActiveX, but also because you know that odd site that just doesn't play nice in FF or Opera probably works in IE, and you wo
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IE is the best I've used in terms of compatibility (It gets this by default simply because of ActiveX, but also because you know that odd site that just doesn't play nice in FF or Opera probably works in IE, and you won't get pages telling you to install quicktime or the latest flash, despite the fact that you did that 5 fucking times already, like you do in FF).
Oh, come on. The last time I saw a site that did not play nice in Firefox or required ActiveX, was years ago. I think it was my banking site in anno 2003...
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Unfortunately, ActiveX is extremely common in corporate intranets, making it the one and only mandated browser for corporate use in a lot of places.
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Unfortunately, ActiveX is extremely common in corporate intranets, making it the one and only mandated browser for corporate use in a lot of places.
There is one task at my workplace that requires to be done through IE. So I have to switch computers just for that one task.
Simply marvellous.
Then again, the application was designed way back when Windows was much more of a monoculture, and Firefox was not even a gleam in the milkman's eye.
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Planning (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't, usually, start working on how you are going to distribute a product after you know it is ready for the market. You work on what you need to do to secure the distribution channels you want to have while you are getting the product ready, so when it is ready, those will be in place.
Presumably, Google has an idea of where it wants Chrome to go and a plan to get it there. If it doesn't then, sure, this discussion of OEM deals may be premature, but you certainly can't conclude that from the fact (which I certainly don't dispute, though I use Chrome for almost all of my home browsing now) that Chrome isn't ready today to be most people's sole browser.
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Google could also offer a choice between Firefox and Chrome, or even install both to let the user experiment with which one they like best).
Google would win either way since Google and Mozilla already have a strategic alliance lasting until 2011 and both browsers have already integrated Google search, and I don't think Joe user wouldn't mind having them both given that he's already used to bundleware from the OEMs.
Suppose that the OEMs bu
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Chrome isn't ready for prime time
I think it is ready. I use Chrome exclusively on my laptops. It started out of curiosity, but now I am used to it, and it renders all the pages and shows all the videos I need it to. And it's fast.
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Any browser on a modern laptop is fast.
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Are you running Windows? That could explain it ... I've had NO problems under linux on an AMD64 dual 1.9 w 4 gig ram.
Fix it first (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. I can't print documents without a header and footer (I can with Firefox, or even IE). I can't block images like with Firefox. There are things I like about Chrome, like that one tab acting funny or crashing does not affect the other tabs, or the downloading interface it has, or that it remembers my most frequently trafficked pages and makes that as my start page, or that I can move tabs around, or that new tabs expand locally etc. But I hate having to use multiple browsers just to block images,
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I downloaded it to do compatibility testing, then decided "why bother?" I don't use Windows on my laptop, my home box, or my box at work; bad enough I have to track down a user who still has IE6 once in a while.
Funny thing was, I had switched to Opera a while back, but a few months ago I switched back to firefox, because Opera stopped working properly (had to right-click to open links). FF3 is a big improvement.
And IE is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chrome isn't ready for prime time
And IE is? :)
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I don't use Windows either at home or at work, but I had to use IE8 to debug a problem with some dynamic content under Windows - it might not have Firebug like Firefox, but it's a lot better than it was ... If IE8 had been out 6 years ago, Firefox wouldn't be a threat. Then again, if they had introduced Vista 6 years ago, everyone would have had no choice but to run linux or OSX (can you imagine Vista on a 1 ghz Pentium with 128k of ram, a 64 meg video card,
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Many people would claim that neither is IE, or Firefox for that matter.
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Very true. And I think everybody working on Chrome knows it. So this story had me really confused. So I did the unthinkable: I read TFA.
Which turns out to be just some pundits half-assed speculation based on the following quote by a Google exec:
"We will probably do distribution deals," Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, told The Times. "We could work with an OEM and have them ship computers with Chrome pre-installed."
That's a long way from actually pursuing OEM deals. I suspect Pichai was actually talking about how they might try to get some market share once Chrome is ready for prime time.
Either that, or he's one of those dimwitted marketeers who doesn't really understand the pr
Chrome? PIcasa? Lively? (Score:2)
Microsoft will play hardball (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds great in principal but hasn't the problem always been that Microsoft counters action like this by telling the manufacturers that if they ship competing software they will lose their OEM discounts for Windows? I am not completely up to date will the anti-trust judgements against Microsoft but assuming that this counter-attack hasn't been legally ruled out already, can't we expect Microsoft to do the same here?
Re:Microsoft will play hardball (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Google is large enough make doing that embarrassing to MS, and get the attention of the Attorney general.
Hell, maybe they want MS to get some anti-trust investigation against MS.
Google doesn't need MS, at all. They have nothing to fear from them.
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The problem with that strategy is that Google is also big enough to be theoretically investigated for anti-trust issues, especially with regards to their acquisition of DoubleClick. If Google threatens Microsoft with anti-trust allegations, Microsoft could reasonably do the same in return.
If it ain't broke don't fix it (Score:4, Interesting)
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For Google, anti-trust is playing with fire ---
--- and heading into what could be a very deep recession, I don't expect to see the new administration all gung-ho and ready to move against one of the bare handful of US industrials that is actually showing a pulse, paying dividends, a company with strong export sales and a AAA credit rating.
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You assume that Google is run by money-grubbing whores interested in a monopoly. It's not. They really do produce products so good that no one can compete with them. And the people who work there work there for that reason. They don't work there for money (there's certainly plenty of it) and I see no reason to believe they work there for their shareholders (they have no reason to, they're doing just fine as it is.) If that changes, sure, that might be a problem. But I think that many of the people at Google
Re:If it ain't broke don't fix it (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when is Microsoft an industrial company? They employ more lawyers than programmers!
I've caught heat here for posting that without published confirmation, but if you include the staff of their outsourced legal on top of their in-house legal, it vastly outnumbers their in-house programming staff. How much outsourced programming staff could they have when they employ legal to bully 3rd party hardware companies to develop drivers for their new OS's?
Case in point, did it take more programmers to develop OOXML than it took lawyers to get the standard approved?
Industrial by definition (Score:3, Informative)
.
Since services like S&P began to define it as an industrial.
The six AAA rated industrial companies are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc and Microsoft. In the early 1980s, there were more than 30 industrial companies with 'AAA' ratings. Microsoft joins select industrial club with S&P's AAA rating [thaindian.com]
S&P defines and tracks the performance of dozens of sub-sectors in the economy: S [incrediblecharts.com]
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"Hey! There can only be one monopoly, and that is us! Your Honor? Hello?"
Firefox actually seems to be better known (Score:5, Funny)
I think more people know what firefox is, as the "browser that works better and has less viruses" to the general public.
Mozilla is relatively unknown to people outside of our little slashosphere.
Re:Firefox actually seems to be better known (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is going to play havoc on people's understanding of the internet. Most people already think IE is the internet, but at least they knew that google was a thing on the internet. Now Google is going to be another internet that looks like a sort of three-colored button, next to the old internet that looks like a blue "e", and on both you can have Google, but you can't have the blue e on the Google internet.
Expect some calls from confused family members, people.
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Firefox was just mentioned in an Answer on the Jeopardy Teen Tournament. It is safe to say that FF has begun to enter into the general cultural consciousness.
Thank you (Score:2)
I've been saying someone needs to do this for years.
Swapping Microsoft for Google? (Score:2)
What exactly, though? Pay OEMs to start pre-installing something different that might also not be optimal for their end users' needs?
Personally I still trust Google more than Microsoft and I think it's good to promote diversity in the web browsers that are out there, which tends to lead to higher importance of standards. As a consumer, however, I still find it counter-productive in the long term that OEM deals should be happening at all.
OEM's should be
Television Ads (Score:5, Interesting)
That will be the ONLY thing to get the public to understand that the world is forced to break the web in order to look right for MSIE. Furthermore, a coordinated effort needs to be made to unite web developers to stop supporting Microsoft's intentional breaking of web standards.
"Get the Facts: The W3C is the organization that defines how the world wide web is supposed to work and every web browser maker tries to remain adherent to standards so that the internet runs smoothely... that is everyone except Microsoft with its billion-dollar-budget of programmers that somehow can't get it right."
I would find it interesting what Microsoft would tell the public in response to that. "We are Microsoft and we define the standards?"
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* Most people don't care about the W3C
* Most people don't pay attention to commercials
* Even more people don't pay attention to dry, boring, preachy commercials.
* Of the hundreds of millions of people who use Windows such an infinitesimally small number care about the web in a form other than "Does it work on my machine?" that rebutting your ad would be a colossal waste of time and money.
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We are Microsoft and we defile the standards.
There. Fixed it for you.
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Two problems: First, the W3C is self appointed - it isn't even an industry group but rather is a collection of academics, theorists, and philosophers. Second, as such, they are less interested in how the web actually works and more interested in how they wish the web worked.
Re:Television Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
You didn't say how the W3C doesn't define the standards. You don't say how they aren't valid. There are lots of controlling and regulating bodies that are not elected by the people. While you attempt to paint a grim picture by grouping the W3C in with two other organizations that aren't exactly shining examples of effectiveness or moral integrity, I'd have to protest the tactic on the grounds that it simply fails to disprove or invalidate my comment directly. Furthermore, you indicate how ICANN is out for its own gain, but not the other two. It would have been more interesting, however, if you managed to include ISO in the mix...
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You're right, the W3C is a coalition of companies with a vested interest in making web pages render similarly on different browsers.
Oh wait, there's one other company that's a member. I don't remember the name, but it was something like Macrohard.
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No, not exactly.
But as an industry consortium representing (and composed of) most of the major online companies and a number of other interested institutions, they have as democratic a mandate as any standards body I've seen.
Or rather (Score:4, Insightful)
"Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops."
Or rather, they just didn't install a second browser at all, since the only browser kinda HAS to be the default. I really doubt much wooing was involved.
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Exactly, that was possibly the low point of the summaries I've seen today. If anything, they woo hardware manufacturers to install their whole frickin OS as the default choice, and if there was no browser in Windows it make initial setup of new PCs (especially for home users) a lot more awkward. I'd rather they included their own brand browser than none at all. If they restricted the installation of any other kind of browser, that's when I'd take issue.
Pretty much (Score:2)
This idea that consumers want choice is a false one. Most don't. They just want shit to work. They don't 5 browsers, 10 media players and so on. That just confuses them. They just want programs that do the things they need, one per task.
The users that DO want choice, well they know where to go. Me, I like Firefox better than IE, I use WMP for video but Winamp for audio and so on. However it isn't a problem for me to find alternatives when I want them. But I am in the minority. Most people just want a browse
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So I imagine Google can get Chrome on systems, if they are willing to pay
Which they are. OEMS have been preloading Google Toolbar and Google Desktop for some time now.
History lesson (Score:5, Informative)
Being the "old guy," I'll teach you some history. Netscape was THE browser for the first iteration of Windows 95. NO browser was bundled OR part of the OS, although AOL was often preinstalled. (I'm not sure you'd call that...thing that came with it a browser.) Basically everyone who used a browser ran Netscape (some ran Mosaic).
Then IE 3 came out (like most Microsoft software, versions 1 and 2 were too shoddy for actual use by human beings, even end users).
Microsoft made IE free to "compete" with Netscape. It still wasn't bundled with the OS until Windows 95 OSR 2.1 -- although it was installed along with Office and other MS apps. But you didn't HAVE to have IE on a Win95 system. That started with Windows 98.
Here's the thing: Netscape Navigator was then made free also, and it WAS bundled on many a PC maker's system. It's true Microsoft didn't *woo* anybody -- threats were more like it. Doesn't anybody remember the whole first antitrust thing?
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One thing that seems to have been lost to the mists of time: IE 4 and IE 5 were functionally better browsers than Netscape 4. Their rendering was much nicer and they didn't crash nearly as often.
I wanted to use Netscape instead of IE. But it was such a hideous piece of shit that it was actually worse than IE.
I started running test builds and bug-reporting on Mozilla around mid-2000. Not because it was good, it wasn't, but because it was important. Thankfully it finally became good around 0.9.1.
Google (Score:3, Interesting)
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Why is this modded down?
It's the annoying fucking truth.
Google Desktop is shit, and I don't want it.
Windows Search is shit, and I don't want it.
I only have to be afraid of accidentally not opting out of one of those when I install dozens of apps.
Re:Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Last computer I bough came with Google toolbar, Google Earth and google Picassa installed. Last time I downloaded IrfanView, it came with Google toolbar bundled. When mu girlfriend (yes I DO have one) downloaded Adobe reader, it installed the freaking toolbar again... What's happening with this world? What's next, Apple installing Safari bundled with iTunes? oh wait...
I'll one up you with Java Runtime Enviro wanting to downloand and install a FUCKING OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY SUITE! I respect pushing OOo, but that's fucking absurd.
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I've been playing with InstallShield [acresso.com] lately for work-related things, which is one of the (if not 'the') major product for creating Windows Installer MSI files.
One of InstallShield's currently promoted features [acresso.com] (search down that page for "Value-added services") is the ability to set a flag which will cause the installer you create to install the Yahoo Toolbar with your program, reported so that your company can "generate new revenue streams".
I suppose that in this case, rather than try to go to all of the
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I'm running one of those new solid state drives as the hard disc, and at only 60GB I can't afford to have a lot of bloat filling up the limited space.
Google may be afraid of Ad Blockers (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't see this as a "however." You typically don't use ubuntu unless you're part of the unusually computer-savvy end of the bell curve. Linux is something like 1% of the desktop market, so why would Google care?
Chrome is also open-source, so even if Google refuses to release it with an ad blocker, there's nothing stopping third parties from making their own versions that do. We're alre
Re:Google may be afraid of Ad Blockers (Score:4, Informative)
I use Ubuntu. I've been using Ubuntu since Edgy (2006) and have Intrepid on 3 computers right now, and Hardy on 2 others. I've installed it many times for myself, and more than a couple times for friends and family. It does not come with an ad blocker by default.
Unless, for some odd reason, you're including Firefox's pop-up blocker as an ad-blocker.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is being an innovator in this field at the moment, and so I'm glad that they're positioned to get more "default" marketshare via OEMs.
It will push Microsoft to innovate with their own browser in order to keep their search engine hits up.
One feature that I expect to see in the release version of Chrome is video chat. They released a plug-in to make Firefox compatible with their Google Talk chat's new video feature, but I'm betting that functionality will come built-in to Chrome.
How about a Page from Firefox: Features. (Score:3, Informative)
How about making it usable first. Let me know when there are plug ins. Specifically Flashblock. No flashblock, no browser.
Google's taking lessons from Cypress Hill! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Punk [playaz] bailin' every time that I use Chrome" - Cypress Hill, "Till Death Comes"
Granted, B-Real is talking about firearms here, but good for Google. It'd be interesting to see browser usage stats on machines that ship with both IE and Chrome preinstalled, although it wouldn't surprise me to see IE retain a majority share, just on name recognition alone.
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Ooh, that's fun. Lots of good rap lyrics talk about guns like that.
"Now I got to follow him home, with my chrome, send him to the twilight zone, it's on!"
--Ice Cube, Robbin' Hood
Yeah, I could see Google using that in an ad. :-)
Google will target embedded applications (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd bet that Google is looking to target embedded platforms that will need a lightweight browser in ROM. This would include things like cell phones/PDAs, netbooks, notebooks with a pre-boot environment, etc. This is what Chrome was designed for from the start.
The biggest killer app of them all is television. Over the next few years, The US has an impending mass uptake of new, higher resolution televisions that are suitable for web browsing and other text dominant internet activities. We already have a selection of set-top boxes and game consoles to provide usable internet functions on TV. Internet enabled televisions will become commonplace in the not too distant future. These will be the products of choice for aging, wealthy, and (relatively) technologically illiterate boomers.
If Google can get its foot in the door to that and other embedded markets then they can compete without having to face MS directly. I expect that MS will not be able to revamp Pocket IE to make it capable enough to be a viable competitor to Chrome on a platform where a web browser has to have all the bells and whistles to satisfy users.
"Beta" (Score:3, Interesting)
Dont Get it (Score:4, Interesting)
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face
palm
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and shudder at the data they have on people.
Jesus, I hope you don't use the Internet at ALL outside of Slashdot, because Chrome is the least of your worries as far as tracking goes....
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