




Google Chrome Is Out of Beta 444
BitZtream writes "This morning Google announced that Chrome is out of Beta, and showing improvements for plugin support, most notably video speed improvements. It also contains an updated javascript engine, claiming that it operates 1.4 times faster than the beta version, and work has begun on an extensions platform to allow easier integration with the browser by third parties."
Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Informative)
I have to give the Chrome team credit. Chrome has been improving in stability and usability almost like magic. From day to day, it seems like problems I had previously just disappear. As it turns out, Chrome has an automatic updater that runs in the background. The browser is constantly and silently upgrading itself as the Chrome team push out new updates. The results are quite impressive.
If you'd reading this in chrome and want to force the most recent update, just go to the "About" screen. Chrome will tell you if an update is available and allow you to manually run the updater. There's a good chance that most users are already updated, but it doesn't hurt to check.
The killer feature that I still think is missing is the ability to exit and save tabs. Chrome can Restore after a crash (most of the time), but you can't manually restart the browser without loosing the history you have open. Another issue I wish they'd fix is remembering the last save directory when doing a "Save As...". I realize that keeping a single Downloads directory is userfriendly, but using it as the default location when the user is overriding the download location is annoying. If I need to download 10 files, I need to navigate to the same directory 10 times. That's just ridiculous.
Otherwise my gripes are mostly minor and have no real bearing on its use in day to day activities. (e.g. I hate that I can't view the properties of an image. Sometimes I need to verify that its under a certain size. Or that there's no easy method of tracking page errors.) Thankfully, most of my gripes are developer-related and are better served by keeping a copy of FireFox around.
Kudos to Google for working on another alternative to Internet Explorer! If Chrome and Firefox can each grab a significant marketshare, Internet Explorer's hold over the Internet will disappear. Firefox's popularity has already caused it to wane. I look forward to the day when using IE will net you nothing but pages telling you to upgrade your web browser. :-)
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
We are also developing an extensions platform along with support for Mac and Linux.
Bingo. When it reaches the functionality of Firefox I'll be the first to get it. It will give FireFox a run for its money.
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Stopgap measure: Make a symlink/shortcut from Downloads directory to the desired location. Repeated navigation is less daunting.
Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
The WebKit team and anyone who ever contributed to it should also get praise. Without it Chrome would never have seen the light of day. Google Chrome is essentially Google's chrome around the rendering engine and any tweaks they provided to WebKit.
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Informative)
I agree. The WebKit team has been simply amazing. Though in Google's defense, parts of the browser are customizations over WebKit. e.g. The V8 Javascript engine is quite a bit different from JSKit or Squirrelfish.
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What about KHTML team who did all the original work? Everyone forgot them already? :)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Informative)
It's definitely the most impressive thing about KDE that they wrote such a good rendering engine that both Apple and Google ended up using it, but you always hear Apple getting praise for WebKit but never the KHTML team. (A bit like OS X and BSD I suppose, but more so)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Interesting)
Except Chrome is light-years better than any other Webkit browser out there. They had some truly innovative and necessary ideas when it came to a multi-process, sandboxed browswer with a virtualized javascript engine. Saying that Webkit deserves all the praise isn't remotely fair. If Webkit alone was enough to light the world on fire, we'd be using Safari. And despite the benchmarks of nightly builds of pure Webkit running like a speed demon, Safari sure doesn't.
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but is mo better [foxnews.com]?
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone else, thanks to the KDE team. It looks like Apple and Google names shadow the developpers behind KHTML, but WebKit would probably never have existed as it is now without KHTML.
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Funny)
Man, that must have been awkward for the first few generations....
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Informative)
The killer feature that I still think is missing is the ability to exit and save tabs. Chrome can Restore after a crash (most of the time), but you can't manually restart the browser without loosing the history you have open. Another issue I wish they'd fix is remembering the last save directory when doing a "Save As...". I realize that keeping a single Downloads directory is userfriendly, but using it as the default location when the user is overriding the download location is annoying. If I need to download 10 files, I need to navigate to the same directory 10 times. That's just ridiculous.
That "killer feature" is in there, you just have to turn it on in the options, in the "on start-up" section. You just select the option that says restore the pages that were open last. I agree with you on the saving files thing, that is rather annoying.
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Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
"That must be why I keep killing that friggin process"
Indeed, im generally "ok" with an application that has some background nonsense I have to kill, but "GoogleUpdate.exe" refuses to go away until you delete the damn thing, there seems to be no way of disabling it via Chrome itself.
Pointless comment, but for me its a major reason why I don't use it, the only thing I give them credit for about it, is not naming it some obfuscated nonsense like guu.exe
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, I do think the number of processes is important. So many apps install permanently resident updaters (Java, Acrobat, Flash, etc.) when it would suffice perfectly for those apps to simply check for a ne
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Interesting)
I really don't care if they want to run an updater when I'm using Chrome. But I don't want software installing stupid stuff to run in the background when the software isn't being used. Its why I hate iTunes and Tivo Desktop. I'm even a little annoyed at Sun (Java Updater).
My machine is over 5 years old. I don't have the resources to allow every new piece of software to run some updater in the background, nor do I have the resources to go out and by a new machine right now.
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Then, I killed it and fired up a video game. It was slower.
I know it would be a hell of a coincidence if it was something else causing you problems, but... are you sure it was Chrome?
I just tried the same thing; fired it up (and updated, as I haven't run it since it came out - back then it did not have smooth scrolling).
When I killed it, the updater is sure there, but it is using 516K.
Of the 73 processes I have running, it takes third from last in memory use. Seriously, RAM for older computers is very cheap these days; if you notice when you are short 516K, pick
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't really work. I disabled the GoogleUpdater service long ago, and yet the process is still running.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Interesting)
Silently installing a retarded updater that's doing who-knows-what is about one-fourth of the reason I loathe Chrome and will never use it again. I'll reserve all the other reasons I hate it for another comment, but I really don't see why getting rid of the dumb updater was such a chore, or why it was there in the first place.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Informative)
This I don't understand it, but this is the biggest misconception about chrome there is! Chrome has the best and most comprehensive page debugger I have seen, for Javascript, html and css. Right click on your image, and select "inspect element" from the menu. You will get all of your image properties plus all of its surrounding code. Page errors, same deal just right click and select "inspect element" and you can get an extremely good, verbose output of any javascript errors, or track your way through the dom as it highlights elements firebug style.
Chrome rules, it is the best browser bar none, especially when it comes to development!
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:4, Informative)
If you're in Windows, Direct Folders [codesector.com] fixes that problem in almost every program. I'm not one to install a lot of add-ons, but since I discovered Direct Folders, I can't live without it.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have expected somebody to stand up at a meeting and go "Hey, lets merge the products and save money!" at some point, especially in this growing economic hole (didn't Sun just do a huge layoff, too?)
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
I would try an explain it with a car industry analogy, but there isn't one.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
But, as your parent stated, that is very redundant and dosen't make much sense, especially as the companies are clearly suffering(Sun's layoffs vs. GM's bailout).
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually, it makes a lot of sense. They add some trim to the product and make a much bigger profit margin by selling the same vehicle under a high-end brand name. Basically, it all boils down to hoping people won't notice that they are paying a huge premium for trivial enhancements to the same basic vehicle. I'm not saying it is a good practice, but as a business practice, it does pay off, at least so long as the market for luxury goods doesn't dry up. When it does, of course, if you aren't making enoug
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It makes far less sense if the two products aren't build using the same parts, of course, which is why the car analogy falls flat when talking about Google.
If you believe that the car industry analogy falls flat, you know nothing about the car market. I can go out today and buy a Ford Mondeo, or a Volvo V70, or a Saab 93, or a Jaguar XF - all competing directly against one another, all with significantly different engineering and tooling, all made by Ford. Google only supports two browsers (and only makes one). Ford has about six entirely different executive saloon cars.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
So what you're saying is
1) Release two virtually indentical products under different names for twice the development cost.
2) ???
3) Bailout!
How much longer until Sun gets a bailout?
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about the Monty Hall paradox. It's a loose comparison, but work with me. If your customers are just comparing between Ford and Chevy, and your products are equal, you get 50% of the market, all things equal. If you introduce a new brand, let's call it GMC, some of the customers who might have chosen Ford might choose GMC. Since all you have to change is the 1 dollar name plate, it's a good deal.
This is how GM has run their business for 75 years.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Vauxhall Astra
Opel Astra
Chevy Astra
Saturn Astra
Holden Astra
QED
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
A car industry or an analogy?
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If we were talking about something being sold, product differentiation would be one means of attempting to achieve some form of price discrimination.(1)
That part of the equation doesn't apply here (though it will to any of the car-analogies cropping up), but product differentiation is still a recognised way to build brand loyalty by creating (perceived) differences and thereby value.
People don't use Firefox and think "Gee, isn't Google great?" – that's the (a) reason for Chrome.
A further reason is tha
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Google supports both because regardless of Chrome or Firefox, as long as either 'wins' it is Google's gain for their search business.
This is along the same lines as Best Buy and Futureshop in Canada. They're both owned by Best Buy in the back end, but allowing the guise of choice makes customers comfortable with buying from each of them.
OpenOffice and StarOffice are more along the lines of MyProductBasic and MyProductAdvanced. By getting people into the free version, one can encourage buyers to upgrade to s
Re:just what we need (Score:4, Informative)
Google also offers a variety of other web services besides search. and most Google Apps services have complex enough interfaces to make cross-browser compatibility a major hassle, i imagine.
as for StarOffice/OpenOffice, i think it's important to first understand why Sun purchased StarOffice:
offering StarOffice as a free download (for personal use) was a great way to promote their office suite and did not conflict with their original goal. then perhaps following in the footsteps of Netscape with Mozilla, Sun opened the source code for StarOffice, creating OpenOffice. this further boosted the popularity of StarOffice/OpenOffice (which /. no doubt had a hand in) and also accelerated the development of the StarOffice code base by enlisting the help of the open source community.
Sun then adds proprietary components to snapshots of the OpenOffice code base to develop StarOffice. these proprietary components include:
so by contributing to OpenOffice, Sun is still just contributing to StarOffice. funding both projects allows them to have the best of both worlds, and doesn't really cost them anything extra. they gain the benefits of an active open source development community, and they also get to keep a proprietary office suite to sell, in which they can include components they're unable to include in OO.org.
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What if everywhere you look you see google, and their ads. What if being the advertising monopoly is all they need to be.
Saturating every software niche they can find, from drawing to blogging to news to search, all with their ads on top. Sounds profitable to me.
Re:just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
They use it as a vehicle to implement web standards, under a license that allows any other browsers to adopt the improvements. Thus the web improves, which directly benefits Google (as well as others)
Out of beta? (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one surprised just to hear that Google has taken something out of beta?
Re:Out of beta? (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one surprised just to hear that Google has taken something out of beta?
No, and you ain't in Kansas, neither.
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Re:Out of beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprised (Score:2, Interesting)
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Thats what I thought... "But, but it hasn't even been a year!"
Anyway, let me know when we can get it from the Ubuntu repositories...
Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sorry, I can not conceive the internet any more without add-block...
Re:Addons (Score:4, Informative)
Get Privoxy [privoxy.org] and don't look back.
Re:Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Addons (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, however "going to" isn't "already support".
Re:Addons (Score:5, Funny)
I am sorry, I can not conceive the internet any more without add-block...
I find that subtraction works well.
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop telling everyone about it! I want slashdot to remain free.
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird, why was this moderated Funny?
I assume all you guys that run AdBlock realise that ads keep these websites free. I'm happy to absorb a few ads in the interests of getting free content.
Yes, sometimes they slow page loads, yes, sometimes they're annoying, but they keep sites free.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And why aren't you moderated Insightful?
I turn off my ABP on sites I frequently visit as a gesture of support, though I'm sure many people kept theirs on all the time. I used to too but my conscience is slowly catching up to me.
Re:Addons (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot has ads now?
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Re:Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
Citation please? More likely you're simply pulling it out of thin air. Nobody I know blocks in-page (versus popup) advertising, and having worked for a digital advertising agency (I didn't do any banner ads, so I'm not apologizing!) and hearing the kinds of numbers they get I feel pretty safe in calling this out as the nonsense it is. If "just about everybody" is blocking them, then those handful of people who aren't sure interact with the ads an awful lot, and they hit refresh the page an awful lot to download them again.
And you're the kind of person who makes a shitty analogy and then tries to bash somebody with it. Nobody claimed it was stealing. Not on this site. Broadcasting a TV signal costs the same amount of money whether one person tunes it in or one hundred million do. And for that matter, it costs the same whether 0% or 100% of the sets tuned in have anybody watching them. Moreover, the TV stations get paid the same amount of money whether you actually watch the ads or not.
The Internet doesn't work that way. The get paid based on impression or click-through. Worse, every time you visit a website you cost the person hosting it money either directly or by using a finite resource. Many choose to foot the bill and not use advertisements, you're right about that; I'm one of them. Those who don't are making a clear and conscious choice, one which should be respected. You do not have some inalienable right to view their content. In the case of ads they're making a trade with you, and you're welching on your part of the deal. Do it if that's who you are, I'm not your mother, but don't make bullshit excuses and shitty analogies to try to pretend that blocking their ads and taking their bandwidth doesn't directly affect their wallet line. Twice.
Of course given the fact that you've already been modded into oblivion so many times your posts start at zero, I'm not sure why I'm taking the time to feed the trolls.
Still no Mac / Linux support. (Score:5, Informative)
OEM deals (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Google is trying to work out deals with OEM's to bundle Chrome on Windows PC's. Obviously, they can't do this while the browser still carries the "beta" tag, which is akin to a scarlet letter.
It's interesting they chose to drop out of "beta" before they implemented one of their supposed top features, namely, cross-platform compatibility.
Re:OEM deals (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they'll have separate betas for the Mac and Linux versions.
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Just out of curiosity, is this the fastest a Google product has ever gone from "released as Beta" to "its not Beta, its Production"?
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Dunno. Are there any other Google products out of beta? :-)
Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, not releasing on all three major platforms seems pretty brain-.dmg'ed.
I'm seeing a pattern, though. Could it be that developing cross-platform applications is something for which Google doesn't have any aptitude?
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Yeah, not releasing on all three major platforms seems pretty brain-.dmg'ed.
I personally run Mac OS X, work on Linux and only use Windows to test against IE [1], so I understand the frustration. But I find it hard to believe that one can't understand hitting 90% of the market as quickly as possible and them filling in as much of the remaining 10%. It's not brain-damaged, it's pragmatic.
[1] All of this on my Mac using VMware Fusion in unity-mode which is pretty slick. Oh and I also run Chrome and can't wait for the Mac OS X version.
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But I find it hard to believe that one can't understand hitting 90% of the market as quickly as possible and them filling in as much of the remaining 10%.
If you ever intend to hit that 10%, you're better off starting there.
Keep in mind, Windows/IE is always the odd one out. Stick to POSIX, and it pretty much works everywhere except Windows. Stick to standard html/css/javascript, and it pretty much works everywhere except IE.
We keep an ie.css and an ie.js file, for that reason. We develop in Firefox, and only fire up IE to verify that it still works. If it doesn't, we then add some hack to support IE -- much easier than trying to take a completely hacked-up v
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But does it run Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
All these speed boosts annoy me. I open it FF in Linux, it runs at roughly 1/2 the speed it does in Windows. Of course, I've been using the same profile for roughly 5 years, so that might have something to do with it (and I've only been a Linux user for 1.5 it's a miracle my profile still works.)
Still, when I reboot to Windows, Chrome vs. Firefox? Can't tell the difference, in terms of speed. Usability, Firefox wins hands down. Hotkeys, flashblock, Firebug (when flashblock isn't enough), reopen closed tab.
Re:But does it run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
> b) I can easily correct my error if I accidentally close a tab
When you open a new tab, a list of recently closed tabs is available.
Aside from that, and it's been covered all over this post, they've publicly stated that they are working on Mac and Linux versions, as well as an add-on framework.
Most importantly, nobody is forcing you to use Chrome. If your list of requirements is absolute, then just don't use it. Simple.
Re:But does it run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer Firefox (3) and am a Firefox user, but as a web developer, I have observed that Chrome is faster and more efficient. You can see it more clearly in certain, more complex rendering situations - For example, text scrolling on top of a fixed background image.
Personally, what I miss in Chrome (more than the menu bar) is the status bar. I like hovering the mouse pointer above links and quickly seeing what they all do before I actually click them. I also can't understand the absence of the stop button. I know I can press escape, but it's not exactly a feature that should be that hidden.
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There are several fun things going into the performance difference there. The three main ones I know of are:
1) MSVC++ happens to generate faster (and smaller) code than g++ does. This is especially noticeable when turning on profile-guided optimization. That gave a 10% speedup across the board on Windows, and basically nothing on Linux. It seems that the g++ profile-guided optimizer could use a lot of work.
2) Certain parts of the OS that are of critical importance to web browser performance are faster
Now, I'll just wait... (Score:2)
...for the next update of SRWare Iron [srware.net]. :D
No Linux support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone except Microsoft welcomes Chrome (Score:5, Funny)
"We absolutely promise that we only want to completely screw over Microsoft [today.com] with this, and certainly not Mozilla Firefox," said Google's Sundar Pichai. "That we put a pile of our sponsored Mozilla developers on the project is completely irrelevant. We're not evil, remember."
"We are so, so happy with Google Chrome," mumbled Mozilla CEO John Lilly through gritted teeth. "That most of our income is from Google has no bearing on me making this statement."
Microsoft was unfazed. "Browsers don't need to be integrated with online apps," said marketing developer Ian Moulster. "Certainly not like the operating system ... I'll just get back to you."
Google's new browser will give you their web and email services, photo processing, mapping, office applications that will run in said browser and will make you a cup of tea. This is all paid for by personally-directed text ads in your tea leaves, based on analysing a DNA sample taken when you sip the tea and sending your genetic code back to Google for future targeting.
Pichai stressed that Google would maintain complete confidentiality within the marketing department of whatever the browser accessed concerning your confidential business data, bank account details, medical information and personal preferences in pornography. "We're Google. We know where you live. In a completely not evil way. Sponsored link: Get Chrome Browsers on google.com. Or we'll make you use Windows Live."
Can't download it here (Score:2)
Well, my company specifically blocks download of Chrome. Maybe they know something I don't.
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I would suggest to the original poster to use chromium instead of chrome. Chromium doesn't send what's typed in the address bar till enter is hit.
I would suggest that anyone that's wanting to protect things being sent to Google should totally disable any search from the search bar. In any browser.
40% or 140% or alpha-bravo % ? (Score:2)
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1.4 times and 1.4 times better are two very different things. Unless you're advertising something.
What Chrome still needs (Score:2)
* The ability to block images per web server (or at all) like Firefox can
Re:What Chrome still needs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that someone will make a plug-in to block the advertising, but considering that Google is an advertising company that sells web ads as their life blood, I can't see them offering ad-blocking in their own product out of the box. Unless it blocks all ads save for the ones from Google.
It isn't going to replace Opera on my desktop anytime soon, but then again, they'd have to release versions for Mac, Linux, and FreeBSD for it even to run on any of my desktops.
Meanwhile Gmail is still in beta (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, it's OUT of Beta? (Score:2)
Kudos! For Google, thats some kind of amazing acomplishment.
I know its unpopular to bag on the Mighty Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I know its unpopular to bag on the Mighty Googl (Score:4, Informative)
I only used Chrome for a day before going back to Adblock Plus and Firefox, but I swore there was an option to turn this off.
Then again Google already has tons of my private data via email and I'm not overtly paranoid. If you want a version of Chrome that doesn't phone home at all, check out Iron.
Re:I know its unpopular to bag on the Mighty Googl (Score:3, Informative)
Congratulations, Google! (Score:2)
scrolling is still spastic (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand. I set the mousewheel(er, touchpad scroll speed) in Windows, and Chrome insists on going at its own speed for scrolling. I scroll x lines with the zone, and it does page up/page down increments. What the hell?
Targeted advertising (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah... (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:5, Insightful)
If your security policy relies on users not being able to install software but the users can install software, you have a problem; not Google.
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He's pointing out a bug in the installer.
The default for executable code is in program files. If a user wants to move it and they have permissions to do so then there's nothing stopping them.. but defaulting to the user profile is just plain wrong. Home users will have write access to the program files directory anyway. Business users (if they have permission to install things) will probably have quotas on their roaming profiles and this could send them over, using up valuable IT support time.
Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:5, Informative)
Chrome's behavior is shared with many other newer programs(usually if you install them with the "just for me" rather than "for all users" option) and is a good thing. Programs that break unnecessarily because of lack of permissions they don't need are a bad thing. This is all part of the move away from legacy single-user design crap, where virtually everything requires arbitrary rights, programs die if they aren't in C:/Program Files, and there is poor or no separation between immutable system files and commonly modified user files.
If tightly controlling installed applications is necessary, you can use signature or hash based execution restrictions, and solve the problem the right way, rather than relying on the behavior of third parties.
Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you mean, it was written properly and doesn't require admin rights. So assuming you've properly configured your PC and network this software is not a major threat since it never needs to elevate itself to admin status. It can still damage files and network resources your user has access to, but thats generally far less damaging than taking over the entire PC and effective any user that logs into it or any network resource it has access to.
Your comment is extremely ignorant and indicates that you have no clue about being a network or systems admin. You can run firefox on any windows machine that has a writable directory on it, same for almost all properly written software. Good luck running a windows PC without a writable directory some where, you'll break to many legitimate apps.
So if your idea of 'security' is because the 'installer' doesnt write to any other directory than the 'program files' directory, then you have no security at all. What do you do about the people who install software on their own PC at home then just copy the files to a USB drive, bring it to your network and copy those files to the %TEMP% directory, or their %USERPROFILE% or %APPDATA% directories, all of which you will typically have write access to?
Google isn't going to 'fix' this 'issue' because the 'issue' is with the person who thinks a flaw, no amount of complaining to anyone is going to help you, all the people you would be complaining to have about a billtion times more of a clue than you do about the 'issue'.