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."
Not a great 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Not too many exciting new features, I'm not sure why they call it 2.0.
Form autocomplete? It's about time. Not that I like the feature anyway, it's too dumb. 90% of the time it doesn't offer any suggestion (wild guess, if a web site asks for my name, maybe my browser might know the answer). The rest of the time (10%), it has a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.
Full-page zoom and auto-scroll? Great. Now I can use Chrome like I use Safari on my iPhone. Of course scaling should scale the whole page, not just the text. It shouldn't be that hard. An old technology like PDF (10 years old) knows that.
Profiles? Ok, could be moderately useful. It sort of conflicts with the OS's notion of swapping between users. So I'd use it more as a workaround because bookmarks are hard to organize.
Greasemonkey scripts? That's my favorite. But it's for power users only. Just read the instructions and imagine your grandma giving it a try:
To enable this experimental feature you need to right-click on Chrome's shortcut from your desktop, select Properties and add --enable-user-scripts in the Target field. While you're in the Properties dialog, click on "Open File Location" and create a folder named User Scriptsin the user data directory, where you'll need to manually save scripts.
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FairSoftware.net [fairsoftware.net]
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They call it 2.0 so it is clear that "they're definitely moving at a pace unknown to some of their competition."
If it was still in version 0.9, it would just be like every other stupid project.
Re:Not a great 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
They updated the version of WebKit that they're using to one that passes the ACID3 test. That's something.
Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing that Chrome will never have AdBlock Plus and NoScript.
It's all about control. Firefox allows you to control what you read. Many advertising companies try to change readers into time-wasting, ad-reading, money-wasting robots.
Those who don't like being the target of aggressive behavior and want control over their lives will need to continue to use Firefox, no matter how technically superior Chrome is.
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Alternatively, you could use a proxy outside of Chrome (I assume it has proxy support) to strip out all the ads.
Stick to your day job (Score:4, Funny)
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You make a good point. But, it's not ads per se that are so evil. If ads are done right, they aren't annoying. Look at Google's home page vs. Yahoo's. Google has a history of developing clean unobtrusive interfaces. I wouldn't be too surprised if Google let you install AdBlock or some other ways made browsing tolerable. I have hope.
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I'm guessing that Chrome will never have AdBlock Plus and NoScript.
You can still use external things like a hosts file to make sure you don't get ads. Besides, there's a strong argument to be made that most people don't use adblock in the first place, and that its use is immoral.
It's all about control. Firefox allows you to control what you read.
And Chrome is open source, allowing anyone to use and control it that wants to as long as they play by the same rules that Google does. If they hadn't open sourced Chrome, I would agree with you. As it is, I believe Google when they say that they want to push the browser market in the direction of
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:5, Insightful)
Using AdBlock is as immoral as going to the bathroom during commercial breaks, thumbing through magazines in a bookstore without buying them, and not reading billboards as you drive by. Unless you have agreed to view ads as part of some subscription service then you don't have to look at them. I pay for my internet connection and I own my computer. I have every right to control what does and doesn't come down my connection and get displayed on my monitor.
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What if Chrome will get a Adblock bonus what blocks all other ads than Google's? Well... then Google is on monopoly trial by Microsoft, Opera and Mozilla.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you just want everything for free, right? Google are supposed to eat air or something, and have nothing to work with, because you won't accept their main source of revenue?
Seriously, can't you people think for a second of consequences?
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you just want everything for free, right? Google are supposed to eat air or something, and have nothing to work with, because you won't accept their main source of revenue?
Nonsense. I'm happy with Google making money off advertising as long as I'm not the one being advertised at. But if a browser doesn't let me avoid the adds, I won't use it.
More generally, I'm really quite grateful to all the consumers out there willing to spend vast quantities of money on things that don't make their lives noticeably better. The surplus from their spending benefits me through websites like Google, and in countless other ways. Also, since they spend so much, they have to work more, and other people working more is clearly of benefit to me. Without the American consumer my life would be much less pleasant.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying you're cool with everyone subsidizing your access to google stuff by ignoring the ads. Really just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. 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". I mean c'mon Google ads (so far) are the least intrusive ads I have really ever seen. I mean have you see the state of Yahoo email or even MSN's mail portal? It's one thing to swear off Google stuff if you aren't cool with the ads but there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you want to use gmail without the ads i'd suggest maybe paying for their google apps although I am not sure if they have ads or not. If it bothers you that much just pay another provider with straight POP/IMAP or run your own mail server.
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.
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I mean have you see the state of Yahoo email or even MSN's mail portal?
No, I have adblock.
But on the occasional times that I *have* seen it (other people's computers)... I mean, geez... giant, like, 320 x 240 animated flash ads smack in the center of the page. Guh.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, wish we were all smart like you.
I mean, I listened to an on the radio, contacted the company and saved my company about 60K in HR expenses - if I were as smart as you, maybe I would've skipped the ad.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:5, Funny)
I hope you're not being a hypocrite by using a spam filter. You had better be reading each and every one emails and assessing the potential benefits of buying fake Viagara and helping Nigerian princes.
Re:Chrome supports a company that sells ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
(Post mysteriously disappeared the first time)
Nonsense. I'm happy with Google making money off advertising as long as I'm not the one being advertised at. But if a browser doesn't let me avoid the adds, I won't use it.
We're talking about Ad-Block Plus here. Essentially, you want a browser that will let you strip out the revenue-generating portion of all of the websites that you visit.
You put it in happy terms, but there is something kind of dirty about that. It's like only visiting museums with a suggested donation, and then insulting the suckers who actually donate. Or in this case, you're not willing to have a tiny bar at the top of the websites that you visit, to fund the continued existence of the websites that you visit.
If you're not going to buy something, don't buy something. If you don't like advertising, spend time on portions of the internet that aren't funded by advertising. But don't just get all high-and-mighty about how advertising is for suckers, while posting to a site that wouldn't exist without it with a browser that wouldn't exist without it.
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.
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First of all: You are freeloading, which is kind of cheap. Secondly, advertising != mindless consumerism. Advertising is a (heavily biased, which can be useful) source of information that fulfills a useful function in many cases,
You know what the thing is about Google's ads? They are very, very smart - which is pretty much the only reason why they can make billions of dollars with tiny text ads. Sometimes I'm looking for something out of the ordinary that has to be bought at a store, not fashioned from the
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So you just want everything for free, right?
Why assume that? I might pay for a Google search at a rate I found acceptable, like 1p a search, if it meant I wasn't exposed to ads (and if the results were better too, but that's by the by). Having said that I personally don't find the Google ads intrusive, and I don't block them. But they'd better understand that I will never click on a Google ad because I prefer to research products and suppliers myself, and hopefully find a reputable opinion to guide me rather than whoever can buy the best keywords.
I
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.
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, r
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Great. Now I can use Chrome like I use Safari on my iPhone. Of course scaling should scale the whole page, not just the text. It shouldn't be that hard. An old technology like PDF (10 years old) knows that.
I'm not sure MOST people want to scale the entire page. Most of the time I use zooms I just want the text smaller, not picture and all that. Usually it's either because I want to read more text or I can't see the text well enough for whatever reason.
One note on profiles ... if you install something for "all users," it doesn't change when you use it as a different user, does it? So manybe the profile thing is useful. Plus it may be that you want to have different profiles yourself, and not have to switc
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Seriously, do you have any info on who zooms in or out how often and why? I sure don't, but my anecdote appears to be exactly in opposition to yours, so like matter and anti-matter, I'm afraid we collide and produce a net nothingness
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I have no statistics if that is what you mean. However, if it doesn't matter, and if my anecdotal evidence means nothing, then how can we criticize Google for choosing what they did for the page zoom feature? After all, they probably asked all their developers, so they have more statistics than either of us do.
Anyway, I was simply offering the suggestion that when I, or people I've been around for the most part, want to zoom in a page, it's because we want to see the text better. Occasionally an image,
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I'll throw in my two cents.
When I zoom in, it's because the page itself is too small. Usually it's some Flash widget. Occasionally it's text.
When I zoom out (from default), it's because I want to see more text. Rarely, if ever, is it because I think that an image is too large.
Zooming one or the other, though, can disrupt the layout of the page, so in general, I think that the best policy is to zoom everything. I guess that optional text-only zoom would be nice, though.
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Seriously, do you have any info on who zooms in or out how often and why?
That's one of the features that made me an Opera zealot. Fairly regularly I'll scale up a page so ppl around my desk can easily read it. I also sometimes scale down a page because an image is too big to fit it. (Or I just plain want to use a smaller window.)
I sometimes wish I had a mouse for each hand so I can do the zooming and rearranging that the iPhone's multi-touch supports. I'm ready for resolution independence.
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Pedantic note: collision of matter and antimatter does not produce a net nothingness; it should produce massive amounts of radiation. Conservation of mass and energy still applies.
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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 myUs
Re:Not a great 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
I'm rather fond of Opera's solution. All of the text and images are increased in size, but the page remains the same width. That way L/R scrolling is eliminated (unlike PDF's or the iPhone) but all of the elements of the page are larger and more usable.
Re:Not a great 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Just read the instructions and imagine your grandma giving it a try:
Your grandma isn't going to be using pre-beta software. It's like that because the features is far from complete yet and is thus not enabled by default. It's not going to be like that in the final version.
Autocomplete isn't dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Form autocomplete? It's about time. Not that I like the feature anyway, it's too dumb. 90% of the time it doesn't offer any suggestion (wild guess, if a web site asks for my name, maybe my browser might know the answer). The rest of the time (10%), it has a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.
The auto complete isn't guessing. The reason that it doesn't always know your name is because different web sites give the fields with more or less the same meaning different names (name as in html attribute, not as in the label). They do this because the web front end reflects whatever backend that the site runs on.
/><input type="text" name="lastname" />
/>
/> />
As a web developer, you might want somebody's first name and last name separately, (for example, if you have to check a cc number against it) in which case you would use a two fields like this:
Name:<input type="text" name="firstname"
Or, it might just be to display your name to other users, in which case you don't care and to keep your database simple you just do:
Name:<input type="text" name="name"
Or, you might be asking for login credentials, so you'll ask for: Name:<input type="text" name="firstname"
Or, you might want to be preventing bots from trying to use usernames/passwords harvested from another, insecure sight, so you'll obfuscate like this:
Name: <input type="text" name="wxys"
As you can see, form auto complete has no way of knowing which entries it should use. However, auto-complete is far from useless. We have a web-based client management database where I work, and there the browser does know what to put in the fields because, obviously, the fields are consistently named. In this case, it is a huge time saver. It just seems dumb to you because you have not really needed to use it for what it was intended for.
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The Death of SVG (Score:2)
Well, PDF had vector graphics from the start, so that was a no-brainer. With the web, people were holding out for scalable webpages to be done right. SVG was the solution to that, not scaling up bitmaps with disregard for their intended size, resolution, and fundamental function. But someone got bored and did it wrong, and now we'll all pay, just like, for years, we've been paying for blink tags being used for ani
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Whatever features continue to get added are nothing but bloat now.
There, fixed that for ya.
profiles vs fast user switching (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the point of profiles in a web browser when you have fast user switching (and/or whatever MS calls their equivalent function)? Seems like that's the point of a multiuser operating system...
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of people I've seen using windows never log out to switch users. They are automatically logged in as Administrator or whatever admin account was created when windows was installed. Switching user profiles makes perfect sense in a browser.
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I think that it's from Vista on that users are steered away, maybe even prevented, from doing that in a client OS. Vista's not so bad, believe me.
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).
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We can have the email program have profiles too!
Pretty sure they already exist. They're called 'email addresses'.
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KDE and OSX have also supported this for a while.
And so has *nix proper since the dawn of time :)
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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:4, Informative)
That would be about 1965, or whenever it was that UNIX was conceived. UNIX has had the capacity to support thousands of users simultaneously since the beginning of time (literally [wikipedia.org]). When X appeared in the late 80s, very little changed in this regard.
Since Windows 95, Microsoft has been trying very very hard to add sensible multi-user facilities to Windows. The fact that consumer releases prior to XP were unable to prevent users logging in without a password, let alone prevent users from having full write access to each others' files, is perhaps irrelevant considering those users each had permission to delete the Windows kernel as well.
The NT kernel supplied XP with the capacity to handle multiple users securely and XP introduced fast user switching, but the damage was done --- most of the apps available by that point had to be run as root, and the attempt to bring the system a tiny fraction further along its long journey to UNIX-level user security was one of the more significant nails in Vista's coffin.
I reckon MS will eventually (too late) do what Apple did (also too late) and replace the entire thing with a bastard UNIX system running the shell from the previous system, and provide a compatibility layer. Indeed, it might be the only way to save it. Meanwhile, Wine continues to make it increasingly obsolete.
Re:profiles vs fast user switching (Score:4, Informative)
X (Unix and consequently Linux) had this in the early 90's already. It's called CTRL+ALT+F1-F4 for terminals, CTRL+ALT+F8-F12 for X-instances. I had it and used it before Mac or Windows had it. With X you can even login remotely in a display without current users noticing (something Windows Remote Desktop still can't do (unless you BUY Terminal Services).
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.
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Honestly, this very reason, along with a smoking fast startup speed, is why I use Chrome for general browsing and Firefox for web development.
Off-topic and interestingly, the ad on top of this page is for Google Chrome. ... Even more interestingly (or maybe just bizarrely), it's a static image, but it's being conveyed using SWF. Seems like Google is starting to step forward a little more boldly on Chrome as a serious product.
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Profiles are useful when you use your computer for both personal and work purposes, since you're probably going to access a completely different set of bookmarks for each. My "work" profile has toolbar bookmarks for various Intranet pages and my "personal" profile has the toolbar bookmarks pointing to other things (e.g. Slashdot, Digg).
It's just a convenience thing for me since it says me a little bit of time versus trying to keep both things organized in a single profile.
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I can think of one reason, especially if (Hello? Google guys? You listening?) you can have both profiles open in separate windows at the same time. The first example that comes to mind is that I have two Google accounts, one for personal stuff and one for work stuff. Each has it's own email, calendar, documents, etc. Every now and then I'll be logged into one account and need something that is in the other account, so I have to log out, log into other account, get what I need, log out again... You can
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I'm pretty sure Microsoft coined the term "fast user switching [microsoft.com]."
Forget Greasemonkey... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Firebug Lite (Score:2)
Alternately, you can use Firebug Lite [getfirebug.com] on any browser. It's not perfect, but it still works.
Finally, a Mac version! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait - nevermind.
Nothing to see there, move along...
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They have stated from day one that they are working on delivering a Mac version, so it's not like you need to read any tea leaves to find that out.
Re:Finally, a Mac version! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since Chrome is based on WebKit, we're just as good with Safari as far as page rendering goes.
We also have Opera and Firefox as browser alternatives.
2.0 but still no non-windows (Score:4, Informative)
Would be nice if these guys would focus some on satisfying the other OS markets. There's absolutely no need for them to take such tremendous advantage of Open Source and then neglect them in such a long term way as they have with Chrome.
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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.
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They better release a truly Open Source version that can be compiled on any system.
Just because it's open source, doesn't mean it has to be platform agnostic.
Re:2.0 but still no non-windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Boo hoo..
OSS doesn't have to mean using an OSOS. One of the tenets of the GPL is that you're free to use the code for *whatever* purpose you see fit, not solely (or at all) the purpose envisaged by the author. You can't have it both ways.
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Four months is "long term" to you? Talk about living on internet time.
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The other OSes will come, but at a pace that doesn't require a lot of upfront investment in the form of lots of developers and money.
Copy Firefox source code? (Score:2)
What would keep Google from taking Firefox's source code and copying it or using it as a reference for upcoming features? Could google decide to "borrow" the code/technology for Firefox's awesome bar?
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.
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You know, I keep hearing this, and I'm not arguing with it or anything, but I've been able to embed Gecko and all its glory into a couple windows apps of mine now. I've yet to find a complete documented example for embeding webkit into an app on windows.
I'm certainly not saying they don't exist, its probably just that I'm searching for it the wrong way, but I'd really love to see someone point me at the 20-30 lines of code it should take to embed webkit into a
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What would keep Google from taking Firefox's source code and copying it or using it as a reference for upcoming features? Could google decide to "borrow" the code/technology for Firefox's awesome bar?
Firefox as an "awesome bar"? Is that like a spacebar, but it makes things awesome?
I'm no expert, but I don't see why they couldn't use Firefox code. They're both open source, so it's just an issue of whether the licenses are compatible, and they probably are.
On the other hand, if Google really wanted to be like Firefox, they could have started with Firefox code to begin with. It seems like maybe they just don't want to do that?
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It's the new address bar. It's supposed to have better autocomplete or something, and the drop-down displays the cached HTML title of the page in addition to the URL. I think it would be better named the "not-that-much-better-than-the-old-bar," but that's just me.
Re: (Score:2)
Could google decide to "borrow" the code/technology for Firefox's awesome bar?
Fuck me, I hope not - I'd have to move to plain old Safari!
Yes, there are people out here that do not like the 'awesome bar'. Please give us our old url bar back.
Adblock? (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that Adblock really doesn't impact google's ads -- it primarily blocks graphical/flash crap ads, at least using the filtersets I subscribe to, so it wouldn't hurt google to allow it, and might even help them (absent other flashing "punch the monkey" and "abort the fetus" ads google's often-relevant text ads tend to stand out more.)
Do it google! Let us bock ads and mix tabs!
Re:Adblock? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (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: (Score:2)
They've stated that they are working on a plugin architecture, specifically mentioning ad blocking as one use.
Google does image/video ads (Score:2)
Pre-beta? (Score:2)
Really??? Pre-beta? Why didn't they just stick with the perfectly good terms and call this type of thing a beta and the other stuff they call a Beta a Release?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google is not calling this "pre-beta", they are calling it "2.0.156.1". Some random guy with a blog is calling it "pre-beta".
Google Chrome for Linux! NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
Blogger Belzecue said on January 8, 2009 10:55 PM PDT:
Johnny Effyew here, lead strategist at Google.
Now, I hear a lot of complaints -- a helluva lot of complaints, actually -- about Google not supporting Linux, like how Google Chrome runs on Windows only. Sure, we're already up to version 2 of the Windows client with no Linux version in sight. That may be technically true, but I'm here to tell you, we built our entire company and fortune on the back of Linux and free, open-source software. So of course we support Linux just as much as we support Windows.
That's why it's my pleasure today to announce we've committed to delivering a native Linux Chrome client by 2015 or by the time the Windows client reaches version 10 or when Linux gains greater than 50% of the desktop market. That's our promise to every Linux user out there. You can take that to the bank. We know we have a moral debt to give back to the Linux community what we took from them and turned into a billion-dollar business. We know that.
But, as it turns out, writing software for Linux is kinda tough. We're still figuring it out. I mean, we all use Windows around the Google office, so it's not like we've got a bunch of internal people clamoring to use Chrome under Ubuntu or whatever.
And yes, we know there are much smaller companies out there like Dropbox who easily manage to code and release their Windows and Linux clients simultaneously, which is kinda like having your cake and eating it too. We think that's really cool, and we especially like cake. So that's doubly cool.
So hang in there, Linux community. Google Chrome for Linux is coming. In the meantime, just keep screwing around trying to run the Windows client under Wine. Good luck with that, hahahaha. Yeah, that should keep you nice and busy while we eat more cake and polish off version 3 of the Chrome Windows client. (Whoah, did I just say that out loud or think it? Pfffft, like those Linux fanboys will notice anyway.)
Folks, in closing let me say again: Google is committed to Linux the same way a tapeworm's committed to your lower intestine. From now on, when you think of Google and Linux I want you to think of me, Johnny. Think "Effyew, Linux! Effyew, Google!"
Thanks for full-page zoom (Score:2)
That's one of the main reason I didn't switch. The zoom implementation was useless, and I always use zoom to fill my widescreen monitor.
Unfortunately I also don't like very much the "single address and search box" concept, but maybe I can get used to that after all so I guess I'm going to give it another try.
Greasemonkey (Score:2)
This was the one reason I never tried Chrome. I play a lot of Travian http://travian.com/ [travian.com] and there are a few Greasemonkey scripts (Travian Mod Kit and Beyond Travian) without which the game would be unbearable for serious players. On large accounts with 20+ villages, those scripts save hundreds of page loads.
I'll still wait until Chrome 2 reaches at least Beta status though. Regardless of who releases the software, I'm not in the mood to try Alpha software.
Google Chrome? I will not bite...yet (Score:2)
Reasons being: -
1: I miss my extensions especially the weather extension.
2: My school and bank do not allow anything other than Firefox and IE. Firefox has just been supported for a year.
3: I do not want to learn another [Google] paradigm of doing things on the browser.
4: I am contented with the two choices available to me as of now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
With a User Agent switcher, your school and bank's website would likely work just fine.
Re: (Score:2)
That's alright, the proxy at my work has the Chrome home page blocked.
BSD ? (Score:2)
Are they supporting the BSDs yet?
Still No Adblock (Score:2, Informative)
tabs still on window... (Score:2)
Let me attach the tabs to the top of the pane (the part that actually changes when you select a different tab) instead of the window (no, the location bar doesn't change, its content does... but so does the title bar's and that's still above the tabs).
OS market share and the often not thought about (Score:5, Insightful)
here's my benchmark of it vs. some other browsers (Score:3, Informative)
I've taken the time to benchmark Chrome 2.0's javascript performance against bleeding edge versions of FireFox, Webkit and Opera. Also compared Chrome 1.0 against FireFox 3.0.5, Safari 3.2.1 and Opera 9.6.3. Enjoy [blogspot.com].
Re: (Score:2)
First off, that's not Google calling it "pre-beta", it's some random guy with a blog. Google calls it "2.0.156.1". Furthermore, "pre-beta" implies "alpha", which is exactly what this is.
Re:Pre- Beta (Score:4, Informative)
Pre-Alpha: No working code
Alpha: Compiles and runs, but not feature-complete
Beta: Feature-complete, but potentially buggy
By that scale, Google probably isn't convinced that GMail isn't buggy.
Re: (Score:2)
I attended a talk by Alan Eustace [google.com], Google's Senior VP of Engineering and Research. Someone asked that exact question: what are your criteria for moving Gmail out of beta?
His answer was that google has certain "availability targets" that, until they're met, will result in Gmail staying in beta. I'm guessing it's on the order of a year's time in which no single user loses any data or is unable to get to his email. Every time someone loses data or they have down time, that resets the timer.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You, sir, have some serious problems that no amount of development of Gtalk could ever begin to address.