Google Browser

[marc weber]

I don't understand the hostility over this (beta) release. I'm optimistic.

Chrome is a challenge to Microsoft's browser, used by about three-quarters of Web surfers. But it could equally be called a challenge to Microsoft's Office software suite, because what Google really wants to do is to make the browser a stable and flexible platform that can do practically everything we want to do with a computer, from word processing and e-mail to photo editing.

Ref: CNN - Review: Google's Chrome needs more polish

Google argues that current Web browsers were designed eons ago, before so many of the developments that characterize today's Web: video everywhere, scams and spyware, viruses that lurk even on legitimate sites, Web-based games and ambitious Web-based programs like Google's own Docs word processor. As Google's blog puts it, "We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser."

Ref: NYT - Serious Potential in Google's Browser

[Jesper de Jong]

Originally posted by marc weber:
I don't understand the hostility over this (beta) release. I'm optimistic.

Well, my main thing with it is that another browser to support is going to make life more complicated for web developers.

But I know there are a lot of incredibly smart people at Google who write great software. So let's see if Google Chrome is going to get wide adoption.

Too bad that there's currently only a Windows version.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
I don't understand this. Firefox talks about "chrome" as the pluggable style that makes the presentation layer on top of the FireFox engine.

My mistake, Google overloaded the word. Their chrome is not the same

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Ulf Dittmer:

Google pays many millions each year to FireFox to make the browser.

Are you referring to the money Google spends to have the Firefox search box hit Google by default? They have the same deal with Apple about Safari, so I wouldn't say that "Firefox is the Google browser".

Except that Apple has a real revenue stream from other products. Mozilla gets nearly all of their revenue from Google. Firefox has been the browser that Google wanted it to be more than anyone else, because he who pays the piper calls the tunes.

This is actually bigger, its war not against other browsers, but against traditional operating systems. If it plays out the way Google wants (which is the same that Sun wanted with Java a decade or more ago), the traditional OS will become irrelevant, the network will be the computer.
[ September 03, 2008: Message edited by: Pat Farrell ]

[Ulf Dittmer]

Firefox has been the browser that Google wanted it to be more than anyone else, because he who pays the piper calls the tunes.

Not sure about that. For sure, it's become a better browser faster because the money from Google allowed more people to work on it. But can you give an example where Firefox has followed a particular route because the folks at Google said it should?

[ankur rathi]

It's a pleasure surfing with Chrome.

[R K Singh]

post from Chrome.

It looks different, actual feedback would be after a week.

I wish if it could copied cookies also from IE/Firefox.

[Mark Spritzler]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:

This is actually bigger, its war not against other browsers, but against traditional operating systems. If it plays out the way Google wants (which is the same that Sun wanted with Java a decade or more ago), the traditional OS will become irrelevant, the network will be the computer.

[ September 03, 2008: Message edited by: Pat Farrell ]

Yes, this is what it really is all about. What you guys see is a browser. But this isn't a browser, this is the start of a new Operating System. The Browser is the operating system. You will eventually no longer install applications on your machine. You will only save your documents/mp3/pictures on your hard drive, and even that might be put into the cloud too. Everything else will be served through the web and Google Chrome.

Actually I can see a point where you have a machine and all that is loaded on it is Google Chrome, nothing else, no need for hard drives anymore either.

Google is not trying to be just a browser like we currently have. The problem with the browser today is that no matter what it just displays HTML which in my opinion is very limited because it was built back in the day when pages were much simpler and a richer set wasn't needed or just a better way than HTML.

I should have patented this back in the late 90s.

Mark

[Muhammad Saifuddin]

Originally posted by Vishal Pandya:
Chrome doesn't prompt before closing multiple tabs.

but restore the pages that were opened last.

[Deepak Mula]

I tried it, many features are like FireFox

http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en&brand=CHMG&utm_source=en-hpp&utm_medium=hpp&utm_campaign=en

[Amit Agrawal]

Guys, anyone tried installing google's tool bar in Chrome?

Its fun :-)

[Vikas Kapoor]

Chrome couldn't render XML file as good as Firefox.

[Akhilesh Trivedi]

Did anybody dare do netbanking?

[Muhammad Saifuddin]

I have received this message from Google Chrome.

[Muhammad Saifuddin]

but after restart, Chrome restore all my tabs..

[R K Singh]

I am not able to install on MS Vista (32 bit).

[Amit Agrawal]

Originally posted by R K Singh:
I am not able to install on MS Vista (32 bit).

works fine for me....

check if proxy/windows defender blocking it!

[Joe Ess]

Originally posted by R K Singh:
I am not able to install on MS Vista (32 bit).

I am trying to set up some test systems and I'm not able to download the setup program on Vista or XP. I think the Chrome download server has given up. I rarely get the dialog to save a file and when I do, it puts a 0k file on my desktop.
My advice is to try again in a few hours.
[ September 05, 2008: Message edited by: Joe Ess ]

[Jeff Langr]

Originally posted by Jesper Young:
"First, browsers need to be more stable. ... A browser crash is a big deal."
Firefox is very stable. I've never had Firefox crash on Windows or Ubuntu. Browser stability is not a big problem.

Firefox crashes for me about every other day on average. I run it on Vista, XP, and Ubuntu. That's a big problem. I don't navigate what anyone would consider a "large" number of sites, either (and no I'm not surfing porn :-)).

Well, my main thing with it is that another browser to support is going to make life more complicated for web developers.

That's a legitimate concern of mine too.

Still, it's about time someone push the envelope with the browser. I'm not a fan of Google's either (I have concerns about many of their aspects, from privacy to integrity), but more power to them for putting forth the effort.

Unfortunately, I may be hitting upon the proxy server problem at work (on XP); I've not yet tried it at home (on Vista/Ubuntu). For me, Chrome is almost unusable in its current state. I can navigate to some pages, but many show up blank, and many more render very poorly, some to the point where half the page is missing, others where text is overlapping and images are chopped. I'm not sure how a proxy server could cause that; I'll see what happens at home.

Also, once I encountered a problem with rendering in one tab, I could no longer open any sites in other tabs.

Has anyone encountered any of these issues?

Jeff
[ September 05, 2008: Message edited by: Jeff Langr ]

[Abhinav Srivastava]

The thing I like most about FF is availability of add-ons, I guess Chrome doesn't have that support yet. My favorites are the AdBlocker and WebMail Notifier :-) Can't live without them!

[Jeff Langr]

Originally posted by Abhinav Srivastava:
The thing I like most about FF is availability of add-ons, I guess Chrome doesn't have that support yet. My favorites are the AdBlocker and WebMail Notifier :-) Can't live without them!

The comic points out that there will be support for add-ons at some point. I would love to see the ability for FF plugins to work in both browsers. One frustrating thing about FF plugins, however, is the rate at which they end up broken based on a new release of the browser.

I can't live without my all-in-one gestures plugin.

Jeff

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I've installed Chrome. Looks cool. I like how little real estate they wasted up top. Showing my bookmarks only when I go to a new tab (vs constantly) is nice.

I'm not using it as my primary browser - I rely on my Firefox plugins too much. It is nice having a separate browser for JavaRanch book promotion stuff. (I had been using Opera for that.)

I also like how they make it is easy to reports bugs and problems with websites. One click screenshot included.

[Akhilesh Trivedi]

Well, its again privacy.

[Amit Ghorpade]

Chrome did not work for me, its unable to use the network proxy, whereas the same settings work for IE and Firefox (my favorite)

[Sri Anand]

This could be just the start or part of bigger project for which they would need a clean browser to their needs and which is highly scalable. an integraion between their products like Iphone,Google maps, Google phone. for which they would't have to depend on open source or microsoft

[Sri Anand]

Oracle puts effort for Hibernate but keeps updating its own product Toplink

Ibm puts effort for Eclipse but keeps upgrading its own IDE's

Google invest in fire fox and now other hand devoleped its own browser

One way they are getting advantage of Open source on Other hand they are adding few more features to bundle with their existing products to increase overall value of their product offering, Like Oracle gives toplink licences if you are using their server and Database, IBM too has similar schemes.