General Discussions

**TWD** · 09-01-2008, 08:59 PM

Seems like Googles own browser "Chrome" is here.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...ser_chrome.php

Looks like it has some good improvements so its only a matter of time before it starts muscling in on the market share.

But if it speeds up the death of IE6 I`m a bit happier.

**bogs** · 09-01-2008, 09:19 PM

i like firefox alot.. so i guess google will have to work on that one.. and
the url http://www.google.com/chrome in the content is not working..

**NullPointer** · 09-01-2008, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWD

But if it speeds up the death of IE6 I`m a bit happier.

I don't think IE6 is still around because its users are holding out for something. To the best of my knowledge, most of the people who are still using IE6 as their primary browser are doing it because it was the default browser their computer came with and either don't care enough or don't know how to switch.

When I say majority this obviously excludes developers who are using IE6 to see how their pages look in IE6. Every computer at my place of work is still on IE6 as is my boss' personal computer, mostly because no one cares enough to switch to something better.

I doubt that Google Chrome is the browser IE6 users have been holding out for. But who knows... maybe a few of them will switch. As far as I'm concerned, as long as they do as good of a job as Opera, Firefox, and Safari when it comes to standards compliance they can have as much of the market share as they want.

**BigJohnny** · 09-02-2008, 07:56 AM

I used IE6 before i went to FF3, and the reason was because i thought IE7 totally sucked.... still does.
I dont like how you cant customize how the menus looked, and they way they moved everything.

I still like IE6, but it has serious issues dealing with these new web standards lol.

so now i use firefox 3, and have it setup to look like IE6.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 09-02-2008, 10:59 AM

I have to admit that I wasn't too happy about hearing about another browser either, but it's based on Webkit, which is the same browser engine that Safari uses, so the implementation shouldn't be too much different, if at all. I hope.

**Learning Newbie** · 09-02-2008, 01:00 PM

Basing Chrome on Safari killed it for me.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 09-02-2008, 04:12 PM

You know what, I'm using it right now and I like it a lot. It's a lot faster than Firefox. The search bar is really cool as well.

**juliensimon** · 09-02-2008, 05:56 PM

most of the sites I've checked look perfectly fine with Google Chrome so I don't think it's gonna be a pain.

having said that, I like my FF extensions too much

**tripy** · 09-02-2008, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Basing Chrome on Safari killed it for me.

In fact, it's the other way John...
Webkit is the rendering engine under Safari (and Konqueror, linux KDE browser).
Safari itself is just a gui built around webkit.
Just like Gecko is the rendering engine of Firefox.

I have tested it with my screenshooter, and I have to say that I like it much.
It's fast, resources efficient, and works very well.

In and out, it's the safari interface I don't like.
The rendering is pretty close to firefox, so I don't think this will be much of a problem.

**Learning Newbie** · 09-02-2008, 07:41 PM

I have to admit, it's very fast. And snappy responsive when you do things in the GUI. But the GUI is ugly as sin. Looks like candy painted with neon colors! I guess time will tell on this one.

Anyone know what was the point? Google has been bankrolling FireFox for a while, and it seems to serve their interests pretty well. Enough that they pay people to distribute FF. What are they hoping to accomplish with this? Another thumb in Steve Ballmer's eye?

**VirtuosiMedia** · 09-03-2008, 11:44 AM

I think in part it is an effort to push Gears out there. They are also very concerned with the way JavaScript is handled given that many of their apps are heavily ajaxy. I think it's part of their strategy for all computing to be in the cloud, including a lot of the productivity tasks that were formerly relegated to the desktop. The browser is the gateway to that, so it makes sense that they would throw their hat in that arena as well. We'll see what happens for usage adoption, though. What a lot of people forget is that Google has a lot of failed products. It doesn't stop them from rolling out more every month, but a lot of them don't always make it. All that said, I liked it. Chrome is a pretty good beta.

**Learning Newbie** · 09-03-2008, 12:36 PM

I can see how that would all make sense, but do you think the java script and AJAX is any faster in Chrome than in FireFox 3 with its byte code?

Anybody looked through the source code enough to know how much data it's collecting on us?

I'm not trying to turn people off to Chrome - I'm just a skeptic. I've actually got an instance running right now. Well, 2 instances if you go by Task Manager, but only 1 if you go by the desktop and task bar.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 09-03-2008, 01:49 PM

I'm not sure about the speed. I'm sure someone will start releasing benchmarks pretty quick, if they haven't already. It seems fast. As far as data collection goes, it's open source, so I think we'll probably hear about it soon if they're collecting data once enough people look under the hood. It wouldn't shock me, but I would be a little surprised because I would think Google would be smart enough to realize the negative publicity it would generate. Besides, they get enough traffic as it is where they could build a fairly decent online footprint for most people.

**The-Pixel** · 09-03-2008, 07:07 PM

I still like FireFox 3 but, Googles new browser isn't that bad. It's a nice clean easy to use browser. WAY TO GO GOOGLE!

**andrei155** · 09-03-2008, 07:30 PM

It's a bit too flashy for my taste. I like the simple default home page, rather than some custom menu. There are, however, some good ideas behind it. I'd like to see how far this goes.

**johnlloyd** · 09-04-2008, 08:02 AM

the simplicity of google chrome makes it more interesting and it browse faster than other browser which is an advantage for it!

**dragonclan** · 09-05-2008, 02:01 AM

I like it. All goes well with me

**northbeach23** · 09-05-2008, 04:00 AM

It's a future tough competition between chrome and firefox

**kb241** · 09-05-2008, 04:23 AM

I am still loyal to firefox. But i'm hoping that Google Chrome will actually pull IE users away. It seems like IE users are tied to a big name such as Microsoft. Maybe they will pull away to another big name in Google. We'll see. How cool would it be if the two most used browsers were Firefox and Chrome?

**CompTronicsTec** · 09-07-2008, 03:47 AM

Hello everyone,

I decided to download Google Chrome tonight after having a convo with a friend about it who really liked it.

While i've only been using it for a few minutes i wanted to give my first impressions while it was fresh.

Pro's

-Light...its not loaded with garbage (yet, give me time). I like that it takes up less screen real estate allowing you to view more of the website your on.

-Tabs evolved...I liked the tab concept, i liked even more when i found IE7 let me reorganize the order of tabs, and chrome takes it a step further allowing you to pull a tab out to its own window and place it back in another window.

-Easy setup...during installation it pulls your setting and favorites and what not over, very nifty. the download, install, and initial setup are streamlined and practically seamless.

-Address bar revived...i found that with the toolbars i had in IE and FF that the address bar was only useful for displaying the url of where i was, as i did most of my navigation through the search toolbar. Now Chrome integrates search and address bar in one place, taking up less space and offering integrated functions.

-Renders standard sites and text very well and crisp.

-Open source...need i say more

Cons

-Still Beta...there are some issues with the functionality, while it loads more text based sites well it rendered a mostly flash site horridly (diablo 3's main site). Comparing it to how IE7 ran the same site it was night and day. Scrolling made it painfully obvious as it became choopy (and then froze) in Chrome.

-Too Simple...no home button or link that i can find, once off the homepage there is no easy way to get back. Theres not really a favorites area anymore, bookmarks is hard to get to unless you enable the book marks bar, which in turn takes up more space...a button for this (possibly integrated into the add favorites button) would make life easier.

-No text menus...call me old school but i miss having file, edit, etc accross the top. Id like to have the option to display that bar or not.

-Not really any faster...its been cited and claimed by many that this browser is faster, and while i havent done any testing or anything i dont find it loading pages any faster (sometimes slower if anything) then either FF or IE.

All in all, i think its a fresh approach at browsers...but i feel like its got alot of maturing to do. I love the concept of less is more in a browser, but i think in this case its to the point of neglect in some areas.

Im most impressed with the tabs and the way it renders text and standard pages (like this one)...Im least impressed with its renderence of flash based sites and lack of some (in my opinion) essential features like a home page button or favorites list button.

Too early for me to use as my default browser, but with a few minor changes id switch to it. so far i like;

1) IE7
2)Chrome
3)FF2 (havent tried 3 yet)

We will see.