(Nerd) Firefox, IE, Opera, and... Google Chrome?
 

Well now, this is going to be interesting.

Google's entering the Browser Wars tomorrow, when they allow folks to download the beta version of their new browser, called Google Chrome.

Going to be interesting, they've added a new JavaScript engine, and added code so that a site that would crash a browser will now only close the tab that you were in. Very streamlined apparently. Also will be fully up to date with Google's Anti-Phishing database for safe browsing.

Looks like it's completely open-source (if true, wonder how soon the new features will be added into IE and Firefox 3)

Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser

Interesting. I think Firefox pretty much gives me everything I want, but I'll give Chrome (dumb name IMO, but hey, wtf is a Firefox) a shot.

Hopefully it inspires more browser elitism.

BUT IS THERE AN AD BLOCKER???

More browser competition is a good thing. There is always something about a browser that pisses me off. Maybe this one will cure all of my problems!

Currently, firefox doesn't close cleanly for me about half the time or better. I close it and then later when I try to restart it, it says it is still running and can't start because of it and I have to open up Process Explorer to kill it before I can start it again. I was about ready to move back to Opera again, but I might hold off and try this one tomorrow.

The most kickass Russian plane ever created!

Netscape Navigator all the way, best ad-blocker on the market.

Dude haven't you ever seen the movie!?!?!?

Maybe if it ain't Google AdWords, it won't display?

Just read the "comic" and it sounds amazingly interesting. I'm convinced now that every browser should be multi-process (I didn't know what that even meant before) and the tab-focus of the browser is also pretty interesting.

Yeah, I didn't expect to learn so much from a comic. Very interesting, and very smart way to do it.

looks like at some point there will be plugin-capability (though how much of that will be able to be ported from existing firefox extensions IDK), so that's a plus

They stole it from the Japanese manga concept. :D

I'm curious how well their Javascript virtual machine works. Sun's Java VM works pretty well but is by no means perfect and Microsoft's is awful. That said, JS is a lot less robust and much simpler of a language so this should be a lot easier.

SI

Anyone finding this yet?

The download link just redirects me to the google homepage.

So where is this thing? It's tuesday and I can't find a link to download it from anywhere.

God damned GMT... so that's... ummm... noon eastern?

Wonder how many years it will take to get out of "beta" state. G-Mail is still technically beta, isn't it?

Yeah, at the top it still says it is Beta

What time is that in english?

Google Mean Time?

Reading through that cartoon as me interested now. I will give it a try. My hope is that it works with some of the work related sites I have to go to, which Firefox does not work on. Probably won't work on this either at first, but maybe down the line.

+1

Am I the only one getting a Jack Chick religious tract vibe off the Google cartoon (both in animation style and propaganda value)?

Chick Publications

Google Chrome - Download a new browser

Available now.

First impression: damn this thing is fast. Is it sneaking into other browser's cache files or is it really loading pages this quickly?

ML - if you read the comic they talk a little about how they improve speed

crucially - i presume it has a way of importing FF bookmarks?

any sign of plugin interoperability, or plugin interoperability to come?

Yes, it imported all of my FF stuff on install.

It is fast. Very fast.

Can't complain so far. Looks clean.

Seems okay so far. I like the integrated search, but it's uh... Returning some bookmarks that I wish it wouldn't as I type. I hope I can hide some of those....

yay! well if it'll play nice and import my FF stuff then I'll definately give it a look-see later.

Two must haves for me on any browser in this day and time:

1) Some type of no-script functionality that does not require a PhD to use.
2) Some form of ad-blocking.

Does this have either or both of these? Just wondering if it is worth downloading to give it a try or not.

fighter pilot Clint Eastwood FTW~!

There is a privacy mode where you can open a tab that will not remember any cookies or history once you close it. So you could use that for your, umm, secret stuff. Not sure how you can hide bookmarks though.

I'm curious how long it will take the AdBlock people to have a Chrome plug-in. I'm guessing it will be pretty quick. This will be a good test for how good the plug-in hooks are.

good call AlanT...good call!

if it doesn't now presumably it will soon i hope?

woot woot...porn bookmarks!

does that mean it's going to have dailyniner on my "top viewed webpages" lil homepage thing? cuz that would just be...embarassing.

So this post comes via Chrome. So far, I can't imagine this surpassing Firefox for me. For instance the graphics on the board are broken, there is quote, but multiquote isn't displaying correctly.

bahhh --- booo...multiquote is the coolest!!!

ah well - give it some time - after all it's still in beta

I didn't find it notably quick (though I'm on a quick connection). I'm wondering if it has google web accelerator built-in, which would make sense.

Multiquote seemed to work ok here...

Already found a bug. It doesn't use the proxy settings correctly. I can bypass my works firewall in IE with the settings but it doesn't work in Chrome.

Honestly they need to use their own settings and not rely on the built in Windows ones.

So far I am enjoying this. Very clean, simple look. I notice it being faster in some areas, especially here on FOFC when you 'hover' the mouse over threads and the like.

Ok my first impression was wrong. It is ridiculously fast. I'm less enamored of the pop-up blocker which opened in the lower right hand corner for me and which I found much more intrusive than IE or FF.

I do like that tabs can be re-ordered just by dragging them around. Pulling them out of and back into the main browser window is also nice.

Main complaint, so far. I don't like that you have to have the whole bookmark toolbar there just so you can have access to the bookmarks folder. Not a huge deal because I still have the same site viewing area as on FF now, but I was enjoying the extra real estate. The bookmarks folder should be right next to the icons above on the address bar.

FYI, multiquote isn't really well supported in the skins that FOFC uses anyway. The graphics appear to be an afterthought most the time, so I don't know if that's really Googles fault if they are messed up...

I agree with the bookmarks, although with no toolbar or title bar up top, and no status bar on the bottom, keeping the bookmark toolbar open doesn't bother me much.

Just had my first crash. The whole browser, not just a tab which is one of the features I liked reading about. Not sure why it crashed. The good thing is it asked to restart, I said yes, and it was back up and I was typing this within seconds. That was pretty fast even though the crash sucked.

I liked reading about that too, especially since FF crashed twice while reading that comic this morning.

Cringer: did you have only one tab open, per chance? I imagine not, but just a question.

I had 4 or 5 tabs open. I would be surprised if it was website related though. I think I had just finished messing around with my bookmarks and when it started back up all my changes were gone and I had to redo it. Still, I can't say for sure it was because of that either as it seemed to come out of nowhere.

Downloads is interesting. I just tested it out and was a touch unhappy to see a downloads bar pop up at the bottom of the window. After the small download finished I closed it then thought, "how the heck do I get to that download now?" Went to the control/tools icon and saw Downloads and clicked it. It popped open a new tab with a history of downloads in it (one at this point), and a search bar at top to search downloads. I like that last little part....

One thing I have noticed is I cant use my middle mouse wheel to scroll up, I can use it to scroll down but not up. Same when I click down on it (and you get the arrows) I can't up with it.

My mouse works fine in all directions and with all buttons.

Works for me, atatange... weird.

But yeah, even though I downloaded and set it up, it won't see much use until noscript/adblock work with Chrome

I have often found noscript to be more trouble that it is worth, but adblock is essential. I didn't even realize that some of the sites I regularly visit even had ads until I tested them with Chrome.

I'm finding that when I use the little link that takes me to the first new post, it actually is sending me lower, so that i have to scroll up to see that post.

I've always had spotty results with that function in Firefox. I don't know how it decides what the last viewed post was, but it is often wrong.

noscript is teh hotness

What do you see as the major benefit? After putting in a whitelist exception for about 90% of the sites I visit, I decided not to bother. And that doesn't even count the countless forms I've filled out before finding out that noscript was going to eat the form submission and make me do it all over again.

Sadly it doesn't work with one of my work related websites, one of the main ones lately. Looks the same as it does in FF. Looks like IE stays in use for that.....

The main reason noscript is a must have for me and my systems at home is I have very little control over the sites that my wife visits and with more and more of them taking advantage of flash exploits, real player exploits, etc. to load spyware, trojans, etc on your system without any warning or prompting (through the use of iframes, etc) noscript kills the majority of those.

Obviously I try to keep the systems patched as best as possible, but noscript takes away the extra chance that some exploit or issue might be found. I haven't found any sites that noscript does not work with yet, if I hit a site with scripting, I can enable it if I deem it is safe fairly easily (with just a right click basically)...

It is the universal balance between security and usability. As I am in networking security for a living, I probably err more on the side of security than other normal users might. I just like to play it safe these days

So far the speed increase is nice, but Bloglines took some time to load. I can see where it's going to be resource heavy for some stuff, but like they said, it will work out in the end. It took me a second before I realized what was so different about what I was looking at. Screen space. Lots and lots of screen space.

I LOVE FIREFOX. IT IS THE GREATEST BROWSER EVER. THERE. I SAID IT. I HAVE USED IT FOR 2 MONTHS AND WILL NEVER GO BACK. I LOVE SHIT LIKE STUMBLE UPON, AND....WELLL TONS OF OTHER COOL-ASS ADDONS.

THERE DANGARION. YOU WON.

You must be being sarcastic. I don't not believe you! :devil:

Tried if for about 10 minutes and closed it out of frustration:

1. Has it's own skin that ignores my blackbox skins. No. Don't do that.

2. Failed miserably at importing my bookmarks properly (no folders), mixed bookmarks from different browsers.

3. No easy access to bookmarks without a complete waste of space toolbar.

4. No option to kill unwanted elements (adblocking).


It's too bad because the browser is nice and fast.

I like that it's fast and I like the screen space. My bookmarks imported with no problem, though I have too many FF plugins that I'm too fond of, to really use this full time.

Been using it a bit and it seems really fast. Also pretty slick interface, I love the kind of drop down that comes up when you hit "Ctrl-F". And drag-able text bars in forums for more typing space. That is pretty nice.

A few more plugins would be nice, but it is working pretty well.

Everyone should expect plenty of disappointments until the extension programmers get up to speed. Bare Chrome compares well to bare Firefox, but it doesn't compare at all to extension-filled Firefox. Keep this in mind when evaluating.

I guess that after being a life-long IE user, I don't expect much.

My only complaint - Drop down menus like at mlive.com don't work. That's it though.

Love the look and "feel" but lack of google bookmarks support (seriously..wtf?) is a non-starter for the time being.

Life long IE user as well and I'm really liking Google Chrome thus far.

An interesting perspective on the EULA arriving with Chrome:

TapTheHive - This Post Not Made In Chrome; Google's EULA Sucks

I think that qualifies as evil.

Yeah, this is starting to sound a lot less like Google and a lot more like Microsoft.

SI

Interesting.

That doesn't sound like GOOG at all.

That really is interesting...

Yahoo used to have the same sort of language in their Yahoo Groups stuff. My understanding was that they took it out after enough user complaints (though I'll admit that I never checked...I just stopped using Yahoo Groups).

Perhaps Google will do the same thing. Generally, this isn't a concern for me because I figure the university I work for and Google can fight it out over any IP I produce on the job, and anything I produce off the job gets released under a Creative Commons license anyway.

What, a company that makes its money on search and selling data mining to advertisers writes a browser and everyone is surprised that they want the rights to any data you produce with it? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

You're right, of course, Greg.

The fact is that while the language in the EULA is troubling, if Chrome even gets 5% of the browser market, the volume of content being produced will be such that it makes endangering your control over your IP (whatever the hell that means) practically moot. It assumes, first of all, that you're producing such stunningly brilliant content that Google would want to use it.

Folks who produce content for a living should have enough of a following that anything Google took from them would have to be properly attributed (at least) to avoid a firestorm. Anyone not making cash off their content isn't likely to complain one way or the other (attributed or not) because of the whuffie value of having Google use their stuff in the first place. It isn't, after all, like Google is claiming to own your copyright.

A more interesting avenue for me, though, is wondering about code (which is probably on your mind too, Greg). If you write a piece of brilliant code and post a link to it via Chrome, does Google assume the rights to that code? Of course, if you're plaintexting or linking to code, chances are you're giving it away anyway, so does Google's use of it really matter?

So I guess this is where I'm at: the language in the EULA is troubling as an artifact in and of itself (i.e., troubling for its claims). But is it necessarily troublesome in any sort of practical way? Or is my thinking-box just too small because I Creative Commons everything?

Google is free to use my FOFC postings in any way they choose.

so far so good. Passes the acid2 test.

Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome

FYI Google does not want rights to your content!

That's pretty much what I expected. Maybe I'm a mindless consumer drone, but for some odd reason, I trust Google to the extent that when they've done something stupid and someone points it out to them, I figure they'll de-stupid it.

I'm not really sure what they've ever done to earn such currency with me, but they have it.

No big surprise.

Google backtracks on Chrome license terms

Welcome to the party, I already posted about that... :)

Agreed on all counts.

Just started using Chrome a couple of days ago. Very quick. Pretty impressed so far. Some sites (including this one) seem to have some lag when clicking on topics. Not sure why.

So my work computer is still stuck with IE 6. There's a growing number of websites I visit where there's a banner going across the top saying that they are phasing out support of my browser, and I should upgrade to IE 8, Firefox, Chrome, etc. I can't upgrade the browser on my own, and it frustrates the hell out of me.

Any tips for buttering up a government IT department?

Same here... and I don't think the government is going to budge on this because you have said so ;).

it's Clinton you need to worry about, not your IT.

US State Department employees ask Hillary clinton for Firefox - Video

t a recent town hall meeting with staff, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a question from one government employee who wanted to know if they could "please" use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.

You can see the Q&A by skipping to the 26:32 point in the video above.

The request was met with a round of applause from the audience. But Clinton didn't have a ready answer, so she called another official who explained that while Firefox was available for free, it would cost money for the IT staff to begin supporting it. And while the state department is seeking additional funds for IT, it's not a done deal.

I knew my hatred of her was warranted.

I don't work for State, and I'm not getting IE 6 either.

It's a security thing, not a political thing (government IT is used to IE 6 and its security).

Well, I'm finally sick of how slow Firefox is for me. IE isn't happening, so I'm trying out Chrome. So far, I really like it. It's much faster and....lighter for a better word. I've added a few extensions and am satisfied, except for one thing - the bookmark toolbar. With FF I had an addon that simply had a website's icon without the words, so I could have a crapload of stuff on there. I've searched for over an hour and I can't find anything like that for Chrome. Does anyone know of such a thing?

Can't you just delete the name from the bookmark in the toolbar?

Ahhhhh, ok. I guess sometimes the simplest thing is the best answer. Thanks. :)

No problem -- I actually never thought to take out the names, so doing that will save me some space!

Yeah, I was dying with only being able to have like 7 or 8 websites visible on the bar.