Google Chrome

3474 Views 64 Replies 16 Participants Last post by Okan, Feb 15, 2010

Zico 10

Discussion Starter · Sep 3, 2008

Pretty big news in the IT circles, everyone was going on and on about this today.

Google has released a browser to rival Internet Explorer and Mozilla ( . . and Opera, Safari, .. ), and it's called Google Chrome.

http://www.google.com/chrome

I just installed it, and the first thing you notice is it's simplicity. It doesn't hog up the top of the screen to fit in all it's options like a traditional browser, and feels pretty lightweight.

Most other things on it seem a rip off of Opera, from the way it displays tabs, to the ripping off of Opera's 'speed dial' which they've changed slightly to show your most visited sites instead of your pre-determined sites. Not a good thing for those sensitive of privacy.

My laptop's touchpad doesn't seem to be able to scroll upwards on a page with it either (downwards works), whilst it can in every other program I've ever used.

For once, I think Google has had a hard time being innovative here. This is just like Opera to me, just with a few things tweaked to make it seem different, but the kicker is that Opera has been like that for several years already.

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Okan

· #2 · Sep 3, 2008

I heard it's lighter than FireFox (as in uses up less memory). Is that true?

I don't think anyone can beat Firefox though even if it is.

nEEbz

· #3 · Sep 3, 2008

Yes it is lighter than Firefox and all the other browsers out there.

I don't know if you guys are technical enough to understand this but the best thing about it is that each tab is actually working as a separate process which not only doesn't crash the whole browser if one tab fails but also helps Chrome for better memory management. So it uses lesser memory in short term and has better memory management in long term.

The only problem I am facing is that sometimes a tab freezes while loading a page in it. Also the lack of add-ons is an issue but that'll come by eventually.

Mutu

· #4 · Sep 3, 2008

Using it now and I like it a lot. It's faster than IE, that's for certain. I will be using this from now on.

Mutu

· #5 · Sep 3, 2008

nEEbz said:
Yes it is lighter than Firefox and all the other browsers out there.

I don't know if you guys are technical enough to understand this but the best thing about it is that each tab is actually working as a separate process which not only doesn't crash the whole browser if one tab fails but also helps Chrome for better memory management. So it uses lesser memory in short term and has better memory management in long term.

The only problem I am facing is that sometimes a tab freezes while loading a page in it. Also the lack of add-ons is an issue but that'll come by eventually.

Yeah, it explained that in the little video tutorials. I'm hoping they'll add an adblock function to it at some point.

nEEbz

· #6 · Sep 3, 2008

have you read the chrome comic? it's pretty interesting.

Zico 10

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 3, 2008

It is light, very light. But like I said, it's just a prettier Opera to me at the moment, it isn't showing any extra functionality worth making noise about.

I did forget to mention one piece of innovation though, which is that tabs are integrated into the top of the window. Hard to explain, so here's a screenshot;
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9629/chromewv2.jpg

It's nothing big, but it does make more use of the screen size. It might not matter to people on 4:3 resolutions, but to us using wide 16:9 screens, any extra use of vertical space is definitely an added and welcome bonus :thumbsup:

And there's this thing called incognito window, which opens basically a 'secret' browser window that doesn't show up on your Windows taskbar. Weird shit, and I don't really see the use in it, but it could be useful to some. You have to ALT-TAB between windows to get back to it.

One crack appeared so far is how it displays http://imageshack.us/

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Zico 10

Discussion Starter · #8 · Sep 3, 2008

Mutu said:
Using it now and I like it a lot. It's faster than IE, that's for certain. I will be using this from now on.

IE :frustrat:

I hate that browser with a passion. As if it wasn't bad enough as a user, having it locking up system resources, crashing like a tonne of bricks and everything else. Now that I've dabbled in some web development, it's ten times worse.

I basically have to prepare separate segments of CSS to make sure IE renders the page like Mozilla and every other browser on earth does. I have to use separate sets of images in certain cases because IE 6 doesn't support transparent images properly all the time. Had to make major tweaks to a CSS menu that works perfect in everything else (even IE 7) just to cater for IE 6.

And the kicker is that each release of IE tends to behave so differently from the last.

Okan

· #9 · Sep 3, 2008

nEEbz said:
Yes it is lighter than Firefox and all the other browsers out there.

I don't know if you guys are technical enough to understand this but the best thing about it is that each tab is actually working as a separate process which not only doesn't crash the whole browser if one tab fails but also helps Chrome for better memory management. So it uses lesser memory in short term and has better memory management in long term.

The only problem I am facing is that sometimes a tab freezes while loading a page in it. Also the lack of add-ons is an issue but that'll come by eventually.

Interesting, makes sense. If a tab crashes in FF, the browser is affected as well. You would have to restart the browser which is annoying.

Okan

· #10 · Sep 3, 2008

Şeytan;6601833 said:
And there's this thing called incognito window, which opens basically a 'secret' browser window that doesn't show up on your Windows taskbar. Weird shit, and I don't really see the use in it, but it could be useful to some. You have to ALT-TAB between windows to get back to it.

Lol, class. That could come in handy if your watching porn and you need to hide the window if someone walks into the room.

p

Zico 10

Discussion Starter · #11 · Sep 3, 2008

Yeah, but the browser is anti-porn in the way that it throws up your most viewed sites when you open a new tab

Seems like Chrome is identifying itself as Mozilla by the way.

Hotmail.com doesn't like it and recommends you upgrade your browser. Still quite a bit for the Google programmers to sort out, but it is looking good for such an early release (even if they did copy most of it I'm sure).

Google's reputation should still ensure it gets a large slice of the market, just like most users having Windows means that most users use IE, just not to that degree. But I can see this easily getting a larger share than Opera, and settling in behind Mozilla quite easily.

nEEbz

· #12 · Sep 3, 2008

You guys should also check out the 'Create a Web Application..' option. It's creates an application out of the site. You'll have a desktop icon and it will run the web page in best possible way in terms of memory. Also if I am not wrong, the web page will also work when you are offline. It won't get the content, but the functionality will be all provided offline e.g. If you create a web application out of a Google Docs, then you can still write documents in it, format it etc. when you are offline and then send the stuff once you are up

buzyb

· #13 · Sep 3, 2008

hmm, guess i'll try the final version.

nEEbz

· #14 · Sep 3, 2008

google are notorious for not bringing out final versions. Infact apart from their search everything (including our dear beloved gmail) are in beta

Lista

· #15 · Sep 3, 2008

It has some serious privacy issues, though.

Köyel1

· #16 · Sep 3, 2008

Şeytan;6601833 said:

Looks exactly the same as my safari browser. I don't notice a difference.

buzyb

· #17 · Sep 3, 2008

i'm trying out opera for the first time right now and i must say it looks quite promising.

Cüneyt Arkın

· #18 · Sep 3, 2008

Safari and Firefox do me just fine and anyways, who needs more memory on a 4gb ram machine?

Zico 10

Discussion Starter · #19 · Sep 3, 2008

Cambs said:
Looks exactly the same as my safari browser. I don't notice a difference.

The 'choose' button is horribly misplaced, it should look like this;

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Inácio

· #20 · Sep 5, 2008

this is google explaining how it all goes, by using a cartoon

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html

i've started reading the 1st couple pages, but then i gave up, started zapping really fast and can inform that it has 38 pages, for all you tech lovers

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