Google Chrome - the Google Web Browser

[Aristotle]

Google Chrome, Google’s Browser Project

Supposedly it is built off Mozilla source code and will be free and I imagine also open source.

I cannot imagine Mozilla is terribly psyched about this.

[Aristotle]

Finally it has been "released":

Google Chrome

A fresh take on the browser - press release

This "comic book" explains a lot of their goals behind Chrome. Honestly, it sounds pretty cool.

[Kerrida]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Finally it has been "released":

Google Chrome

A fresh take on the browser - press release

This "comic book" explains a lot of their goals behind Chrome. Honestly, it sounds pretty cool.

It freaking ROCKS. And is fast as crap due to doing the DNS lookups while you are typing the url among other things.

It's been really hard to not talk about this thing over the past few months

[Gesslar]

My immediate impressions on reading what you've typed and reading the links you've presented are as follows...

Why are they using Webkit? Webkit is not gecko, it is a derivative of KHTML (Safari uses Webkit since Webkit is Apple's project). Why wouldn't they use gecko? Ah, they seem to be using a marriage of Gecko and Webkit (still odd, in my opinion, but whatever).

I don't see why the Mozilla Foundation would have a problem with Google Chrome. There are plenty of browser based on Gecko already, plus Google will likely push their modifications upstream according to the mozilla public license. Also, open source by definition promotes re-using code in new projects- the idea is to provide choice. Which I'm sure you know, and which also confuses me about your statement that Mozilla wouldn't be impressed by it.

My only concern with Google Chrome is whether they'll bring it to Linux in Wine as they have with their other applications which are available on "windows first".

I'll watch with interest, but I doubt I'd switch. As it is, I only use Firefox in Windows when IE has trouble with a site. On Linux I use Firefox first, only because websites are prejudicial with their User Agent testing and dump konqueror (KHTML) as "unsupported" [despite the fact that it renders just as well, and much faster than firefox].

[Cais]

Interesting. Just as Netscape goes kapoot.

I use FF primarily, but I have a large variety of browsers to test in... I don't see myself switching any time soon.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by karahd
Which I'm sure you know, and which also confuses me about your statement that Mozilla wouldn't be impressed by it.

Because regardless of the core principles of the open source movement, people still pick their sides and like seeing "their" version of something succeed. I mean look at how there are miniature holy wars over linux distros and GUI shells.

[Rosuav]

I've just installed it, and here's my first thoughts, in no particular order. (This will probably go to my blog too.)

* BAD: First you download an installer stub, then you run that and it goes and fetches the rest of the code. That's fine, but it just has an activity indicator, not a progress indicator. If all the code is put into the base installer, then my download manager will tell me how much longer it'll take to get it.

* BAD but turned out minor: I got a worrying experience when the settings dialog didn't respond to ThinkPad scroll. I was afraid that this, like Opera, would not be able to be scrolled using a ThinkPad's special middle-button scroll (it's more intuitive than a scroll wheel, and that's saying something). Fortunately it was only the settings dialog - the main page scrolls just fine.

* MINOR BAD: As you type into the "omnibar", sometimes the primary result is to go to the site, sometimes it's to google for it. Somewhat confusing. It'd be nice to have a keystroke like Shift-Enter that will _always_ take you to that site. (Maybe there is one. I don't know.)

* MAJOR GOOD: Pressing Ctrl-Tab repeatedly will cycle you through the tabs in order. This is the same as Firefox, but NOT Opera. (In Opera, tabs are listed sequentially, but Ctrl-Tab is more like Alt-Tab between top-level windows - it switches among the most recently used / top of Z-order.)

* GOOD: It uses a Firefox 3 style of saving passwords - lets you see if you got your pw right before saving it. Also, it eliminates the confusing duplication in Ff 3: what's the difference between clicking "Not this time" and closing the bar?

* GOOD but ought to go without saying: I can edit large (32KB+) Wiki pages with it. MediaWiki gives a warning that some browsers have trouble with textareas having large amounts of data. (And yes - an important part of what I do involves editing a huge page.)

* BAD? Where's form-fillout saving? Can't seem to recall my previous form contents. I use this as a sort of pseudo-addressbook for webmail.

* ODD: Seems MediaWiki produced strange HTML code - [table border="border"] instead of [table border=1] - and while Firefox happily puts a border around it, Chrome didn't. Hunting down the thing inside Wiki and forcing it to say "border=1" worked though.

* GOOD: Where Firefox has "View selection source", Chrome has "Inspect element". It shows you the source, but also shows more information. Handy!

* VERY GOOD: Find (at the top of the screen, not the bottom, but I can get used to that) tells me how many results it found.

* GOOD: Javascript performance looks good. I've tried it on RoundCube webmail and a few other js-heavy sites, and it seems to work. Obviously the main advantage is that you can leave this running for longer without getting problems, so a quick test won't show it, but it seems good so far.

Overall: I think this is good, but it's new and needs work. It's not at the point of making me ditch Firefox as my primary, but it's more than ready to ditch Opera as my backup.

[Aristotle]

I hate downloading an installer to then run a program and have it fetch stuff. I'd much rather download an installer that has everything. That also allows me to copy the full installer to another PC instead of doing a whole download every time.

[Gesslar]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Because regardless of the core principles of the open source movement, people still pick their sides and like seeing "their" version of something succeed. I mean look at how there are miniature holy wars over linux distros and GUI shells.

Admittedly, there are fanboys everywhere regardless of topic, but I think the Mozilla foundation is a little more mature than that.

[Gesslar]

Originally posted by Aristotle
I hate downloading an installer to then run a program and have it fetch stuff. I'd much rather download an installer that has everything. That also allows me to copy the full installer to another PC instead of doing a whole download every time.

I'm not sure what Rosuav did, but when I went to http://www.google.com/chrome and clicked the link to install, it opened immediately in an installer, I didn't have to save anything, first. Then when it was done downloading, it installed automatically, finally it opened the new Chrome.

All I did was click and it took 1 minute to do it all.

The download portion was a progress indicator as opposed to a "busy light", however the install was more a "busy light" than a progress indicator.