The beginnings of the Google OS?
http://www.google.com/chrome

Introduction at Official Google blog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fre...on-browser.html

Google Chrome Comic Book
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/


This is an innovative web browser IMO. Tabs are now separate virtual processes, so a single tab cannot crash the browser, and memory leaks are isolated and controlled. Really looking forward to trying this!

Looks very interesting. I'll also be testing this out once it's released. My only worry is that it'll never be removed from Beta status (like Gmail still is).

It looks like it has a lot of very interesting features. One thing that sort of worries me though is that, well, it's owned by Google. As if weren't enough for them to have all my email, my calendar, my chat logs, my web search history... now they'll have my whole browsing experience. Now, I'm not saying that chrome will report everything to google, and it's OSS, so others would see if something like that were happening, but I am slightly wary.

Posting this in Chrome... it's fast. Most of the things are very well thought out and it's easy enough to find settings.

One thing that I like a lot is the incognito windows. If you're using someone else's computer and want to check your email without leaving cookies or history, it's definitely the way to do things.

Now... where to find themes and color schemes...

I tried it but didn't like it. Pages felt like they rendered slower than Firefox. I wasn't impressed...

Chrome is on fire. It loads and renders every web page I visit faster then IE7, Opera 9 and Firefox 2 and 3. This thing is a javascript speed demon too. You'll notice the most speed increase in javascript intensive sites.

Why did they call it Chrome? Isn't that term have something to do with Firefox too?

Heh heh...

One more side in the browser wars.

I can't wait for the fights to start. Just to sit back and enjoy...

GL

I downloaded the install file but it would not execute. Any ideas?

Install file will download the actual installer "chrome_installer.exe" which finally will run the programme.

Perhaps firewall to blame for it!

Regarding your thoughts
http://www.wincert.net/news/649-googles-om...ndoras-box.html



I't a normal procedure. You can only download installer which will then download actual Chrome installation to your PC and start installation. Firewall doesn't affect the way of Chrome installation.
IMO, Chrome is very fast and so far I like it a lot. I two words it's plain and simple

Other relevant links:
http://code.google.com/chromium/
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapsho...hromium-rel-xp/
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/waterfall/

I also didn't like Google Chrome.

well, been trying it today, and i am VERY impressed.

I have tried all other browers, cause i do love IE, and when people say why, i can say why and that i have tried other browers and im not just a IE fan, cause alternatives, to me, where no better.

BUT

Chrome...VERY impressed from the first launch of it. VERY fast, smart, non cluttered, tidy....Bring it on G Man! (lol)

While I don't really care for it (no extensions), it's still interesting to watch.

Chrome gained as much of the market share in the first 8 hours as Opera managed to get in 12 years (more than 10 000x faster)

And I'm curious to see next month's browser stats, to see if they'll accomplish what their goal was i.e. stealing market share from IE, or if they'll just get none of it (most people still using IE are unlikely to ever switch), and just steal some from Firefox/Safari/Opera instead.

Hi guys

Anyone knows how to install chrome silently?

Any known switches.

Know tht it installs from an installer

But its not totally silent.

the link : http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/149.29...e_installer.exe

Please let me know

I like what Google is doing behind the scenes- this browser should be very secure. But come on, this isn't really a new browser, this is just another shell for Webkit. It will probably have more features than Apple's minimalist Safari, but it's not a new browser "from the ground up". Aside from a slightly different UI users aren't going to know the difference.

Now if Google were to write their own renderer, and approach it with the same mentality they approached the shell, that would be something. We'd probably get support for xHTML2, HTML5, full SVG, full xForms and maybe even built in support for flash, Silverlight and PDFs. Maybe even some rarer W3 standards like RDF and CDF. And that's something users would notice.

But this... umm, it's just Safari with a more functional interface.

OK, Chrome is Okay, but the only thing I don't like that I do like about Firefox is that Firefox can leave no history behind and Chrome is like IE and it does X(

You can always use Chrome's incognito mode

Exactly. Unlike every other browser ever (almost) they're designing it from the start to allow for private browsing. Of all the things you could complain about, that seems to be a peculiar choice.

6 exploits in its first 2 days (in v0.2.149.27). It's not looking so great right now.

Then there's all the privacy issues. On one hand it may have private browsing (no big deal, soon they all will have it anyways), but when Google logs *every keystroke* when you type in the omnibar... As if Google didn't already have enough of your infos!

Speed wise, I didn't really see any improvements, and Firefox 3.1 seemingly beats it on js performance too (and will also have a new tab switcher, web worker threads and lots more things)


Actually, nobody would notice. Because no one would make use of those standards, because 99% of the planet would be using browsers that don't support them.

well /q seems to work fine for me...

Now that the hype settled, I got my answers -- sort of.

Chrome's market share has declined, to finally settle at roughly the same as Opera's (~0.7%).

And as for where the users come from exactly, I'm still not sure. IE lost about a half percent, which is no faster than usual. Firefox and Opera both lost minuscule amounts. Kinda hard to tell when the number adds up to less than a percent after all.

Lol, like how google talk is still beta? hehe, To me I think Google is saying programs are always beta, it can never be final, its going to change. I don't know but maybe its one of there signature mark? I think I might email google and ask them why XD Why not? They are reasonable people Lol but isnt google earth like "beta" too? Lol Google search is probably beta too. hehe.

Isn't Google Translate still beta since like 5+ years ago?

Almost half of Google's services are in perpetual beta.

When going to google.com will display a picture with beta next to it, it's time to move this thread to Funny Farm...

I checked google.com and I don't see know beta image or words next to it.

Think about what nitro said.

They just announced it a few days ago. Give it a chance, it sounds like Google is very serious about making the browser secure.


That's really nothing new. The Google toolbar already reports what sites you go to so that the translation feature works (and maybe something else) but it can be disabled. I expect the browser will work the same way. Besides, what are you typing into the addressbar that really needs to be private? The URLs you go to are all clear and visible in the HTTP headers, right, so expecting them to be private really isn't realistic anyway.




Did you just say no one uses PDF, Silverlight and Flash? O_O

As for the rest, (except for xForms which can mostly be implemented in Javascript and on the server) it's a "chicken or the egg" problem, as it is for almost every web client technology. Add support for a useful technology and people will start to use it.

And I'd rather see browsers adding support for SVG and than the canvas tag.

Oh and as for Google's use of the term Beta... they have explained how they use it:

Server-side technology doesn't need to be divided into stable and unstable releases. Everyone on the service pretty much uses the same codebase, and features can be added incrementally. Google labels services "Beta" until it reaches a point where its features are mostly well implemented and finalized. Some services never get to that point- either because Google loses interest in them and pulls resources from the project before it "finishes" or because they are actively developing them and expecting continual evolutionary improvements to make it work better. Knowing how ambitious Google is, I don't expect them to drop the "Beta" label from Google translate until the services delivers something that approximates a human translational.

Then again, I don't want nor install that junk either. I really consider that built-in spyware -- no thanks! I couldn't care less if it can be disabled.


Perhaps I don't want google to log every site I go to and all my browsing habits? I don't see what's the problem with that.


Sounds like you don't understand how the HTTP protocol works. Google doesn't ever get to see my HTTP requests, unless they're going to one of Google's servers. Only the destination server gets the requests. It's fairly private.


Did you just call PDF, Silverlight and Flash standard markup formats that are natively supported/rendered by every browser? O_O

Apples to oranges. Not the same thing at all. PDF is a document format. All 3 are displayed using plugins. NONE of those are markup, nor interpreted/rendered by the browser.

No browser supports any of these things yet (e.g. html 5), and no sane web [designer/master/developer] is going to make use of new things until the majority of their visitors can make use of it (lots of sites still cater to v4 browsers). There's still a sizable portion of users still using that IE6 garbage (around 25%), and that aren't going to upgrade to anything else anytime soon. Nobody in their right mind will make pages or web apps that won't work for that much people. It'll take a lot of years until you see these things in use, we've been waiting for a LOT of years for much simpler things.

Well that's fine. No one is forcing you to use Google's browser. But I find Google's toolbar one of the few useful toolbars for IE and one of the only ones I have installed and generally speaking I don't have a problem with software that phones home as long as the "call" can be disabled without seriously interrupting functionality.



I wasn't implying that they did. I meant that anyone sniffing your network traffic would see your Internet destinations, and so you should act as though it is public data, because if you expect privacy you could be woefully disappointed.

I now see that your objection isn't just that "people out there know stuff about me", you're particularly worried that one company (Google) knows a LOT about you. Which is a concern, but personally I'd rather a big security conscious company to have lots of my data than smaller companies with questionable security knowing lots of little pieces. We have different concerns; we'll evaluate the risks differently.



Umm, no. I said nothing of the sort. I said was that if Google were implementing a browser from the ground up they would support those technologies natively. Current browsers only support those technologies through plug-ins or activeX because that's how Netscape did it and they haven't reengineered their browsers to handle the content users really want their browser to handle.




That is plainly not true. They may not be fully supported but Opera includes some support for SVG, my FF2 includes some support for the canvas element and HTML5.




All the more reason for Google to add native support to their browser and get people to upgrade, so web designers can start using those features on the web.

Which is exactly what I was saying. A couple browsers have minor support for a couple elements, but nothing actually supports anything near the full standard/specs (not that it's final yet).


The only real problem here, is getting people to upgrade. And I honestly don't think they'll make much difference at all, much like Opera. It would literally take a miracle for some people to actually upgrade. The vast majority of visitors having support for things like HTML 5 is gonna take several years. In part because a lot of people won't use anything else than IE, and they can't upgrade past v6 on their OS.

It's always taken just about forever for standards to be adopted (e.g. IE is finally getting half-decent CSS2 support after 10 years, the browser used by 3/4 of surfers still doesn't support a proper XHTML MIME type after 8 years and showing no signs of support, SVG is still very poorly supported after 5 years, etc) -- and these aren't even final yet... Also standards that aren't supported by the majority of browsers (e.g. xhtml + voice in opera) just don't get used.

I apologize if this is considered off-topic but with the many issues people have concerning Chrome I have found a few things of interest that I don't recall reading in this thread.

1. UnChrome for Google Chrome removes the unique ID that each Chrome installation has and replaces it with a null values so your browser cannot be uniquely identified anymore.
2. SRWare Iron is the Chromium source compiled with some of those pesky privacy things left out. I believe every opened tab is treated as Incognito.
3. SRWare Iron Portable is a nice portable version that you can run from a USB device.

My purpose in posting is that it gives people some options. The portable version is the one that interests me. In general I'm not very enthused by Chrome.

It surprises me how little traction Opera has gotten. It's a good browser; not as expendable as Mozilla's browsers but it took years for developers to come out with enough quality extensions to gecko for that to matter. If Opera went open source I think it would be right up there with Firefox. I'm thinking it might be bought out by Yahoo soon because Yahoo's two biggest competitors both have their own browsers and Yahoo can't afford to be left behind- if that happens I expect Opera's market-share to leap considerably.

But as for people upgrading to Chrome, I expect to see that happen as people install their Google Packs.



You have valid grievances. IMO the browser market stagnated when it split along the Firefox and IE divide. FF users weren't going to upgrade to IE, and IE users weren't going to upgrade to FF (at least not quickly). That cut down on competition. Now that we have Apple and Google pushing Webkit on Windows I think we'll start to see the main players beefing up their standards support. Also, MS would do well to add full support SVG support to IE as a weapon against Adobe's Flash. As nice as Silverlight is, it is a MS technology and that makes people weary.

It doesn't really surprise me. Back then it was probably the best browser (at least one of the best), but most people didn't want to pay for a browser when IE & Netscape & all were free. And then ad supported? No thanks, the others were all free, without ads. They made it free with no ads recently-ish, but too little too late. All the current versions of all browsers are pretty good (Firefox, IE8, Chrome, Safari, and a whole bunch of others), and plenty are even open source. Personally, I always hated parts of their GUI (e.g. the download tab), and perhaps that's the main reason why people don't use it (along with other factors like no Firefox-like extensions).

When your one and only product is 12 years old, and somehow you can't even manage to give it away, chances are it sucks in one way or another (this applies to anything of course, not just Opera).

I don't see them gaining market share anytime soon either. A yahoo buyout is unlikely too: they're very much going down the drain. First, they refuse a generous buyout at $35/share, then they ditch all their useful stuff in favor for Google's (e.g. ads), making them yet another content provider like AOL, quickly sinking into irrelevance even further. Can't say they're doing too well financially either -- their CEO turned down $35/share, and now they hit $13.20/share today, which is almost 1/3 of MS' offer (ouch). The shareholders must be livid.


Well, SVG isn't anywhere near a replacement for flash. It has some overlapping features, but it's really nowhere near being a replacement (even just think about video and sound). And yes, they're pushing for Silverlight instead, which seems quite good on paper, but a bit buggy so far from what I've noticed.

Agreed. They're all good.

Whole bunch of others? Excluding browsers that are someone else's rendering engine in a new shell, which browsers are you thinking of? I guess there's Amaya, but is there anything else?






IMO Opera has shifted emphasis from their desktop browser to their mobile browser because that's where they make most of their money. This has allowed Firefox and IE to catch up, so Opera isn't as superior to the other browsers as it used to be. This could be rectified however if they changed their priorities.

But mostly I think it's a marketing problem. If the browser was being marketed by a big company like Yahoo or Google or MS I think its market share would skyrocket.



This is exactly why they need to buy Opera. Buy Opera, buy AOL's dial-up division, convert all the AOL customers to use an a Yahoo branded Opera browser and they're set. Eventually said customers will upgrade to broandband but when they do they will likely continue using Opera because it is a quality product, and continue using Yahoo because it is tied to Opera. Add standards support (such as SVG) to Opera and they can use it on their portal giving them a competitive advantage over content sites. Open source the desktop browser and they can cut down on their own development costs by drawing on the OSS community.

First, buy them with what? They don't exactly have loads of cash (or valuable stock anymore) just lying around, and their market cap has dropped to just over $18B USD, or about $13 USD per share, which is about what Opera is worth. Where's the value proposition for stockholders?

Second, AOL customers in general do not convert to broadband, and are generally the least likely to do so (only ~25% of AOL subscribers are using broadband). Not to mention that since 2002, AOL's subscriber base (broadband and dial-up) has dropped from 20+ million subscribers down to 8.1 million in 2008 - Yahoo! has it's own problems without acquiring the slow death that is AOL.

In summation, Yahoo! buying a browser company/product, or content-provider company, seems counterproductive. Not saying they wouldn't ever do it (tech companies can do some strange things), but business-wise, it makes no real sense. They don't get much out of the purchases (ask Time-Warner how an AOL purchase goes, and whether or not they've been able to stave off AOL's eventual demise - they have not), take on additional personnel that may or may not be assets to the new company, and rely on some anonymous third party (OSS developers) who do not have Yahoo!'s interests as their primary goal.

This just seems like a big mistake I do not see Yahoo! making.

Konqueror, Epiphany, SeaMonkey, etc.


I completely disagree. I know tons of people that use other browsers (mainly Firefox these days), and nearly everyone has used one in the past (e.g. Netscape), and we see a lot of talk about Opera everywhere, so I think most people know about it already. But I have yet to see anyone who actually likes Opera's GUI... Personally, I might rank it higher than IE when it comes to standard support/features and such, but if you're talking about the interface, I pretty much rank it dead last. Even when it comes to mobile devices, Opera still isn't popular. The iPhone already has over 6x the market share of opera mini, after less than a year of existence. And while I haven't really looked, I'd bet that there's plenty of other "mobile" browsers that are more popular than opera (e.g. the blackberry's) and others that will also surpass it in mere weeks (e.g. Android's). Yep, looks like people just about go out of their way to avoid Opera. They've had a sub-1% market share for a dozen years, and I think they'll still be there in 12 more (it wouldn't surprise me at all if they lost half their user base to Chrome either)

I fully agree with all of cluberti's points. I don't see this happening anytime soon (nor make much sense business wise).

Edit: Yahoo just sank below $12/share today. Now the shareholders have ~1/3 of the money they would have if their CEO was doing his job. Thank god I don't own any YHOO stock!

I installed it and used it daily for about a week.

At that time, I decided it was nothing special and decided to just go back to Opera.

I remember last year when Microsoft offered them almost $34 a share, and the CEO wouldn't take it because "Yahoo! was worth more than that" or something to that effect. Guess he's finding out that it isn't the employees or the board that determine's a public company's worth, it's the market. And it appears said market says they're worth $12 / share (and dropping). This guy (and frankly, most or all of this Yahoo! board) should have been fired last year when Microsoft offered them a king's ransom for a dying company.

Yep, he's quite delusional. He wanted $40/share, for a dying company.

Meanwhile, stockholders (who not only didn't make much $$ from a MS buyout, but also lost a LOT of $ recently) are urging yahoo to make an offer to MS @ $22/share, praying they'll want in (which doesn't even seem to be the case).