Google Chrome

[Blitzkommando]

Wow, this is quite a surprise. Google today released their own browser (just after donating to Mozilla) called Google Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome). It's based around the idea of simplicity and functionality. Rather than a single hierarchal process, each plug-in, tab, and tool (such as Java) is given its own process. Thus, if a plug-in crashes or even a tab, the browser is designed not to crash and continue to function. (We'll see how that plays out) Also, because of this, you can see which plug-ins are hogging the most memory and resources (in a tab type about:memory to get the in depth processes, or click the control menu and choose Task Manager under Developer for a small pop-up window with less information).

Really, I was skeptical at first as I thought it might simply be yet another Firefox clone (a browser I didn't care for in the first place). I was quite wrong. It is clean, fast, and easy to use. I figured other PSOWers would be interested in this new browser and might have feedback.

For an unusual overview of the browser, check out Google's comic (http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html) with the descriptions of features and the like.

All I can say so far is, good job Google. You might finally have created a browser that is worth using over all of your competition. I look forward to the Linux and Mac betas.

[beatrixkiddo]

It's fucking weird, and full of programming exploits wider than the grand canyon from what I've been told.

And there's no title bar or menus, god damn this thing is weird.

Using it right now, btw.

Also, right after I installed it and ran it (while PSU was running), the title bar was pitch black and the page body of any website I tried was pure white, like nothing loaded. So it either uses overlays, or that was just a temporary oddity.

[Firocket1690]

funny thing, i heard about chrome last night. My new laptop arrived this morning. If I'm going to adapt to vista, might as well try a new browser. Its from Google, so it has to be good. I'm liking it so far. My only qualm is that the download manager is pseudo internal, so it was a little weird. After downloads finished, the whole thing would disappear. I'm starting to adapt to CtrlT, CtrlJ to pull it up. And personally, I like the tabs being above the thing

[amtalx]

Don't assume its good because its from Google. They make a lot of garbage too. I'll try it out for a few days. It depends on how the javascript handling is...seems to separate the men from the boys.

[KodiaX987]

Rather than a single hierarchal process, each plug-in, tab, and tool (such as Java) is given its own process. Thus, if a plug-in crashes or even a tab, the browser is designed not to crash and continue to function. (We'll see how that plays out) Also, because of this, you can see which plug-ins are hogging the most memory and resources (in a tab type about:memory to get the in depth processes, or click the control menu and choose Task Manager under Developer for a small pop-up window with less information).

THIS.

If they can pull that thing off and pull it well, they'll be winners. More programs should be made this way - I remember the days of Windows 95 where crashing Internet Explorer meant your entire desktop exploded. I don't want that sort of thing to happen again.

Hell, even when Firefox crashes, despite the session save feature, I'm still annoyed when it happens.

[Sord]

trying it now, was on firefox 3. And... already the speed difference is noticeable for me, it's faster. I like the idea of having the URL in the tabs, because I'd often forget to open a new tab before hitting enter on my URL box, now I have to open a tab. The basic interface is fine, very plain and simple (I HATE toolbars) though not my choice of colors. Have to mess with it tomorrow though.

[CelestialBlade]

I'll consider it when it achieves the level of add-ons Firefox has. I'm not switching to anything that doesn't have Adblock and NoScript.

[amtalx]

In other news, an independent research firm has determined that IE8 Beta is more resource intensive than Windows XP. I laughed.

[CelestialBlade]

In other news, an independent research firm has determined that IE8 Beta is more resource intensive than Windows XP. I laughed.
Office went that way, may as well make IE resource-intensive to a retarded level too.

[Commodity]

Its a little confusing at first, but I can imagine switching to it.

The only thing that seems to be missing is the ability to click down your scroll wheel to scroll down pages without turning the goddamn wheel, if anyone knows what I mean. Maybe my mouse is fucked up though.

[Firocket1690]

There are a few noticeable changes

Clicking the clickwheel doesn't pull up the round thing, so one would have to use the left scroll bar. or scroll the wheel. I didn't think I used it much, but its good for skimming long articles

Firefox sees a file, and would often prompt you to open it with a program, or save it; Quicktime accessible stuff is the exception, and is usually opened in firefox. Chrome on the other hand, always makes you save the file somewhere, and doesn't prompt opening the proper program. This just stuck out for me 'cause it would make me save torrents.

There is no stop button. Not in the top, no right click, stop. And right click menu could use a refresh, too.

Chrome doesn't play nicely with facebook, either.

Edit: speaking of noticeable changes, where the hell did my avatar go?

[Neith]

Just started using this, impressions are mixed so far.

It's definitely much faster than Firefox 3 (my usual browser), loading websites is extremely quick. The interface is also simplistic, and very easy to use, which is nice. Creating tabs is very quick (it was in Firefox too, but still). I haven't tried downloading anything yet though.

Resource-wise, it seems to use multiple instances in Task Manager- I'm guessing that's to enable to it keep working when one or more components crash. That's nice, but as a sideeffect, it seems to consequently use almost as much resources as Firefox.

It may just be me, but it also didn't appear to like video playback, even on Youtube. Every video I've tried watching so far loaded a lot faster, (including loading the unplayed movie in) but was very jumpy during playback. If this is fixed in a later release, then great. For now though, Firefox seems better for playing videos, at least for me.

Like Firocket said, the lack of a Stop button and no right-clickable Refresh is a minor inconvenience too.

Changing the default font seems problematic too, I've asked mine to change 3 times so far, and tried restarting the browser after it too, and yet I'm still looking at the default font.

This is only a Beta though, so I'd imagine a lot of the issues will be ironed out in future releases. It's a nice browser, but it needs a lot of work before a real release.

[Sekani]

In other news, an independent research firm has determined that IE8 Beta is more resource intensive than Windows XP. I laughed.


Office went that way, may as well make IE resource-intensive to a retarded level too.

As a counter-point, name one "noob-friendly" application that isn't resource intensive. Corporate users don't care about efficiency much if at all, they just want their shit to make them a sandwich in the morning. Stripped down software isn't very good at sandwich making.

As for Google Chrome, tried it yesterday and wasn't impressed enough to start using it on a regular basis.

[Sord]

It may just be me, but it also didn't appear to like video playback, even on Youtube. Every video I've tried watching so far loaded a lot faster, (including loading the unplayed movie in) but was very jumpy during playback. If this is fixed in a later release, then great. For now though, Firefox seems better for playing videos, at least for me.


I've watched a few on and off youtube, and it doesn't seem to have any effect as to the playback. It loads faster, but that's about it.

[Neith]

I've watched a few on and off youtube, and it doesn't seem to have any effect as to the playback. It loads faster, but that's about it.

Strange, must be something my end then. Firefox plays videos fine, but they were always jumpy and would skip a bit when I played the same videos in Chrome.

[Sord]

well, I ran into a problem today. for some reason, it just slowed down, drastically. it would lag on tabs and I'd have to wait for them to switch over to another (i only had about three open.) I had my processes showing and surfed around a bit with that while it was slow, to see if this "split up the processes" thing would show me anything. And... it did nothing. My system idle process would be between 90-95% except when chrome itself would make a little 10-15% spike. By all means it seemed pretty normal. I ran firefox along side it and only chrome was having the issue. I closed out chrome and I've been using firefox for an hour or so now. Went back into chrome to see if by some chance it righted itself, no go. Definitly has some issues to iron out I guess. However, if it's done, then I could see the browser becoming a major competitor. Eventually we should see all the customizable skins and crap. For those of you who didn't read the comic, they said it was open source, so hopefully coders will have some custom themes out at some point (because I know for some people all they seem to care about is aesthetics.)

[Eihwaz]

I read through the comic introduction, and this sounds pretty fascinating. I'll have to give it a try when I have some free time.

[Sekani]

In a shocking twist, many reviewers are giving the nod to the new Internet Explorer over Chrome and, in some cases, even over Firefox. Although the Linux fanboys at Slashdot were quick to slam IE8's high memory usage (see Amtalx's comment above), testers claimed that pages in IE8 loaded faster and used less of the CPU than its competitors. Apparently IE has a different way of handling Flash-based websites (like Youtube) that reduces resource usage and prevents crashes.

I haven't used IE8 myself yet, so I can't really comment much on their comparisons, but does anyone here have any experience with it?

Linkage:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/03/review.chrome.ap/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26519075/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Resource-Hogs-Google-Chrome-and-IE8-Beta-2-Compared-to-Firefox-3-0-1-92927.shtml
http://saunderslog.com/2008/09/02/head-to-head-chrome-vs-ie-8/

[Solstis]

I'll wait for the Mac beta. My Windows tower has gotten to the age (haven't formatted) that I practically need an exorcism to run new programs. Forget adding hardware.

(I know there are fixes, but I am oh so lazy)

[Sekani]

Tried Google Chrome again on my work machine, and this time it's noticeably faster than Firefox, almost twice as fast at loading pages actually. No idea why it fails so much on my home machine.

Also went ahead and installed IE8 on here and got mixed results. Faster on some pages, slow as hell on others.

Ended up going back to Firefox again anyway. I'm too used to certain addons making my browsing experience more pleasant.

[Kent]

I got the IE8 beta last night, and have been trying it out...

It seems to have a few graphical glitches that need to be ironed out still, but the compatibility mode fixes everything. The new features are pretty nifty, though, such as previous addresses in the address bar having their page names next to them, as well as the accelerators, which are kinda cool.