Google just released the BETA of their new web browser - Google Chrome! I've had it installed for a total of about 5 mins so far, but it seems to be blazingly fast. It's light weight, supports all the FireFox keyboard shortcuts I've become accustomed to, and it even gave me the option (which I did) to import my FireFox passwords, saved settings, bookmarks, etc...
Just thought some people might want a heads up.
-P
Comments
Note: if you're using it at work...
There is one little thing... you have to watch out for the New Tab page. It shows your most frequently visited sites.
The problem is, it shows anyone who looks over your shoulder your most visited sites, along with a little picture of the page.
You can clear the browser history, which is what I've been doing, or open an "incognito" window (which doesn't enter the browser history).
A number of users have complained about that feature (so it may change) for this very reason, but aside from that, it works pretty well. I've been happy with it.
For a "beta" that's only a few days out, it works better that some other browsers, and usually seems to bring up pages faster.
Oh, at this point, it's only available on Windows, but they are working on the Mac and Linux versions.
Nota Bena
Chrome is based on the open source Webkit browser platform developed by my brother's team at Apple, the same platform as the Mac browser Safari. Safari is also available for PC machines and runs very fast on both platforms. Chrome, at the moment, is faster, because of a redesigned javascript engine. I'm expecting news from Apple on a new, faster Safari, any moment. :)
I don't expect MS to be sleeping through this. IE7 is a bit of a dog but I don't think they're just going to let Apple and Google take the browser market on Win/Vista machines away from them. I expect some really cool competition in the browser arena over the next 6 to 12 months. Firefox and Opera are unlikely to be asleep either.
It's going to be good for us, the people who USE browsers, no matter who wins such a competition.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Chrome, Safari, Webkit, Konqueror
Don't forget that webkit has it's roots formed around the Konqueror source :) But yes, safari is fast on Apple and WIN platforms, but I've had stability issues on WIN w/ Safari.
-P
I actually LIKE image SIGs!
What I don't understand is ...
what the business model is. Since all these browsers are free (like IE7 etc) why should MS care which one you use? I've been using Firefox for a year or two and it does all I really want.
I'm not a total computer illiterate but I'm no PC expert and I've decided life's too short to try and keep up. I first got involved in 1961 when I had to go to the library to find what exactly a computer was before my interview to work as a hardware tester of ICT 1301 business computers. Later, in the 70s, I got involved in designing built-in microprocessor systems for measurement and control using Motorola 68xx processors and eventually using an operating system called Flex.
The worst thing that happened to personal computing was the initial adoption of the appalling IBM PC architecture. It was antediluvian even when new but it was IBM and, as no-one ever got the sack for buying IBM, drove out the much better systems based on Motorola processors. Just shows that the market doesn't always generate the best products.
I may try Chrome just out of curiosity but I guess I'll stick with Firefox in the end.
Geoff
It's all about advertising Geoff
Google uses something called AdWords; it's a pay-per-click set up and I believe pretty similar to what other search engine providers use. An advertiser specifies what words they want to trigger their ad, and if someone enters those words in a Google search, a link to that advertisers site appears as a 'sponsored link' on the right side or top of the search results. AdWords also powers Google's site targeted advertising, the 'Ads by Google' bar you can see here on BC.
It's big money; there are literally hundreds of millions of web searches made every day, and advertisers are willing to pay to reach those web surfers. Last year AdWords generated something like 15 billion dollars for Google.
Scott
-- Moliere
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Adwords/Adsense
As far as I can tell, Chrome isn't ad supported, eg there is no advertising built into the browser.... But yes, adwords and adsense are both big money programs for Google when it comes to content based advertising. Some might say "well Google is the default search option so that means they are doing it for the advertising on search" but Google is the default search option on FireFox also so.... By the looks of it, Chrome is intended to make online web-based applications work/look more like desktop applications... And that seems to be where Google is putting most it's research these days (eg, Gmail, Google Docs, etc)....
-P
I actually LIKE image SIGs!
Ah the 68xx , I love the microprocessor.
Ah the 68xx , I love the microprocessor. funnest little processor you can mess with, simple 8bit process with a basic instruction set.
But i'm biased since that the first microprocessor I was introduced to in my electrical engineering coerce.
Yes, but not quite as quirky as ...
... the 6502 as used in BBC 'B' computers. They were brilliant and supremely adaptable - we even had some used as 68xx development systems at work.
IMO the best Motorola 8 bit machine was the 6809 which had the added bonus of 2 index registers which meant there was far less shuffling of numbers when moving data around. I enjoyed playing with assembler. So much more fundamental than all these memory hungry high level languages :) Not as fundamental as the first computers I experienced - they were all made of individual transistors, capacitors, resistors etc. Mind you, they were big :) ... and stupid.
I'm convinced that no-one really knows how a PC works. Even though it may be possible to find someone who knows how parts of the hardware functions I'm pretty sure there are bits of embedded code (firmware, in the jargon) in there that have no source code copies. After all nobody repairs PCs; they just replace great chunks (like mother boards) if they suspect a problem. Any computer geeks here who claim to know precisely how a PC works as opposed to knowing how to drive them?
Geoff
I get interested...
when the OS X / Linux versions start appearing...
I tried it..
It worked on the few sites I tried. Compared to Firefox with the add-ons I have it doesn't offer me anything. I have over a dozen add-on for all sorts of things with Firefox. I didn't notice it's speed as being so much faster than FF or IE really..are we talking about a second or two?
I use Google for 99% or my searches, it's my customized home page, and I use Gmail...Chrome at least right now doesn't offer me anything close to what I have with Firefox 3 (or Firefox 2 if I was still running that).
Will Chrome support add-ons?
Huggles
Alexis
How much do you trust Google?
When Chrome was first released its licence suggested that Google would retain rights to everything you downloaded or uploaded with it. Apparently they have now modified that clause in the licence.
See: Google backtracks on Chrome license terms
However, they still retain the right to store any information typed into Chrome's Ominibox, which serves as both search bar and address bar:
See: Google's Omnibox could be Pandora's box
Think I may stick with Firefox for now.
It's not sinister.....
Straight from google: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/making-terms-of-service-clearer.html
I actually LIKE image SIGs!