Google Chrome Spinoff 'Iron' For Privacy Fanatics

Sonnet_XVIII writes "According to DownloadSquad, A German company SRWare has developed a Google Chrome Spin off called Iron aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data."

Comments

Fanatical

[Bryansix]

And yes you have to be fanatical to care about privacy THAT much.

Re:Fanatical

[sakdoctor]

Not really, unless you call clearing cookies between browsing sessions fanatical.

Re:Fanatical

[MrNaz]

I'm increasingly starting to think that Slashdot editors are being underhandedly paid by Google to subtly ridicule anti-Google articles or sentiments. The wording of this summary makes it pretty blatantly obvious that the editor wants to make people who are suspicious of Google appear "fanatical", implying all the baggage that that word carries with it these days.

How is it fanatical to not want to send your data to a private corporation? Would it be fanatical if that corporation was Microsoft, Sony or Universal Studios?

I clear my cookies regularly. What Slashdot calls fanatical I call routine. So I guess that makes me a fanatic.

Re:Fanatical

[redJag]

Fanatical people don't think of themselves as fanatical. Only the people that label them fanatical do..

Re:Fanatical

[kaosfury]

I don't see where "privacy fanatics" == suspicious of Google. I fall into the former, and I am suspicious of most online companies.

Re:Fanatical

[Bryansix]

Uhm, because there is a box you have to check to OPT-IN to the program to send them that information.

Re:Fanatical

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Bullshit. In the modern surveillance society, you'd have to be stupid to not take every precaution you reasonably can.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is determining what a reasonable person would call a fanatic. We all think we're reasonable, when honestly I find most of us (myself included) to be essentially unreasonable most of the time.

Calling someone fanatical these days is less about about extremism (for good or ill), and more about casting disrespect.

Re:Fanatical

[craigavonite]

Since when was it "fanatical" to not want your activities tracked? You wouldn't call it fanatical if I didn't want you to follow me around the streets all day, so nor do I want Google to follow me around the net all day.

Re:Fanatical

[Gewalt]

You clear your cookies???!?!?!? I could never do that. I like all my cookies very much, and I get very sad when I lose them. All 12 of them. That said, until chrome/iron/whatever gets CS Lite, NoScript and AdBlock+ extensions, they will continue to be useless when compared to Firefox.

Re:Fanatical

[Bryansix]

So don't check the box.

Re:Fanatical

[craigavonite]

I know there's a checkbox to agree to Chrome tracking your activity. My point was that it isn't fanatical to not want to be tracked, whether you have the choice or not.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

And that box was dishonestly placed under a EULA where it's routine to see a required check box (to agree to the EULA). Sure, you shouldn't check anything you don't read, but that doesn't stop it from being "evil."

Re:Fanatical

[Fred_A]

Only fanatics label other fanatics as being fanatical !

Re:Fanatical

[Mateo13]

The article uses the word fanatical. The editor is just summarizing what the original author wrote.

Re:Fanatical

[British]

You're right. Here's an idea for safe browsing. Call it the "one time coffee shop" method.

1. Go to coffee shop & browse away
2. after surfing, torch the coffee house.

You can only do this once per coffee shop. Sadly, Starbucks doesn't supply computers since there's an abundance of said shops.

Re:Fanatical

[Enderandrew]

I see more anti-Google articles on Slashdot these days, that I seriously doubt on the whole the editors have a secret agenda to make Goolge look good. Individuals have individual opinions. I wouldn't be shocked to learn one editor is extremely pro-Google, and another anti-Google, but I haven't seen a consistent trend, though you might see a consistent trend if you were only looking for the good or bad.

Re:Fanatical

[Enderandrew]

Only fanatics debate if other fanatics are fanatical to qualify as fanatics.

And for the record, all the rest of you are fanatics. I'll well adjusted.

Re:Fanatical

[Enderandrew]

Because we all have so much to hide and fear?

I've been posting using the same name since the pre-internet BBS days. A quick Google will show you on the front page what my real name is, and what city I live in. A halfway thorough search will show you considerably more.

Frankly, I ain't got nothing to hide (besides my live chicken fetishes, but no one knows about that except he who controls my browsing data...oh shit)

Re:Fanatical

[Sancho]

A reasonable person, or the average person? I don't think that the average person is reasonable.

The average person cares about having the newest car, the newest TV, a house they can't afford, etc. They want to keep up with the Joneses. They measure their own worth as relative to other people's possessions. Their own happiness depends upon being "better" than other people. That's not reasonable. That's why the American economy is in the mess that it's in. We're a society where the goal is to attain money any way you can. If you don't, you're a failure.

Reasonable? My ass.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm increasingly starting to think that Slashdot editors are being underhandedly paid by Google to subtly ridicule anti-Google articles or sentiments.

Are you this guy:

"I noticed today that many Slashdot stories are listed on Google. I thought you were supposed to be a neutral internet party? I can't believe what you have as "news" if you are in cahoots with the "do no evil" gang. Almost everything I used to believe in is on Google now I was hoping that Slashdot would be strong enough to resist the Google money pool but I guess I was naive. Google is going to slowly absorb everything is that ok with you? it doesn't seem so bad when your playing volleyball or bringing your cat to work but it is. A cat is no trade for integrity. Look back at what you used to stand for and not greed or I will have to find a news source that hasn't been swallowed by Google."

Now, I understand your concern with Slashdot's attitude. Slashdot has a definite issues with their bias, but come one: they're paid by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, CIA, FBI, the Aliens... They must be pretty rich by now.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

Re:Fanatical

[Incredible Elmo]

Hey, were you on Disagree Mail the other day?

Re:Fanatical

[Goaway]

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because you seem ridiculous to most people. It's gotta be a conspiracy!

You're not really doing your cause any favours with that post, you know.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with that, actually I've lost a bit of karma just by criticizing Google's privacy policies.

I don't believe that people on slashdot are paid for it, but watching /. over the years it has become my impression that more and more companies have their PR staff post here and/or encourage their employees to submit positive reviews and moderate accordingly when they get points.

Personally, I prefer to post as AC all the time, even though that usually means that the post is less likely to get modded up.

Re:Fanatical

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I clear my cookies regularly

Why not just set them to clear when you close your browser?

Re:Fanatical

[RabidMonkey]

I won't pick points, but I don't think it's fair to roll 50% of the population into one bucket and assume things about them, right or wrong.

I'm sure you've never, in your entire life, done anything unreasonable, like wanting something because it looked cool, or sounded cool, or because you wanted to be the first kid on the block to have it, or because all of your friends had one.

All general statements are false.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but if you keep that up for long you'll get busted for arson. Or run out of coffee shops. Then what will you do? Move on to Waffle Houses?

Re:Fanatical

[Zashi]

you're being ironical, yes?

All general statements are false.

Kinda reminds me of a certain quote

Re:Fanatical

[silent_artichoke]

I clear my cookies regularly. What Slashdot calls fanatical I call routine. So I guess that makes me a fanatic.

That's not fanatical. Fanatical is forking a browser because simply deleting your cookies is not enough. I think you took it too personally.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

The article currently reads "aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data".

I don't see anything wrong there, and I'm one the "people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data".

That's why I don't use Chrome, I guess.. Well, and I like my Firefox-2.

Re:Fanatical

[davinc]

Actually, many would argue that the economy is in the state it is in due to fractional banking. Wanting more than you had yesterday isn't exclusive to America. Being able to GET it w/o earning it is, and massive fractional banking allows leveraging to make it possible.

Re:Fanatical

[PietjeJantje]

What worries me more is companies like Apple and Google gaming sites like Slashdot, reddit, etc. I seriously doubt it is only the fan boys who counter and mod down even the best of arguments, just because they dares to criticize their infallible darlings. The worst part is that they all call themselves liberal in the good sense of the word. I'm not sure who are more dangerous. Both are entities that dilute our privacy and rights step by step, because, you have nothing to hide, right?

Re:Fanatical

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Because we all have so much to hide and fear?

Because we all have so many good reasons to believe that those in authority respect our rights and have our best interests in mind. If you trust the authorities, you are part of the problem.

Re:Fanatical

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

That would be a wonderful idea if I wanted to get busted for arson and not "sedition".

Re:Fanatical

[h4rm0ny]

Fanatical people don't think of themselves as fanatical. Only the people that label them fanatical do..

And people that considered clearing your browser cookies a sign of fanatacism have seriously low standards of effort or caring. It takes seconds. Good grief - what would they think of someone brushing their teeth each night? "He spends minutes everyday doing this activity? FANATIC!"

Re:Fanatical

[PietjeJantje]

Hey, it's the joke variant of the ad hominem argument. Good job laughing it all away without providing actual arguments (and no, "I got nothing to hide" is not one of them). If it weren't for people like you, how would they be able to dilute our privacy and rights? And your work is for a good cause. They must be defeated, these fanatics, in the finest of contemporary American anti-intellectual of styles. Knowledge, path! Intelligent debate, pah! Sir, you must be proud, I congratulate you for your accomplishments.

Re:Fanatical

[h4rm0ny]

I think the main agenda /. editors have is to stir up lots of angry arguments to drive the post count up. I'm not exactly what the interest is, though a high post count might tie into their advertising earnings either directly through more usage meaning more click-throughs, or bu making themselves look more appealing to advertisers. Or maybe editors are simply under pressure to generate more activity in some way. But I see more and more articles that are obvious trolls and flamebait, right down to an unsubtle question at the end of the summary to start it off.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's like the religious people that don't like to be called religious.

Re:Fanatical

[FatdogHaiku]

Fanatical people don't think of themselves as fanatical. Only the people that label them fanatical do..

That's true, and it seems that extremism is becoming the norm. This can not be tolerated! I say intolerance and extremism must be wiped out on every level...

Oh, wait...

Re:Fanatical

[centuren]

What surprises me most about the pro or anti Google opinions, is how quiet the open source supporters have been. This year we have a company developing both an open source web browser and an open source operating system for mobile computing, and people seem to be up in arms about it.

Considering NONE of us are required to use the official versions of either if we don't like something about it, what's there to complain about?

Re:Fanatical

[BenoitRen]

All general statements are false.

Then yours is as well. PARADOX.

Re:Fanatical

[roach2002]

I don't get the same interpretation as you from the summary. I think you're reading into it. In fact, CmdrTaco added the department of the story as "the why-open-source-is-awesome dept." Which very much compliments the creators of this fork.

If you run some of the text on Iron's website through a translator, you get:

The data protection practice, however, criticism, for reasons such as creating a unique user ID or the submission of entries to Google to generate SuchvorschlÃgen. SRWare Iron is a real alternative. The browser is based on the Chromium-source and offers the same features as Chrome - but without the critical points that the privacy concern.

The summary, therefore, is a really great representation of what the project is trying to do.

Re:Fanatical

[F3V0H1B]

1. Light coffee house on fire
2. Search on their Internet
3. ...
4. Profit

Re:Fanatical

[smellotron]

fantastic!

Re:Fanatical

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Oh yeah? Well, only the Sith deal in absolutes!

Not so funny now, is it?

Re:Fanatical

[syousef]

You're right. Here's an idea for safe browsing. Call it the "one time coffee shop" method.

1. Go to coffee shop & browse away
2. after surfing, torch the coffee house.

You can only do this once per coffee shop. Sadly, Starbucks doesn't supply computers since there's an abundance of said shops.

I solved that problem by taking my laptop to each of the coffee shops.

Re:Fanatical

[MikeFM]

It's not fanatical. It's just crazy and paranoid. I bet you shred all your credit card offers to.

My life is to busy for all that paranoia - to much time spent trying to fix my credit as it keeps getting hijacked somehow.

Re:Fanatical

[arelas]

Isn't saying "Only the Sith deal in absolutes" an absolute statement?

Re:Fanatical

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I wonder if George Lucas, or whoever wrote that line, realised how funny it was.

Re:Fanatical

[Anonymous Coward]

All general statements are false.

Including that one?

Since when

[szo]

we started to call forks a "spin off"?

Re:Since when

[Bryansix]

Somebody confused their Television terms with their Technical terms.

Re:Since when

[MrNaz]

Since companies like Google started using open source and dumped all their absurd management terms into our lexicon.

Re:Since when

[neostorm]

Well, I'm rather certain the spoon came first, right? So calling a fork a spin off isn't too far from the truth...

Re:Since when

[danieltdp]

So, I wanna know when chrome's next season will begin. I heard it will be on the Linux channel

Re:Since when

[SQLGuru]

I figured the single-tined fork (aka pointed stick) came first. Next was the knife (singled tined fork sharpened for cutting).

Layne

Re:Since when

[Sonnet_XVIII]

well I got the story off of a website that used the term "spin off", and I am not familiar with what a "fork" is. so I didn't make anything of it, excuse my ignorance :)

Re:Since when

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't even seem to be a fork. All they did was rebrand some recent Chromium build (with current Webkit) and change the defaults for some prefs. You can easily do that for yourself without any code hacking. No need to trust the Huns :)

What they changed (site is German only, how professional is that?!):
current Webkit
already in Chromium
no UID
don't use the installer
install timestamp
don't use the installer
no addressbar suggest
user pref
no alternate error pages
user pref
error reporting
user pref
"RLZ" tracking (I didn't know Chrome is the warez)
don't use the installer
Google Update
don't use the installer
URL tracker
user pref

Translation

[Stooshie]

I only speak a little German. So here is a bery bad translation via babelfish:

SRWare Iron: The browser of the future - based on the free source text " Chromium" - without doubts with the data protection and security Googles Web browser chrome inspires with an extremely fast structure of web page, a slim Design and imaginative functions. The data-security commissioners practice however also criticism, approximately because of the production of a clear user ID or the transmission from inputs google for the generation of search proposals. SRWare Iron is a genuine alternative. The browser basedly on the Chromium source text and offers so the same basic functions as chrome - however without the criticized points, which concern the data protection. We could provide from there a browser, with which you can use immediately the innovative features, without having to think about the keeping of your privacy. We would like to leave and place our users at our work sharings the browser free of charge to the download under the name " SRWare Iron" in the net. What makes Iron concretely differently than chrome? Read here.

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how German though babelfish reads a lot like corporate marketing speak.

Add the word leverage somewhere and you could have fooled me.

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like that in German too, without babelfish.

Re:Translation

[Patik]

I only speak a little German.

I know a little German. He's sitting right over there.

Re:Translation

[Stooshie]

That picture is just scary!

Removing Unique User ID

[gurps_npc]

That alone makes it far superior to Chrome.

Re:Removing Unique User ID

[sH4RD]

Actually you can just use Chromium (the open source project for Chrome), as far as I can tell by using it for a few minutes there seem to be no unique user id's transmitted.

Re:Removing Unique User ID

[GringoCroco]

Could you elaborate on that?

Did I understand that correctly: Chrome generates a UUID for each instalation or for each user on the system who runs Chrome?

Re:Removing Unique User ID

[denominateur]

Judging by the comparative table on the SRWare page, it does indeed.

Re:Removing Unique User ID

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Chrome installs into the user's profile folder, not in the Program Files folder. Each user has his own installation, thus each user has a unique ID. If Chrome is uninstalled and reinstalled later, the previous ID persists.

Better name

[bennybertow]

They should have called it "Tinfoil" instead...

Re:Better name

[fizzding]

I dunno... "He's hiding something, clamp him in irons!" sounds about right to me.

Re:Better name

[MrNaz]

If you consider clearing cookies and basic privacy to be tinfoil type material, then may I have your email address? My ideas will intrigue you and I think you would like to subscribe to my newsletter.

Re:Better name

[genghisjahn]

Wait til they get a load of my Transparent Aluminum Browser...it will alter the future!

Re:Better name

[santiagoanders]

Wait til they get a load of my Transparent Aluminum Browser...it will alter the future!

Does it also come from the future via space-ship time travel?

Re:Better name

[Anonymous Coward]

It's German. Germans are into Metal. Iron's a metal, so it fits.

Re:Better name

[antique future]

I think Bondo would fit a bit better :)

Re:Better name

[Anonymous Coward]

... sounds better than paranoid wankaddict version.

Re:Better name

[Drooling Iguana]

How do we know they didn't invent the thing?

Re:Better name

[SL1200MKII]

They should have called it "Tinfoil" instead...

Here in da hood, we be makin r own version of dis browza called "Bling", ya heard! U can get plugins for it like "Dubs" and "Spinners". this shit is hot to death son!

Re:Better name

[shutdown -p now]

Well, I consider that "tinfoil type material", too, and you can see my email address in my /. profile. A quick Google search on that should give you plenty more material, if you're interested.

Re:Better name

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditionally, it's "clap."

Alert me when it runs on Mac and/or Linux.

[greenguy]

I promise not to make "dupe" comments.

Re:Alert me when it runs on Mac and/or Linux.

[aldm]

Or OpenBSD.

Re:Alert me when it runs on Mac and/or Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

An even better measure of a browser than running on OpenBSD is being distributed with OpenBSD. The only browser so far that's in the base system instead of ports is lynx. Not even links, elinks, Links+, Amaya, or w3m have made the cut.

It would be awesome if Chrome or any other big, heavyweight browser could get ported, audited, and approved for distribution with core OpenBSD.

Re:Alert me when it runs on Mac and/or Linux.

[Al Dimond]

Most browser vulnerabilities aren't as simple as vulnerabilities in common network server or client code. I think it would be pretty damn hard to declare a browser secure by examining its code.

Language

[craigavonite]

The SRWare site and the installer are in German, but the browser itself (menu's, etc.) is in English, just for anyone thinking you're going to have to hunt out an EnUs addon or something

Re:Language

[forand]

But is the source in German?

Sorry had to do it.

What's Next?

[arizwebfoot]

Tin Hat?

Titanium?

--
Oh Well, Bad Karma and all . . .

Re:What's Next?

[TinFoilMan]

I thought it was funny.

It answers them?

[Anonymous Coward]

aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data.

So if I have questions, it answers them? Cool. I can never decode those EULAs.

Que?

[Rie Beam]

So, um, thanks for giving no actual information about this new revision, with the only real reference a German website with a download link. I guess this could be an incentive to learn Deutsch, but for the average /. reader, this is just an advertisement.

Anyway, here's a Babelfish translated link:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.srware.net%2Fsoftware_srware_iron.php&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

You don't trust Google...

[John Hasler]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.

The sad thing is, some of you will (but then, you already use Windows...)

Re:You don't trust Google...

[neuromanc3r]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.)

You don't have to. You the source code is available for download. (And you could obviously monitor your traffic see if the browser phones home)

Re:You don't trust Google...

[noidentity]

Well, it said it was "aimed" at such people, not that it was what they wanted. Who better to aim snooping software at than people who don't want to be snooped? Anyway, the real deal would be called "Coppercage" or something.

A German company SRWare has developed a Google Chrome Spin off called Iron aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data.

Re:You don't trust Google...

[Ngarrang]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.

The sad thing is, some of you will (but then, you already use Windows...)

Hey, you! That's not nice. Some of us don't have a choice in our workplace OS.

You insensitive clod.

Re:You don't trust Google...

[Joe Tie.]

Yah, but this is Germany we're talking about. Nobody from there could be evil.

Their promises are as good as their source

[thisfred]

So they take the open source code, and redistribute it as an executable only. Of course completely legal under the BSD license, but wouldn't a privacy nut wonder why they give away the application for free but not the source code?

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[denominateur]

The source code is available.

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[AntmanGX]

The link to the source code is right underneath the link to the installer.

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[thisfred]

Ah indeed, my bad...

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[redxxx]

Their source is on their download('downloaden') page.

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[argStyopa]

Um, isn't the source code also downloadable from their site?
http://www.srware.net/software_srware_iron_download.php

Look at the bottom - the source is available in 4 parts, it seems.

Translated FAQ

[Rie Beam]

What is Iron?

Iron is an Internet Browser, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera. It is based off of the free online source code of "Chromium".

I read that there are tools which attempt to make Chrome anonymous. Why shouldn't I simply use these?

There are worthwhile Freeware tools which offer similar functionality. However, these do not work from source and offer only limited control. Functions like the URL tracker cannot be switched off. This only offers variable security.

Iron is free -- how do you finance it?

In order to keep Iron financed, we place an advertisement on the front page. We also ask for donations if you like the product -- it would make us happy.

How can one be sure that Iron doesn't inadvertantly send data?

This is a concern. We log all incoming and outgoing packets and did not detect any precarious activity. You can also test this yourself.

PS: The harmless (DNS Vorabruf?) has been disabled based on standard, since it can possibly be abused by Spammern.

Do you offer uncompiled source code for Chromium?

This would be useless, because Chromium Builds likewise contain the offending source code. We only offer the modified Iron.

Re:Translated FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

DNS Vorabruf : dns pre-caching

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[AliasMarlowe]

I configured Opera to clear all cookies at the end of every session. Occasionally, I also clear them during a session.

In Epiphany, I regularly clean out all cookies manually. I do this before and after visiting any e-commerce or financial site, even if I don't conduct any transactions.

It's no more fanatical than using a condom.

Cherman

[Stanistani]

This is a wonderful translation, because now I have a new exclamation: Achtung! Spammern!

Re:Cherman

[SQLGuru]

So, is that what you call e-mails you get advertising U2's latest album?

Layne

Re:Cherman

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it would be 'Achtung! Spammer!' :-)

The differences

[nephridium]

According to the German webpage there are several significant improvements:

* unlike the current Chrome beta it uses the newest Webkit version of the current Chromium build

* it does not generate a unique ID of every client for use by Google

* no installation timestamp ill be generated for google

* no "suggest feature" that phones home to google (for help) what you type into the address bar

* will not phone home to google in case you mistyped a URL

* no phoning home for error reporting

* does not send RLZ tracking info to google, e.g. about when and where Chrome was downloaded

* NO frickin updater that installs itself as a startup app to run in the background

* does not load google homepage in background when the browser is loaded

Of course they provide the source code for your own tinkering as well, just don't hammer the poor fellas (more than they already get hammered right now ;)) as according to their page their current revenue only comes from the ads on the page and hopefully some donations by people showing their appreciation of their work.

Re:The differences

[pkphilip]

I find it really funny that the only ads on their site comes in from Google! :)

Re:The differences

[nephridium]

Just noticed that the source code is hosted on rapidshare - so hammer away and compile ;)

Re:The differences

[Anonymous Coward]

Babel fish translation of Chrome v. Iron comparison (yeah, let's not use google's translator for this task...). The above summary is good.

Re:The differences

[emiraga]

All of this can be achieved by properly configuring and tweaking Chrome. I hate that I have to give links but here are some of them:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/
http://www.dennis-kempin.de/various/the-silent-chrome-browser/
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19868

Not Forked Up

[fm6]

Not at all. If you RTFCB you'll know that a major goal of Chrome is to get its technologies and ideas incorporated into other Open Source projects. Actually, that seems to be pretty much the idea, at least at this stage in the product's lifecycle. The product itself is too limited and glitchy for any other purpose. It's not like a lot of people are going to adopt it as their day-to-day browser, not with its minimal feature set and rendering issues.

I suspect the Chrome team is actually quite pleased to see their software adopted by a "competing" project.

I'm no Google fanboy (though I guess I used to be). I'm often quite impatient with their endless betas, their crappy documentation, their buggy products, and their total indifference to the actual software marketplace. But for once I have to admit that they've created something really useful. It's just that the usefulness is not to the end user, it's to the OS developer community.

Re:Not Forked Up

[Ed Avis]

I'm curious, what are these 'glitches' and 'rendering issues' you talk of? I've used Chrome for a while and not noticed it misrendering anything (while I am affected by a rendering bug in Firefox). Nor any glitches or crashes.

Re:Not Forked Up

[SQLGuru]

I've seen some pages that have issues under Chrome. They aren't on any exposed sites, so I can't send a link, but it's basically dynamic content that returns as XSLT formatted XML. Also, some pages with some unrecognized JavaScript. There were a couple of other pages that I've submitted back to Google, but I don't have the links handy, nor do I remember where they were.

Layne

Re:Not Forked Up

[fm6]

I've seen some problems interpreting CSS correctly, both on internal company sites I've worked and on public sites like Netflix. The public site glitches might be from bad standards compliance, but I know mine weren't.

I've also had issues with text input boxes, where Chrome seems to have trouble keeping up with my typing.

Chrome has a bug reporting feature that includes the ability to send the developers a screen shot. Obviously they anticipated exactly this kind of problem.

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no more fanatical than using a condom.

For the average ./ reader, using a condom is fanatical - it's not as though you can catch anything on your own.

Javascript is a privacy problem if not controlled

[Anonymous Coward]

Boring, Javascript is a privacy problem if not user controlled. If they want to change and challenge Chrome/Firefox they should include a least NoScript or an extension for plug ins. Also, if they really mean it, they must provide a repository and should try to build the browser on all platforms. This looks like boring marketing, but please post your patches, it is good to see this small bugs fixed anyway.

IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unfortunate that this guy decided to fork rather than submit bug fixes (or even file bugs). Several of the issues he identified are bugs, not intentional behavior in Chromium. It's supposed to be the case that anything that talks to a third-party server is controllable via preferences and options. He ran into a few that slipped through and decided to do a fork for self-publicity and $$ rather than trying to help the project. I see no problem with having forks in general, but this one seems unnecessary at this point.

Here's an excerpt from an IRC log on chromium-dev from a week ago when people asked him why he wasn't filing bugs or patches:

Iron: because a fork will bring a lot of publicity to my person and my homepage
Iron: that means: a lot of money too ;)
Iron: i dont take money for my fork
Iron: but i have adsense on my page ;)
Iron: a lot of visitor -> a lot of clicka > a lot of money ;)
Iron: we are here in germany
Iron: the press will love my fork
Iron: i talked to much journalists already
Iron: to remove all things in source talking to google ;)
Iron: nobody here trusts google
Iron: the german people say: google is very evil

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Nate Fox]

please mod parent up. a friend of mine works on chrome @ google and said the exact same thing: this guy merely wants to make money via adsense

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> It's supposed to be the case that anything that talks to a third-party server is controllable via preferences and options. He ran into a few that slipped through

If every element of functionality that could relay data to a third-party is to be controllable then there is no reason on this Earth why this was not caught at design, code review, unit testing or assembly testing.

If the requirements state that ``all such functionality must be controllable'' then nothing ships until that is the case.

Therefore I do not believe Google's excuse. Do you?

Re:IRC log from Iron

[bmcage]

link please! I can make up your statement in 1..2..3, why would I believe this?

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Lord Bitman]

Chrome's been out for nearly a month now and I don't see any new release any time "soon".
With such a poor release, I expected new versions to come out the same day yet here we are, weeks later, and no sign that the problems are even on Google's radar.

If I pushed a product to millions of users by linking to it from the front page of the world's most popular website, saying it was "uncrashable", and then it turned out within minutes of real-world uses that no, it's just as easy to crash as any other browser (I've yet to see a "sad tab"), or any of the other major problems, etc- I'd work towards fixing them ASAP. Where is the new release? Where is the new alpha?

Google fucked up. Forking might wake them up. All good forks get merged in the end, anyway.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/

There has been several releases.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[zindorsky]

It's unfortunate that this guy decided to fork rather than submit bug fixes (or even file bugs). Several of the issues he identified are bugs, not intentional behavior in Chromium.

I disagree. While it may be true that the Iron developer(s) are mostly fixing bugs, the main reason for the fork still stands: there are those who like Google's technology, but don't want to share their data with Google.

Yes, they could just not enable those features in Chrome, but I understand the desire to have those features completely gone. What if you forget about one? What if an update (inadvertently or not) resets them to "send it all to Google"?

Perhaps the developers' are motivated only by the fame and glory. Perhaps this particular fork will fizzle out and be forgotten. But there will always be people who will want what it provides.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome's been out for nearly a month now and I don't see any new release any time "soon".

WTF are you talking about? You can download your tested Chromium build every day, no installer or updater needed.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[arkan2525]

excuse me for being european, but I cannot trust the german's perception's of evil. after all they were wrong in allowing hitler to power.....

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used it intensively since launch, and it hasnt crashed yet.
I have neither seen a tad tag either, but then, nothing yet has gone wrong.

Typical usage for me: Crosschecking my website browser support, typicaly between chrome,opera and IE.
Normaly two windows in chrome, with 5-10 tabs on each. Occasionaly I'f I'm looking a gallery page, that jumps up to 30tabs, but that dosnt happen very often.

Either way no crash's. (in the same period I have got one crash from Opera, probably due to javascript but hard to tell).

I'm not quite sure where this idea of Chrome being unstable is coming from. It needs refinement, but it seems as stable as anything so far, if not moreso.

Its only been a month anyway, I'd rather the took their time and got GOOD release's of chrome, rather then rushing stuff out.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[aaalex52]

the german people say: google is very evil
but i have adsense on my page ;)

Oh the irony...

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

So he wants attention and money for improving Google's product? How could he!

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably these kinds of experiences sharpened their perception and intuition of what is evil.

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Lord Bitman]

An unadvertised development release which you need to download a separate program to "update" to is _not_ a release in any sane sense of the word. Everyone I personally know who has used Chrome has managed to (with normal browser usage) crash it, fully, within minutes of first installing it.

The point is simple: They said it was designed in such a way that it couldn't be fully crashed with normal usage, and yet it very easily can be. They released it to the whole world in this state. When reports started coming in, they didn't have a fix up for everyone same-day, same-week, or same-month. I haven't seen any press releases from google noting "woops, guess we were completely wrong with all this "processes!!!" stuff. We'll be re-designing the thing so that we're not completely talking out of our asses, and get back to you."

Say you're working on YourCompanyProduct and you release a major new feature to all of your customers at once. Fifteen seconds later you find out it actually doesn't work for many of them. Do you:
  a) Put up a message visible to (at least) the effected users, and pull an all-nighter making sure you get it right.
  b) Continue developing at your normal pace, telling no one anything and maybe fixing the bugs at the same time as your next feature release.

good good

[Vexorian]

So, questions, #1 "source code available" - what license? #2: Does it need a friking installer or can I just unzip it and run (aka it doesn't mess with the registry) If it is still FLOSS and doesn't touch the registry, it would be a great choice.

Iron is for the sane

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is for the insane.

You clear your cookies???!?!?!?

[RudeIota]

Delete cookies?!

Why???

[Real1tyCzech]

Seems kind of pointless considering;

If you don't want tracking, don't check the box during install;

Even if you *did* check the box, you can go into "incognito" mode to avoid sending usage statistics.

looks like Google already had that covered and it looks like this edition covered here is solely for those who refuse to use anything with a "Google" tag on it.

Does it come with a personal wool-trimmer?

Acid3 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the hell of it, I tested Acid3 with the latest Chrome (0.2.153.1) and Iron on Vista.

Chrome: 78/100

Iron: 79/100

Editors?

[forand]

So my reading of the original post was that the only thing the editors of Slashdot had added to the submission of Sonnet_XVIII was "Sonnet_XVIII writes." How do you think the editors are responsible for the wording of a submission? Do you assert that a "better" submission was made? It appears to me that you should be annoyed with Sonnet_XVIII not the slashdot editors.

Re:Editors?

[Sonnet_XVIII]

I wrote According to Download Squad. Downloadsquad used the term, I did not mean anything by it. Besides it was my first ever post on slashdot, no offence against anyone. Didn't know the term Fanatical was going to make all the fuss, was hoping to get more comments on the "fork" itself, I mean I thought the news was for Geeks, not philosophers and politicians!! :)

Re:Editors?

[Danny Rathjens]

I had a submission posted last week in which the editor modified the part inside the quotes after "Danny Rathjen's writes". I'm not complaining - I was actually impressed at the effort and thought the change was reasonable. I'm just pointing out that the words between the quote marks are not sacrosanct to the /. editors.

Since I know someone will ask the details, I wrote something like, "and the jabber.org website is down" (with the url hyperlinked to the downed site) and the line was changed to, "Jabber's website doesn't mention the news yet." I agree that linking to a down site was kind of silly. :) (btw, it is still down)
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/19/2218215

Re:Editors?

[Danny Rathjens]

My google privacy concerns cause me to simply continue to use firefox - and delete those permanent-ish unique identifier cookies periodically if I remember. :) So a fork for privacy - motivated by making the guy some ad revenue no less - leaves me quite apathetic. :)

Re:Editors?

[centuren]

Well said! After the big discussions on Slashdot about Chrome and Google in general raising concerns on privacy, nitpicking about the term fanatic seems silly.

This is a reminder that Chrome is open source; open enough that a full fork retains all (desired) functionality. That seems to be exactly what "giving back to the open source community" seems to entail.

Cheers to Google. Whether you like Chrome or not, Google thinks it's innovative, and the community can adapt it or take from it as needed.

I know nozzing!

[Stanistani]

I don't get much spam. When I do, I want something rough-sounding to bark.

Don't listen to U2, so yes, those would qualify.

*must buy pickelhaube helmet for web surfing*

Re:I know nozzing!

[SQLGuru]

Since you don't listen to U2, you'll get some slack, but it was actually joke referring to one of their album titles.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtung_Baby

Layne

Re:I know nozzing!

[Stanistani]

Zo, I literally knew nothing?
The ghost of Sargeant Schultz has once again correctly assessed the situation.

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[ckaminski]

um, yes, it is. You'll NEVER get the HIV or Herpes from some online website. You can reinstall your computer, there's no do-over button on your life.

Measures

[tbf]

Interesting that people raising privacy concerns on Google products are called "Fanatics", whilest the same people would be called heros if they'd identify similar problems in for instance Microsoft products.

Raises the questions who are the real fanatics?

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[heeen]

There's also no un-do button for data sent to google under your unique userid. There have been precedents for massive leaks of personal data to the net, most notably the aol search desaster. Leaked information CAN destroy careers, but why would anyone care, since decent people have nothing to hide!

concern regarding patriot act...

[nx6310]

Maybe one of these days an Iron users door will get kicked down for fanatic browsing practices.

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[Burz]

Your cache and browsing history can be detected by websites too. Firefox has extensions to deal with these.

In Opera, the easiest way to deal with cache privacy and "web bugs" may be to switch its image-loading mode to only load images from the originating website (the site in the address bar).

I don't know exactly what to do about keeping the browsing history private in Opera; turn off javascript I suppose.

Pop up

[Anonymous Coward]

It spawns a stupid popup all the time, wich cant be closed. Also, there are some predefined starting pages with google ads on them. If you ask me, this is a fad.

He'll get his publicity...

[dw604]

This guy is gettin' paid by simply highlighting and deleting a few things from the source... genius

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[Suhas]

>You can reinstall your computer
reinstall your computer? Not to sound overly pedantic but geez, I would not expect that kind of language on slashdot, less so from a poster with a low uid.

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The ironic thing is that once we're all being constantly monitored, people who use privacy saving software will stick out like a sore thumb.

I predict new software that will obscure your web prescence rather than hide it completely???

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[MrZaius]

Identity theft can, in the worst case scenarios, have costs that are comparable to the initial outlay in childbirth and treatment for the diseases mentioned in the parent post (given insurance).

No german could be evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes we can! Not that we do (much).

Greetings from good ol' germany!

What was the name...

[Anonymous Coward]

of this theory that if a thread goes long enough, Hitler is dragged into the conversation and thus, the sane part of it ends?

The german "perception" of evil may be a bit incoherent at its best, but I fail to see the US perception would be any better - it is worse (e.g. they call "torture" something like "harsh interrogation" - and you were allowing George Double-U-Bend and his Iraq War V2.0!

Same goes for almost every other country - the uncensored version: "our evil is not as evil as foreign evil". Replace "evil" with every negative word of your liking.

Greetings from germany.

Source Code (torrent)

[foo64]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4414439 Iron 0.2.152.0

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[ckaminski]

So pedantic. You know exactly what I meant... :-)

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[ckaminski]

All of which are fixable. Even the worst case of identity theft ruining your life and leaving you broke still leaves you alive (unless part of the identity theft is killing you for your eyes or something).

There are things out there far worse. A little perspective. Some judicious caution applied in all cases will keep you healthy, happy, comfortable and safe your entire life.

Alright, I'm gonna shut up now... I think I've trolled enough. lol.