Chrome Helping Other Browsers Out, Says Opera CEO

Pablo Martinez-Almeida writes "Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner confirms that new entrants in the browser market are raising awareness on the mainstream Internet community about the availability of alternatives to the ubiquitous Internet Explorer. 'How has the emergence of WebKit and Chrome changed the market for you? JvT: The effect of Chrome so far has been 20 percent more downloads every day. It's fairly logical when you think about it, because the biggest hurdle we have is all those people that don't realize there's an alternative in the market. Now, with the launch of Chrome there's focus on the choice of browsers in the market.'

Comments

Chrome for me?

[Viol8]

"How has the emergence of WebKit and Chrome changed the market for you"

When they can be bothered to release a linux version let me know then I might be able to give answer.

Re:Chrome for me?

[MilesAttacca]

CrossOver Chromium is exactly what you're looking for. It's not officially by Google, but ported by CodeWeavers, the WINE folks.

Re:Chrome for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

just kill the virtual machine and return to windows

Re:Chrome for me?

[arcade]

I have had system lockups, but not often (not every year). However, if your system locks up "softly" it's very easy:

1. ctrl+alt+F(1-8). That is, F1 - F8. Log in there, find the process, kill it.
2. If the machine doesn't take your keys immediately, try "alt+sysrq r" , which switches your keyboard from XLATE to RAW mode. Then go to 1.
3. ssh into the machine from another machine and kill the misbehaving process
4. ctrl+alt+backspace (kills X and all applications running in your X session).

Knowing the above tricks, you'll get way fewer lockups. The usual suspects for lockups in my case has been funky graphics cards and laptops with funny sleep/suspend/hibernate modes.

Re:Chrome for me?

[Kihaji]

And how exactly does knowing tips to fix a lockup prevent you from getting lockups? Does your computer all of a sudden realize that it can't win and give in and never lock up again?

Re:Chrome for me?

[agrounds]

Demands to have something ported for us usually come from novice users who are not able to port software themselves, and are not aware of the extent to which software is ported by others.

I think labeling users that don't code at that level as 'novice' is disingenuous at best. I have used *nix systems for well over 10 years in my daily life and in my job and have nothing more than a basic understanding of C because the bulk of my work (network engineer) revolves around PERL, AWK, and expect with a healthy dose of Oracle and MySQL. Does that make me a novice user? No, I don't believe so. Users come in all shapes and sizes, and everyone's individual strengths reinforce the community as a whole.

A proper and well-documented OS should be able to support any user that wants to use it without an excessively steep learning curve. Usability of a well-designed tool should never require intimate knowledge of how the tool is constructed.

Re:Chrome for me?

[multisync]

just press ctl-alt-f1

I've had X lockups that prevented ctl-alt-f* from working. The gpp wasn't a complete troll, sometimes the virtual consoles are not available. That's why I always run an ssh server on my machines, so I can get access to a command line from the outside if necessary.

Re:Chrome for me?

[not already in use]

First of all, there is no archaic tool chain.

This is highly subjective. I realize in the *nix world, it is a badge of honor to use command line development tools. Of course, there are people who don't feel the need to lay claim to arbitrary feats, and just want the best tool for the job. The GNU toolchain is old, has seen little innovation, and has not kept up pace with Microsoft and Apple facilities. It is stagnant, except in the eyes of those who take pride in using such archaic and user-unfriendly tools. What's more, it's common to be berated for wanting something more modern, usually taking flak for being a novice or some other unsubstantiated claims regarding ability.

Re:Chrome for me?

[somersault]

Does your computer all of a sudden realize that it can't win and give in and never lock up again?

Your are finally on the path to becoming a true IT warlord - well done! May your digital subjects fear you, and your scheduled tasks never be tardy.

Re:Chrome for me?

[bendodge]

I also like Ctrl+Alt+Esc, which gives me a nice X cursor and nukes something I click. I don't know if this works outside of KDE4.

Re:Chrome for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to get rid of BSOD is by switching to a monochrome monitor!

Re:Chrome for me?

[not already in use]

You've got something better?

Apple and Microsoft do. Let the flames begin.

Re:Chrome for me?

[TheRaven64]

The GNU toolchain is old, has seen little innovation, and has not kept up pace with Microsoft and Apple facilities

You realise that Apple currently uses the GNU compiler? They use their own linker, which is more primitive than the GNU one (Mach-O is, in many ways, much less nice to work with than ELF). They use xcodebuild rather than make, which takes input files that are easier to generate from XCode but almost impossible to hand-edit and very difficult to edit with anything other than XCode, but they also support using GNU Make for building.

Or are you confusing the toolchain with the IDE? Most modern IDEs, including Visual Studio and XCode, drive a command-line toolchain in the background. Whether you use the GNU toolchain from a command line or from an IDE is your choice. The same is true when you use the Microsoft toolchain, although since it was impossible to get it without buying their IDE until a few years ago, most people used it via the IDE.

Re:Chrome for me?

[steeviant]

Try Alt-SysRq-K instead next time.

Re:Chrome for me?

[Ihmhi]

I haven't had XP Bluescreen in like... years? Yeah, Explorer might crash. It auto-restarts. It might also freeze - Three finger salute the process and run it again via the Task Manager.

In a weird way, I kinda miss the blue screen. It's like how a woman misses her abusive ex-boyfriend.

Re:Chrome for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GNU toolchain is old, has seen little innovation, and has not kept up pace with Microsoft and Apple facilities

You realise that Apple currently uses the GNU compiler?

You realize Apple is slowly getting rid of it? The current XCode (3.1) has LLVM as an optional code-generation backend using GCC as a frontend, and Apple is one of the primary developers of the LLVM Clang project, which will replace the GCC frontend.

Re:Chrome for me?

[TheRaven64]

Yes, I am well aware of it, since I wrote some of that LLVM and clang code. Clang, however, is a drop-in replacement for GCC. The llvm compiler driver will accept all of the same options as GCC (clang currently uses a ccc script, but it is moving over to llvmc2 soon), so the toolchain will have exactly the same interface.

I think we're already there

[Dan East]

I think we're already to the point where many people are aware they have a choice of web browsers. I was watching the news the other night (obviously not MSNBC), and they had a large touch-screen display running a web-browser with multiple tabs - Firefox. They were using it to display charts and other information.

Also, various family members are aware of Firefox, but they have no idea what "chrome" is. So I'm not sure how Chrome is somehow more noticeable to the mainstream, especially since it doesn't add any of the bells-and-whistles type features that typical people notice (security and performance isn't exactly exciting to the average joe).

Re:I think we're already there

[mdm-adph]

Ah, yes -- I have a few (not many) family members and older co-workers aware of "FoxFire," too.

Yes, that's what it's always called, an no, no matter how many times I correct them it's always "FoxFire."

Re:I think we're already there

[Daimanta]

Every time somebody mentions FoxFire, God strikes a fox with lightning(thus creating a FoxFire).

Re:I think we're already there

[Dan East]

My grandparents have a series of books entitled Foxfire, so they want to call it that as well. BTW, have you ever seen foxfire (the namesake of the book)? I have in the woods numerous times at night. It's a type of fungus that grows on dead, rotting wood that glows in the dark. It's kind of spooky when you first come across it (like blood from the alien in Predator).

Re:I think we're already there

[betterunixthanunix]

The majority of people do not fully understand what Firefox is. There reason IE remains so popular is that most home computer users think their computer is just another appliance, and they want it to work out of the box like a VCR. So they just start it up for the first time, click "start," see something labelled "internet" and just use it, never even realizing what they are using or what they are doing. It has nothing to do with the technical merits of the web browser, it has to do with people who are not interested in computing beyond the on/off switch.

Re:I think we're already there

[AmberBlackCat]

I think it's more than that. A big problem for Firefox is the people click on the big blue E and it actually works fine. So they don't have any obvious reason to look further.

A big problem for Opera users is the people who claim there should be a choice of browsers usually mean there should be a choice between IE, Firefox, and maybe Safari. I've had sites work fine with Opera and then one day they just stop working because the webmaster decides to suddenly start checking user agent strings.

So a site that works fine on Tuesday is telling me my browser is incompatible on Wednesday, and the only thing I can do is change the user agent string, which isn't going to help the makers of the alternative browser at all.

Opera Mozilla

[BladeMelbourne]

I used Mozilla/SeaMonkey/Phoenix/Firefox for 9 years. I switched to Opera a few months ago and never looked back.

The 'advertisement banner' was a stigma for me, although now I realise Opera Software are THE innovators.

I realise it's not "open", but I look forward to any JS or rendering optimisations they may do to counter Chrome/FF3.1.

Options are beginning to look like a good thing. Striving to match a rival will only be good for the world (and those of us who develop for the web ftl or ftw).

Re:story title edit:

[JeepFanatic]

If I'm not mistaken, Safari uses WebKit as its rendering engine just like Chrome does. This might account for any similarity in quirky behavior.

Web developers care, normal people don't

[agentultra]

There has been choice for years that many people have been aware of.

Most people who still use IE just don't care for the other choices.

Web developers care more than anyone. People who only go on the Internet to watch the odd youtube video and check their hotmail care the least.

Re:Web developers care, normal people don't

[Shados]

You'd be surprised. I work for a fairly large company (several thousand employees). People at the head office have control on their machines. A large portion of them (many who barely know how to turn on their computer) downloaded and use Firefox, and many even Chrome!

But for the people in the outlets... their computers are locked down (very...locked down. For good reasons: if it breaks, someone needs to take a trip from the headoffice, thats time consuming and expensive), old, and purely controlled by the network administrators. Pushing IE is easy, though there are some machines on Win2k out there, so IE7 and above are no go. Pushing Firefox or others would be more difficult, for little gain (from a business perspective), even if users want it.

The consequence in the end is: I have to make our -internal- apps work in IE6/7, and only those. Not a good thing.

Re:Web developers care, normal people don't

[biscuitlover]

There's an element of truth in that, but you can't underestimate the power of Chinese whispers... With IE6 and IE7 Microsoft caused so much resentment amongst web developers (or the ones who built pages properly at any rate) that lots of people began some kind of crusade to get everyone they knew using a different browser.

As a web developer I've ended up doing the same. So, while the percentage of internet users who are also web developers might be pretty minimal, IE's broken standards created so many evangelists for the alternatives that the ripples have started to reach pretty far and wide...

..Or am I just being wildly optimistic?

Re:Opera Mozilla

[Kyro]

I use per-site preferences instead of noscript when I use Opera.
At the moment I use it with Javascript turned on in the main preferences and then when I come to a site with completely intrusive ads (hello /.) I use the site-preferences to turn off Javascript for that domain.

I just right click and choose "Edit site preferences". It's great!
I just can't believe google haven't got gmail working with opera correctly yet, it's a bit buggy.

Re:story title edit:

[SanityInAnarchy]

And one way to ensure the standards are being followed tightly is to have a number of alternative browsers.

IMO

[EncryptedSoldier]

My browser of choice is Firefox. I have it setup just exactly the way I like it, and some of the tweaks are not available in Opera. If they were, I would use Opera. The other browsers I use/have tried other than FF and Opera are: Chrome, IE8 Beta, and Safari. I can say I loath IE8 and Safari, and Chrome has a lot of useless features that are sometimes annoying. Google has a lot of work to do if they even bother. Opera is fast, and feature rich, and has a very modern feel. Firefox is Firefox, I don't think I need to explain that to anybody on Slashdot.

Re:Opera Mozilla

[Jugalator]

Are you sure you're aware of Opera's full feature set?

Opera has both per-site Noscript and Noscript by default, it's up to you.

Right-click on a website, pick "Edit site preferences..." and uncheck "Enable Javascript" for the domain if you want. Or disable Javascript for the entire application, and check Enable Javascript for the sites you wish.

As for blocking ads, right-click on the site with ads and pick "Block content..." -- wildcards are supported. The only thing I miss there is a subscription like that in Adblock, but after having blocked the most common sites, I don't get ads nearly as much anymore.

Re:Opera Mozilla

[BladeMelbourne]

I don't see adds either.

Download the url filter:
http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/

and also get the CSS "element hide" file.

It's not AdBlock, but I don't see advertisements anymore. 5 minutes is a small price to pay :-)

Re:story title edit:

[SanityInAnarchy]

for the big guys: ie and firefox, chrome represents a smaller slice of the piechart

Frankly, I think awareness of alternatives helps Firefox as much as it helps Opera.

Every user who leaves IE for any other browser makes my job as a web developer that much easier.

the truth though is that chrome just slows down coders responsible for cross browser testing and compatibility

Except that Chrome is based on Webkit, so there aren't going to be many Chrome bugs that aren't also Safari and Konqueror bugs.

More relevantly, all of these browsers follow the standards much more closely than IE. The day IE becomes marginal enough for a website to just throw up a "Get Firefox" banner and stop testing on it is a day life gets much easier.

Easily 90% of the time, when I develop something on Firefox (because of Firebug), it works on Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Epiphany, Opera, Chrome, and iCab, yet fails on IE. This is because every browser other than IE actually cares about standards.

In other words: I would have to do about ten times less work on cross-browser compatibility if IE was gone. Adding Chrome to the mix really doesn't change that.

its dom and javascript quirks seem very safari like. did google base chrome on safari code?

They used Webkit.

The story goes, roughly: KHTML, used by Konqueror (and other parts of KDE), was forked by Apple and used for Safari. Because it was LGPL'd, Apple has to release all their source, at least to the rendering engine, under something called Webkit. And Webkit is used all over the place.

They did, however, write their own Javascript engine. That, or they massively improved Safari's.

Re:holy chrome partisan zeal batman

[hairyfeet]

Well,I don't know about him but I prefer the versatility of Gecko myself. When a customer comes in with older hardware or they only care about speed I can give them Kmeleon,if they are into the social sites I can give them Flock,the old folks that still like to download their mail I give Seamonkey,and for the everyday Joes I give Firefox. I have also started giving out Songbird,which is also based on FF,thus the Gecko engine,and so far folks are really liking it. If Firefox wants to know where the next "Firefox killer" is going to come from,IMHO they just need to look in the mirror. Their engine is so easy to customize that I wouldn't be surprised if the next big thing ran Gecko under the hood.

Re:Opera Mozilla

[residieu]

I really don't understand the rabid hatred of seeing ANY ads that some people have. I'll block flash ads or ads with animation if they get too distracting, but usually I just don't see them.

IE will remain on top as long as Windows is top

[theaveng]

>>>all those people that don't realize there's an alternative in the market.

Yeah. So? Even when Netscape had 90% dominance, most people still chose Internet Exploder, thereby gradually erasing Netscape from existence. I don't think any browser's ever going to beat IE's advantage of being "there" on the desktop.

Re:IE will remain on top as long as Windows is top

[The Raven]

For a time, IE was also better. It was much faster, rendered better, and came bundled... who wouldn't use it?

There's nothing wrong with a browser taking tons of marketshare when it's the better product, and for a while Netscape abandoned their browser while they tried to be all enterprisey... Netscape Mail server, Netscape this, Netscape that, all while their browser wasn't being updated and fell behind IE. Then, IE proceeded to languish at version 6, and Mozilla, via Firefox, finally started making inroads.

The entire browser market has a strong 'you snooze, you lose' component to it. Microsoft did employ dirty tricks to get IE popular fast, but if Netscape hadn't fallen asleep at the switch, Microsoft still wouldn't have succeeded in dominating the market.

Re:Opera Mozilla

[mdm-adph]

Aye -- that's why NoScript (on Firefox) has the best solution, that I've seen. Simply block all other domains from serving ads or running JavaScript, except for the one you currently navigated to. Exceptions (CDN's used by developers, authentication servers) are rare and handled on a case-by-case basis.

Re:wer

[Huntr]

Opera hasn't had an ad banner in a few generations.

Chrome helps debug Safari issues

[billDCat]

For me as a Web developer, even if it doesn't get much market share, it's already provided a great service (although it sure would be good to see it get market share, it's a nice browser). It has helped me significantly already in debugging Safari issues. With the site that I am currently developing, which is fairly JS/Ajax intensive, all of our Safari bugs showed up in Chrome as well. Since Chrome actually has a debugger (and a fairly decent one at that), I was able to use it to diagnose and fix the Safari issues in a fraction of the time. Of course if Apple were to release a debugger for Safari or a third party were to develop one, that would lessen the need, but Chrome currently solves a significant issue from a developer standpoint.

Re:wer

[PerfectlyNormal]

I wonder when people will stop spreading these lies. Opera is neither adware, nor payware, and haven't been for several years. It's now free as in beer, but not speech, or however that saying goes.

Just as chrome helps Opera, Apple blocks them

[Chris_Keene]

Apple Blocking Opera on the Iphone
http://www.osnews.com/comments/20455

(blocking legit apps on the iphone is one of the stupidest things Apple has done in a long time)