Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Chrome Is Out of Beta

Posted by timothy on from the could-be-a-contender dept.

BitZtream writes "This morning Google announced that Chrome is out of Beta, and showing improvements for plugin support, most notably video speed improvements. It also contains an updated javascript engine, claiming that it operates 1.4 times faster than the beta version, and work has begun on an extensions platform to allow easier integration with the browser by third parties."

10 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. Credit where credit is due by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have to give the Chrome team credit. Chrome has been improving in stability and usability almost like magic. From day to day, it seems like problems I had previously just disappear. As it turns out, Chrome has an automatic updater that runs in the background. The browser is constantly and silently upgrading itself as the Chrome team push out new updates. The results are quite impressive.

    If you'd reading this in chrome and want to force the most recent update, just go to the "About" screen. Chrome will tell you if an update is available and allow you to manually run the updater. There's a good chance that most users are already updated, but it doesn't hurt to check.

    The killer feature that I still think is missing is the ability to exit and save tabs. Chrome can Restore after a crash (most of the time), but you can't manually restart the browser without loosing the history you have open. Another issue I wish they'd fix is remembering the last save directory when doing a "Save As...". I realize that keeping a single Downloads directory is userfriendly, but using it as the default location when the user is overriding the download location is annoying. If I need to download 10 files, I need to navigate to the same directory 10 times. That's just ridiculous.

    Otherwise my gripes are mostly minor and have no real bearing on its use in day to day activities. (e.g. I hate that I can't view the properties of an image. Sometimes I need to verify that its under a certain size. Or that there's no easy method of tracking page errors.) Thankfully, most of my gripes are developer-related and are better served by keeping a copy of FireFox around.

    Kudos to Google for working on another alternative to Internet Explorer! If Chrome and Firefox can each grab a significant marketshare, Internet Explorer's hold over the Internet will disappear. Firefox's popularity has already caused it to wane. I look forward to the day when using IE will net you nothing but pages telling you to upgrade your web browser. :-)

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:Credit where credit is due by Arionhawk · · Score: 5, Informative

      The killer feature that I still think is missing is the ability to exit and save tabs. Chrome can Restore after a crash (most of the time), but you can't manually restart the browser without loosing the history you have open. Another issue I wish they'd fix is remembering the last save directory when doing a "Save As...". I realize that keeping a single Downloads directory is userfriendly, but using it as the default location when the user is overriding the download location is annoying. If I need to download 10 files, I need to navigate to the same directory 10 times. That's just ridiculous.

      That "killer feature" is in there, you just have to turn it on in the options, in the "on start-up" section. You just select the option that says restore the pages that were open last. I agree with you on the saving files thing, that is rather annoying.

      --
      rehab is for quitters
    2. Re:Credit where credit is due by daver00 · · Score: 5, Informative

      (e.g. I hate that I can't view the properties of an image. Sometimes I need to verify that its under a certain size. Or that there's no easy method of tracking page errors.)

      This I don't understand it, but this is the biggest misconception about chrome there is! Chrome has the best and most comprehensive page debugger I have seen, for Javascript, html and css. Right click on your image, and select "inspect element" from the menu. You will get all of your image properties plus all of its surrounding code. Page errors, same deal just right click and select "inspect element" and you can get an extremely good, verbose output of any javascript errors, or track your way through the dom as it highlights elements firebug style.

      Chrome rules, it is the best browser bar none, especially when it comes to development!

    3. Re:Credit where credit is due by amRadioHed · · Score: 4, Informative

      Doesn't really work. I disabled the GoogleUpdater service long ago, and yet the process is still running.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
  2. Still no Mac / Linux support. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd love to try it, but I'm still waiting for the Mac and Linux ports. But I guess if they take it out of beta before those are out, it's not on the top of their list.

  3. Re:Addons by rite_m · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are going to support extensions. The list includes content-filtering extensions like ad-block.

  4. Re:Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? by secmartin · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are .dmg's of the current version at http://securityandthe.net/chrome/ if you want to give it a try. These are based on the current SVN tree.

  5. Re:Don't forget the WebKit team by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

    I agree. The WebKit team has been simply amazing. Though in Google's defense, parts of the browser are customizations over WebKit. e.g. The V8 Javascript engine is quite a bit different from JSKit or Squirrelfish.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  6. Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

    (Please note, I say this as the IT guy who locks stuff down)

    Chrome's behavior is shared with many other newer programs(usually if you install them with the "just for me" rather than "for all users" option) and is a good thing. Programs that break unnecessarily because of lack of permissions they don't need are a bad thing. This is all part of the move away from legacy single-user design crap, where virtually everything requires arbitrary rights, programs die if they aren't in C:/Program Files, and there is poor or no separation between immutable system files and commonly modified user files.

    If tightly controlling installed applications is necessary, you can use signature or hash based execution restrictions, and solve the problem the right way, rather than relying on the behavior of third parties.

  7. Re:Don't forget the WebKit team by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Informative

    How about giving the KHTML team some credit for writing WebKit? It seems like only yesterday that Apple forked KHTML from Konqueror.

    It's definitely the most impressive thing about KDE that they wrote such a good rendering engine that both Apple and Google ended up using it, but you always hear Apple getting praise for WebKit but never the KHTML team. (A bit like OS X and BSD I suppose, but more so)

    --
    // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);