Slashdot Mirror
Google Releases Chrome 2.0 Pre-Beta
Nick Fletcher writes "Just a few short months after the initial release, Google has released a pre-beta version of Google Chrome 2.0. It sports a few new features including form auto-completion, full-page zoom, 'profiles,' and Greasemonkey support. It seems the only notable feature would be profiles, which allows users to separate out their homepage, history, and bookmarks on a per user or category basis. It seems Google is still playing catch-up but they're definitely moving at a pace unknown to some of their competition. The full list of new features is available in the release notes."
Not too many exciting new features, I'm not sure why they call it 2.0.
Form autocomplete? It's about time. Not that I like the feature anyway, it's too dumb. 90% of the time it doesn't offer any suggestion (wild guess, if a web site asks for my name, maybe my browser might know the answer). The rest of the time (10%), it has a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.
Full-page zoom and auto-scroll? Great. Now I can use Chrome like I use Safari on my iPhone. Of course scaling should scale the whole page, not just the text. It shouldn't be that hard. An old technology like PDF (10 years old) knows that.
Profiles? Ok, could be moderately useful. It sort of conflicts with the OS's notion of swapping between users. So I'd use it more as a workaround because bookmarks are hard to organize.
Greasemonkey scripts? That's my favorite. But it's for power users only. Just read the instructions and imagine your grandma giving it a try:
To enable this experimental feature you need to right-click on Chrome's shortcut from your desktop, select Properties and add --enable-user-scripts in the Target field. While you're in the Properties dialog, click on "Open File Location" and create a folder named User Scriptsin the user data directory, where you'll need to manually save scripts.
--
FairSoftware.net
What's the point of profiles in a web browser when you have fast user switching (and/or whatever MS calls their equivalent function)? Seems like that's the point of a multiuser operating system...
Gimme Firebug....or perhaps that should be ChromeBug.
Oh, wait - nevermind.
Nothing to see there, move along...
#DeleteChrome
Would be nice if these guys would focus some on satisfying the other OS markets. There's absolutely no need for them to take such tremendous advantage of Open Source and then neglect them in such a long term way as they have with Chrome.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I tried the first Chrome release and was duly impressed, especially for script speeds on "web 2.0" apps. But no adblock (and less importantlly, TabMix plus tab options) is a deal breaker. When Chrome does adblock I'm there.
Note that Adblock really doesn't impact google's ads -- it primarily blocks graphical/flash crap ads, at least using the filtersets I subscribe to, so it wouldn't hurt google to allow it, and might even help them (absent other flashing "punch the monkey" and "abort the fetus" ads google's often-relevant text ads tend to stand out more.)
Do it google! Let us bock ads and mix tabs!
everything in moderation
Blogger Belzecue said on January 8, 2009 10:55 PM PDT:
Johnny Effyew here, lead strategist at Google.
Now, I hear a lot of complaints -- a helluva lot of complaints, actually -- about Google not supporting Linux, like how Google Chrome runs on Windows only. Sure, we're already up to version 2 of the Windows client with no Linux version in sight. That may be technically true, but I'm here to tell you, we built our entire company and fortune on the back of Linux and free, open-source software. So of course we support Linux just as much as we support Windows.
That's why it's my pleasure today to announce we've committed to delivering a native Linux Chrome client by 2015 or by the time the Windows client reaches version 10 or when Linux gains greater than 50% of the desktop market. That's our promise to every Linux user out there. You can take that to the bank. We know we have a moral debt to give back to the Linux community what we took from them and turned into a billion-dollar business. We know that.
But, as it turns out, writing software for Linux is kinda tough. We're still figuring it out. I mean, we all use Windows around the Google office, so it's not like we've got a bunch of internal people clamoring to use Chrome under Ubuntu or whatever.
And yes, we know there are much smaller companies out there like Dropbox who easily manage to code and release their Windows and Linux clients simultaneously, which is kinda like having your cake and eating it too. We think that's really cool, and we especially like cake. So that's doubly cool.
So hang in there, Linux community. Google Chrome for Linux is coming. In the meantime, just keep screwing around trying to run the Windows client under Wine. Good luck with that, hahahaha. Yeah, that should keep you nice and busy while we eat more cake and polish off version 3 of the Chrome Windows client. (Whoah, did I just say that out loud or think it? Pfffft, like those Linux fanboys will notice anyway.)
Folks, in closing let me say again: Google is committed to Linux the same way a tapeworm's committed to your lower intestine. From now on, when you think of Google and Linux I want you to think of me, Johnny. Think "Effyew, Linux! Effyew, Google!"
Gecko is large and unwieldy compared to Webkit. When Apple decided to build a browser, they hired ex-Mozilla developers, who promptly turned around and used KHTML because it was so much leaner and better designed, despite their extensive experience with Gecko.
It's far from obvious that Firefox is ahead in the technology stakes. It trails in many ways and seems like a far less agile project compared with Webkit and Opera. It does have a few areas where it is ahead, but the downsides seem like an albatross to me.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The way I learned it:
Pre-Alpha: No working code
Alpha: Compiles and runs, but not feature-complete
Beta: Feature-complete, but potentially buggy
By that scale, Google probably isn't convinced that GMail isn't buggy.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
I don't run browsers that can't run adblock or similar. Thanks though.
With a User Agent switcher, your school and bank's website would likely work just fine.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
But it is all somewhat meaningless, whether Chrome passes ACID3 or not, since Chrome is meant to support a company that sells advertising.
I'm guessing that Chrome will never have AdBlock Plus and NoScript.
It's all about control. Firefox allows you to control what you read. Many advertising companies try to change readers into time-wasting, ad-reading, money-wasting robots.
Those who don't like being the target of aggressive behavior and want control over their lives will need to continue to use Firefox, no matter how technically superior Chrome is.
Form autocomplete? It's about time. Not that I like the feature anyway, it's too dumb. 90% of the time it doesn't offer any suggestion (wild guess, if a web site asks for my name, maybe my browser might know the answer). The rest of the time (10%), it has a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.
The auto complete isn't guessing. The reason that it doesn't always know your name is because different web sites give the fields with more or less the same meaning different names (name as in html attribute, not as in the label). They do this because the web front end reflects whatever backend that the site runs on.
/><input type="text" name="lastname" />
/>
/> />
As a web developer, you might want somebody's first name and last name separately, (for example, if you have to check a cc number against it) in which case you would use a two fields like this:
Name:<input type="text" name="firstname"
Or, it might just be to display your name to other users, in which case you don't care and to keep your database simple you just do:
Name:<input type="text" name="name"
Or, you might be asking for login credentials, so you'll ask for: Name:<input type="text" name="firstname"
Or, you might want to be preventing bots from trying to use usernames/passwords harvested from another, insecure sight, so you'll obfuscate like this:
Name: <input type="text" name="wxys"
As you can see, form auto complete has no way of knowing which entries it should use. However, auto-complete is far from useless. We have a web-based client management database where I work, and there the browser does know what to put in the fields because, obviously, the fields are consistently named. In this case, it is a huge time saver. It just seems dumb to you because you have not really needed to use it for what it was intended for.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
You, sir, have some serious problems that no amount of development of Gtalk could ever begin to address.
It's the new address bar. It's supposed to have better autocomplete or something, and the drop-down displays the cached HTML title of the page in addition to the URL. I think it would be better named the "not-that-much-better-than-the-old-bar," but that's just me.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Like this one?
Remind me to never hire you as an exterminator....
I assume most on this website are like me. I have a circle of friends/family that look to me for all of their computer needs. They use Firefox because I showed it to them. I run Linux. By not making a Linux version they are not just shutting out 1% of the market, they are shutting out all of those Windows users that surround me. I don't suggest Chrome because I don't even have the opportunity to use it at home. If I am the 1 in a hundred that use Linux you can add 20 to 30 to me when it comes to what software gets a thumbs up, a thumbs down and an unknown. So really they are leaving out 20 to 30% of the market by not making a Linux version.
"As soon as Google releases an add on platform..."
They haven't done that yet. If they do, it is anyone's guess whether Firefox add-ons will be supported, or whether the hard-working AdBlock Plus and NoScript teams will want to develop and maintain a new platform.
There is a huge problem here: Making money through advertising makes it necessary that people see the ads. Google has been spending $50,000,000 per year on Firefox. After Chrome is fully developed, Chrome will likely become the new favorite, replacing the buggy, CPU hogging, badly managed Firefox. Then Google can stop spending that money on Firefox.
This may be several years away, but it is a conflict that is certainly there.
You know, I keep hearing this, and I'm not arguing with it or anything, but I've been able to embed Gecko and all its glory into a couple windows apps of mine now. I've yet to find a complete documented example for embeding webkit into an app on windows.
I'm certainly not saying they don't exist, its probably just that I'm searching for it the wrong way, but I'd really love to see someone point me at the 20-30 lines of code it should take to embed webkit into a simple window in Windows.
Taking a quick look at my apps, I use 45 lines of code to embed gecko into an app, so please someone point me at a webkit example like this as I'd be more than happy to shed some Gecko weight.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I've taken the time to benchmark Chrome 2.0's javascript performance against bleeding edge versions of FireFox, Webkit and Opera. Also compared Chrome 1.0 against FireFox 3.0.5, Safari 3.2.1 and Opera 9.6.3. Enjoy.
"Brian Rakowski, Chrome's product manager, said the company wants to release Chrome for Mac and Linux before the first half of 2009 is up."
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...