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Chrome On the Way For Mac and Linux
TornCityVenz writes "I've seen many complaints in the feedback on Slashdot every time an article on Google's Chrome browser hits; the calls for true cross platform availability have struck me as a valid complaint. So now it seems Google is answering your calls, promising in this article on CNET a deadline for Mac and Linux support." I'd really like to not care about the name of the browser I'm using, but the mental cost of switching could be high for someone used to particular Firefox extensions, unless or until they can all be expected to work seamlessly with Chrome.
They've been promising Linux and Mac ports for Google Talk for several years. Still hasn't happened.
but the mental cost of switching could be high for someone used to particular Firefox extensions, unless or until they can all be expected to work seamlessly with Chrome.
What's the big rush? I tried Linux several times before I finally dual booted, then went on later to make the switch. If Chrome offers some features you find compelling, there's no reason they can't share browsing duty.
A little competition is a good thing. Though I do have to say that opening up their platform for custom user extensions was a brilliant move by Mozilla.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I just don't understand why it is taking Google so long to release a Mac and Linux version. Can someone explain some of the technical issues that would cause such a delay? I"m just curious.
Google would lose nothing from allowing adblock. In fact, they would only gain from it.
The only reason to block ads for most people is because they are distracting. This means flash, animated gifs, and rotating scripts. If ads didn't move, there would be a much reduced need to block them. Personally I just can't read a page if something is blinking in the corner. Prior to adblock, I'd have to put pieces of paper over parts of the screen, or scroll it to hide ads. Advertisers have always lost me as customer by advertising in this way.
I don't, and I suspect most people don't, ever block text based ads. I've no problem with them. Thus Google's ads get through. Google understands that text based ads do not bug most people, hence it's always been their ideology to use them.
If adblocking of moving images is more widespread, then text based ads become the primary way of reaching customers. That's a win for everyone -- especially Google. (the only losers are low-life flash ad designers, whose unemployment is most welcome.)
Will people stop making new browsers and just concentrate on fixing Flash? If that one problem plugin were replaced we would have much fewer problems with all of the browsers.
A very fast javascript engine and isolating what's running in each tab would seem to be what they're bringing. But - broadly speaking - I suppose you're right, because whether those are *enough* to tempt Mac users is another question.
Safari is a very a nice browser; and those who don't mind sacrificing polish and OS integration for extensions can download Firefox. I'm not sure where Chrome fits in here at all.
Well, let's not forget that Google rarely seems to advance a software "release" to anything beyond "Beta."
They did for Chrome, which is the particular piece of software we are talking about here.
Also, they are really pushing this browser, to end users. I don't think their plan is browser dominance. I think their plan is to prevent any browser from becoming too dominant.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Don't forget the brand-new JavaScript engine they had. The move to OS X will be just as hard (and for a big part exactly the same) as the move to Linux.
They made a win32 browser and they are now going to translate it to *nix. Seems like they are going to do that properly this time (unlike Picasa and, to some extend, Earth).
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
> Not just the JavaScript engine is
> probably win32 specific
V8 was developed on ubuntu iirc ;)
Honestly, if you want voice, pick up a phone. Or use Skype if your motivation is to avoid charges. I'll cede that Google Talk (the client) isn't 100% available on non-Windows platforms. But I'll add that the portion 99% of its users actually use, i.e. IM, is 100% available on non-Windows platforms by way of Pidgin, Adium, etc.
It's true that Mozilla providing a default search engine is a service that search-engine companies find valuable. On the other hand, having a useful default search engine is also something that Mozilla's users find valuable, so Mozilla is constrained in how they can sell that particular service.
If Some Guy's Horrible Search That Doesn't Work offered Mozilla a bazillion dollars for placement as the default search engine, they would likely have to turn it down, if they wanted their users to not hate them.
Now Yahoo or Microsoft Live aren't quite Some Guy's Horrible Search, but they are different, and in many ways not quite as good, as the status quo Firefox users expect. Basically, people use and expect Google Search, and will be annoyed if they don't get it. That means that if Google were so inclined, they could probably drive a hard bargain and reduce the amount they're paying for default-search placement, and Mozilla would likely grudgingly go along with it. At the very least, I would imagine that Microsoft or Yahoo would have to offer a considerable premium over Google's offer to make it worth the negative reactions of switching to them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Adding support for voice and video is easy if you only care about one platform.
Adding support for voice and video is easy if you only care about one IM network.
Adding support for voice and video is easy if you don't have to interoperate with other clients, which have weird and undocumented ways of handling things.
Adding support for video and video is easy if you're writing a single monolithic application.
None of this applies to Pidgin. It has to support multiple platforms (which means lots of ways to handle input and output), multiple IM networks (which means multiple codecs, multiple container formats, and often different ways to handle trannsferring the data across the network), be able to communicate with the crazy official clients for each network (where the network protocol is basically defined as "whatever our native client does"), and has to provide all of that support in a reusable library that can be used by different IM applications, on multiple platforms.
That's bloody hard. There's a reason why most multi-network IM applications don't support voice and video, and why the only alternative IM clients that do are those that are tied to a single network, and often to a single platform.