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2.0 Beta Chrome On Windows, Chromium On Linux

Posted by kdawson on from the ooh-shiny dept.

AlienRancher writes "Google launched this morning a new beta version of Chrome 2.0: 'The best thing about this new beta is speed — it's 25% faster on our V8 benchmark and 35% faster on the Sunspider benchmark than the current stable channel version and almost twice as fast when compared to our original beta version.' Other enhancements include user script support (greasemonkey-like) and form auto-fill." And reader Lee Mathews adds news of the open source version, Chromium, on Linux: "Not only has Chromium gotten easier to take for a test drive thanks to the personal package archive for Ubuntu Chrome daily build team, but development on the browser is also progressing nicely. Despite being a very early build, Chromium on Linux feels solid and boasts the same blazing speed the Windows users have been enjoying for months."

48 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Still waiting for adblock :( by blahbooboo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I love Chrome, so fast!! Shame Firefox is so slow nowadays. Just wish there were adblock for Chrome and I am switching!

    1. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Edit your hosts file (theres even one for Windows), and put in all adservers to redirect to localhost. There. No ads, similarly, no extra bloat from Adblock. Plus, it works on whatever, e-mail, browsers, etc.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by blahbooboo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Edit your hosts file (theres even one for Windows), and put in all adservers to redirect to localhost. There. No ads, similarly, no extra bloat from Adblock. Plus, it works on whatever, e-mail, browsers, etc.

      Thanks for the tip. But this has been discussed before on slashdot the problems with the privoxy and host file mechanisms.

    3. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by Tom9729 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At least for me, Adblock is much more convenient (though I do use a hosts file to block some of the nastier stuff). It is updated automatically, it lets me whitelist sites, and it's pretty useful for blocking annoying avatars/signatures on forums.

    4. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by keeboo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Edit your hosts file (theres even one for Windows), and put in all adservers to redirect to localhost. There. No ads, similarly, no extra bloat from Adblock. Plus, it works on whatever, e-mail, browsers, etc.

      Thanks for the tip. But this has been discussed before on slashdot the problems with the privoxy and host file mechanisms.

      AFAIR Privoxy needs to load the whole page before delivering to the client (that's expected, since it needs the whole stuff in memory in order to analyse it properly).

      Anyways, if your problem is restricted to not displaying advertisements, you may try Ziproxy.
      It's a transcoding proxy (recompresses pictures and other stuff) and it has a number of weird features, one of those being an option which may be used to replace only pictures from a URL list for empty ones. Not really an ad-blocker proxy per se, but it may be used that way.

    5. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by MadMaverick9 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Use SRWare Iron ... it has what you're asking for.

      It's based on Chromium, but without all the bad stuff plus AdBlock and more ...

      http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_news.php
      http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php

      11.10.2008: Adblocker integrated in Iron

      The wish of many users comes true: We integrated an Adblocker in Iron!
      With a filterlist so nearly all online-advertising can be blocked. A working list can be downloaded here and just has to be copied to the Iron folder (e.g: C:\Program Files\SRWare Iron\). Note: You must first get the latest version of Iron you can find under "Downloads".
      So Iron is the first Chromium based webbrowser worldwide which has an adblocker included.

      And ... SRWare Iron has a proper installer - per default it installs in "C:\Program Files", which is where applications belong.

      Unlike Chrome - which installs itself in "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\...." - argh - duh.

    6. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by jeanph01 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well I found out how to do it. I do not have ads anymore in chrome... Go here and follow instructions : http://www.adsweep.org/ Basically, since Chrome now support Greasemonkey scripts, you just have to have a good ad blocking script and adsweep is one. I wonder what will be the future extension mecanism of Chrome but with Greasemonkey, there is something very usefull and integrated in the web pages we use. So this is definitely interesting.

    7. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by Eil · · Score: 5, Informative

      Edit your hosts file (theres even one for Windows), and put in all adservers to redirect to localhost. There. No ads, similarly, no extra bloat from Adblock. Plus, it works on whatever, e-mail, browsers, etc.

      While somewhat effective, that's a very crude way of blocking ads. Adblock can block ads and other content based on regular expressions (for example, */ads/*) and can auto-subscribe to a regularly-updated blocklist. I especially like how you can pretty much click on a particular element and say, "here, block this" whether it's an ad or not. And it doesn't really add any noticeable bloat to the browser. My only gripe is that it doesn't support more browsers.

    8. Re:Still waiting for adblock :( by Thaelon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Doesn't work nearly so well as adblock.

      And with a big enough hosts file windows can take an extra 30 seconds to boot while it loads all that into the DNS cache.

      And you can't wildcard hosts, so it's a pretty kludgey workaround actually.

      --

      Question everything

  2. Privoxy = Adblock for Chrome by Markos · · Score: 4, Informative

    See title.

    1. Re:Privoxy = Adblock for Chrome by LiSrt · · Score: 4, Informative

      I tried it once, there just wasn't the speed and ease-of-use that adblock plus provides:

      *right click*

      *block*

      *edit filter*

      *OK*

      Done.

  3. Still waiting... by egcagrac0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Chrome on Linux. Any decade now. (Chromium isn't quite the same.)

    1. Re:Still waiting... by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. Chromium completely lacks Google Updater, Google Toolbar, Google Desktop Search....

    2. Re:Still waiting... by AnalPerfume · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yep, you can't love without all the Google data mining tools tracking everything your browser does.....well, some can't. Personally it's the main reason I won't be touching the official Google Chrome on ANY platform. At least an Open Source port can be built without all that shit in it.

      Oh yeah, I echo the calls for an AdBlock and NoScript type functionality in Chrome.

  4. direct download link (server already slow) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try this with a multi-connection download

    http://cache.pack.google.com/edgedl/chrome/install/169.1/chrome_installer.exe

  5. but does it by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...still have the stupid installer that won't go away?

    1. Re:but does it by Blue+Stone · · Score: 4, Informative

      Do you mean the stupid and annoying Googleupdate, that sits there. All the time. Running even when you aren't using any Google software? And that even when it runs on a schedule, will sit there all the time anyway, doing nothing?

      Definitely a negative side to using any of Google's apps.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
  6. Namespace collision by Valacosa · · Score: 3, Informative

    Chromium? A year from now, when I do an apt-get expecting to download a Raptor-style shooter, I'll be downloading a browser instead. Why didn't they pick a name which wasn't already taken?

    --
    "Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
    1. Re:Namespace collision by natrixgli · · Score: 3, Informative

      To apt-get the browser, you'll need to use "chromium-browser" so I don't think it'll be an issue.

    2. Re:Namespace collision by danhm · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's only called "Chromium" because it's an unofficial build; once Google finally releases a GNU/Linux version it is expected that it will also be called Google Chrome. At least that's what the article implies.

  7. Re:Wake me up when... by tpgp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Edit your hosts file to block all ad servers. Its quick and painless.

    Not as quick & painless as Adblock. Especially when it comes to maintenance.

    --
    My pics.
  8. Chrome - Feels Like A Running A New Computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not sure how Google does it but running Chrome gives that feeling of when you get a new computer and all of your old apps seem lighting quick and responsive compared to before.

    But it isn't just the incredible speed of Chrome it is the fact that no matter how long you run it still feels exactly as quick and responsive as when you started it up. When I use to run Firefox a few months ago before switching to Chrome I could feel Firefox getting slower and slower and slower as the hours of use ticked by until finally getting annoyed enough to have to quit the app and restart it. Doesn't seem like a big deal but I would end up restarting Firefox three to four times every day just to clear out whatever 'junk' it seems to accumulate.

    I thought there were going to be all sorts of extensions I would miss but with Privoxy for ad blocking there isn't anything else that care about. Extensions in Chrome will be nice but so far Chrome + Privoxy is browsing heaven.

    1. Re:Chrome - Feels Like A Running A New Computer by Yfrwlf · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wow, maybe Firefox 1 and 2, but 3 seems to have done away with that problem. I leave Firefox 3 open all the time and never have an issue, and I'm running an oldish computer by today's standards (AMD Athlon 64, AGP GFX, etc).

      --
      Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
    2. Re:Chrome - Feels Like A Running A New Computer by Twinbee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not enough importance and effort is given to latency with software. Clicking between tabs, resizing windows, opening/closing tabs, clicking back/forward (which isn't ideal in Chrome btw), opening and closing the software - they all are underrated imo.

      --
      Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
  9. Re:Is this a WINE wrapper? by corychristison · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not a wrapper.

    Check out the Chromium Wiki for more info:
    http://dev.chromium.org/Home

  10. Did they say it was to be based on GTK? by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think I heard that somewhere. Here is my hope: -

    As Google releases these betas, those capable keep up and push out a native QT (and therefore KDE) based "Google Chrome" browser. I hope this is not too much to ask for.

    On a side note, I wonder why they have to call it "Google Chrome" on Windows and "Chromium" on Linux.

    1. Re:Did they say it was to be based on GTK? by Plug · · Score: 4, Informative

      See the "this browser is not ready" start page:

      Chromium is an open source browser project. Google Chrome is a browser from Google, based on the Chromium project. This is a build of Chromium. No versions of Google Chrome for Linux will exist until Google makes an official release.

  11. Re:Wake me up when... by cryptoluddite · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Edit your hosts file to block all ad servers. Its quick and painless.

    www.example.com/index.html
    www.example.com/ads/annoying.swf

    When people say they want adblock and noscript and you say "just edit your hosts file" you sound like another fanboy making up excuses. When I was using adblock I had */ads/* and a bunch of others that are not even possible with a hosts file.

    As for NoScript, I'm not a huge fan of it (its more of a pain then anything else

    Wha? NoScript can occasionally be a mild hassle, but it basically automatically block all annoying ads automatically AND all that useless unrendered crap like google-analytics AND in practice it makes your browsing a hell of a lot more secure than separate processes.

  12. Chrome still misses the point by billcopc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I want to like Chrome, really I do, and I applaud them for speeding up JavaScript, but they are completely ignoring the one feature developers love about Firefox: add-ons!

    I actually switched to FF roughly two years ago, when I found out about Firebug and a few other creature comforts. Nowadays, the first thing I do on a new machine is install the 15-20 add-ons that make my job easier and my surfing more comfortable. I tweak the shit out of that browser, and yes it does bog it down a bit with all the excess code, but that's peanuts next to the time I save with all these finely-tuned add-ons. Even if I had just Firebug, WebDeveloper and GreaseMonkey, I could still do just about everything I want with the browser.

    I don't know how Chrome works out for regular users, but as a web developer, Firefox is still the supreme hotness. I'd be more supportive if the Chrome devs just ditched their browser and offered the same functionality via Firefox mods (or code contributions). They could even replicate the Chrome UI in FF, for the many folks who like the de-cluttered style.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
    1. Re:Chrome still misses the point by cryptoluddite · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and you are still missing the point ...

      And you're missing the point.

      No user cares about the architecture unless if gives them actual benefits. Firefox addons undeniably give huge benefits to many users.

      The only architectural feature of Chrome of note is separate processes per tab. But is that a benefit?

      First of all, any crash is unacceptable, and I've been running beta firefox on a daily basis at work and the last time it crashed for me was several months ago. So this is basically no benefit. The only real benefit for stability is running flash in a separate process, which firefox already does with nspluginwrapper.

      Now performance. Chrome can make better use of multiple processors, which is great, but it means if you have two tabs open with flash on your dual-core then all your other programs have to compete for resources instead of having an idle CPU to use. Or if you are single-core then you have twice as many procs competing for resources with everything else, making everything else more sluggish. Granted, those are bullshit reasons technically BUT what matter is only what users actually prefer and not what is technically 'best'. Users might prefer all their other apps to be snappy more than their tabs to multitask well.

      Memory usage. Chrome can recover memory better when a tab closes, but it wastes more memory for a tab to be open (duplicated images, etc). And once there are ad-ons that need to coordinate among multiple processes, is memory going to explode with each tab? Uncertain. Remember that Java also uses the same concept of a separate process per 'thing' and look how well that works out when you have lots of them running at once.

      Frankly, if you give people a 'taste test' between firefox with chromifox theme (makes it look like Chrome) and Chrome, I think you'll find the browser architecture, except to geek fanboys, is pretty low on the totem pole.

    2. Re:Chrome still misses the point by AnalPerfume · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google must be split on the idea of addons for Chrome. Without addons Firefox users wouldn't be blocking Google adverts, blocking Google's Analaytics etc at every turn. I don't doubt that this was a major factor in deciding to build their own browser, which won't allow Google's data mining / advertising machine to be blocked. Unfortunately for them, the cat is out of the bag for a lot of users who now know it's possible, and insist that the browser they use be able to do it. Firefox can with addons, Opera can by editing a text file but Google really must be in a quandry over letting Chrome users do it. If they don't adapt to the addon system they will only ever be a minority to Firefox and Opera, if they do then AdBlock and NoScript will appear very quickly. If they then try the Apple approach and ban anything which competes with (or in this case, blocks) their own stuff, they will not only get bad PR which affects the "do no evil" image they've carefully promoted but will push people who converted early to Chrome under the assumption that addons will appear sometime down the line and that these features will appear when they're ready. How many of those will then switch back to their previous browser of choice if they know advert and script blocking ain't gonna be allowed.

    3. Re:Chrome still misses the point by daver00 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As a web developer myself who used to use firebug, Chrome has turned out to be by far the better tool. The javascript console is a whole lot better than firebug. When you are in Chrome, click the little page menu icon, and in the menu there is a flyout called "Developer". They have actually built web development tools into the browser, screw half-assed bodgey addons, Chrome is the ducks nuts when it comes to web development.

      I hate using firefox now that I've become accustomed to Chrome, on any system of any spec firefox is just slow as a dog, far slower than IE7 even which is embarrassing. What really gets to me about firefox is the linux build is near unusable in its slowness. I have it on my xubuntu eee pc, and its just about worthless as a web browser, especially in that limited environment.

  13. All I can say to this is... by david.given · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...my god it's fast.

    Start up in under half a second. From cold.

    When you resize it, the text moves smoothly, the way old-fashioned Xlib apps used to do. My Firefox installation gets about two redraws a second.

    Render speed seems to be decent, and it generally feels snappy in a way that Firefox doesn't.

    However: this is in no way ready to be used as a browser, even if you're masochistic. No dialogue boxes, so no setting of options. No tab control; you always see the most recent tab, and there's no way of selecting another one. Rendering glitches; Slashdot won't render, for example (although this might be considered a feature). And it's unstable. Five minutes playing made it crash three times.

    But I'm going to continue watching with great interest. I'd love to ditch Firefox.

  14. Re:Obnoxious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, there is a dialog box when the browser is first run. You likely clicked through it

  15. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's just sum up the state of the three major browsers:

    Chrome
    Multithreaded Javascript and code for each tab.
    Memory protection for each tab so no single tab can take down the browser.
    Quick and responsive native UI.

    IE
    Multithreaded Javascript and code for each tab.
    Memory protection for each tab so no single tab can take down the browser.
    Quick and responsive native UI.

    Firefox
    All tabs and Javascript run in one giant mess. One execution heavy tab drags down the performance of the entire browser
    No memory protection. Everything is in one gigantic soup of data. One tab crashes, down goes the whole browser
    Clunky and slow crossplatform UI implementation

    The latest IE 8's absolutely smoke Firefox in performance and stability. What an absolute humiliation for the Firefox developers. They had years to get their shit together. But they sat on their asses and now they have been left in the technological dust by both Google and Microsoft.

    High five Firefox devs!

    Well given that that AC's post is technically accurate I don't really think it's a troll. It's true, Firefox failed to advance in many respects, the way it should have giving its high level of funding. It leaks like a sieve, everybody knows that. I too have to restart it every couple of days or it ooms my machine. Keyboard navigation is still very dodgy. It has big problems with spinning on on web pages that konq just loads gracefully. Etc.

    Yes, you can say it's better than IE 5/6/7. I don't know about IE 8, jury is out.

    --
    Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
  16. how to remove (its not that simple) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    its not in msconfig as its installed a service (they thought of that) even hijackthis wont kill it due to permissions (it runs as system) if its running it puts itself right back

    to remove it you need to
    start>run>services.msc
    find google service in list, double click it and take note of the service name
    it should be something like googleupdatesvc(randomcharacters)
    stop the service (if its running)
    then open a command prompt (in admin mode if you are on vista) and type
    sc delete "nameofgoogleservice"
    then go into controlpanel>scheduled tasks
    and delete the google job

    and voila its not running anymore, then for full piece of mind delete the googleupdate exe in its folder.

    As you can see, its just as malicious to remove as most spyware, so we (our company) treats it as such, the fact that its google[donoevil] means nothing to us as we can only judge by an applications behaviour

    1. Re:how to remove (its not that simple) by Onyma · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just open task manager, kill the EXE process which ends the service, and then remove it via MSConfig... and it's gone. I also do delete the EXE just to keep Google apps from restarting it.

      --
      Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
  17. Re:Obnoxious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    File a bug report?

  18. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by Vexorian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Firefox is cross platform?! Damn those evil firefox developers.

    --

    Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
  19. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by anaesthetica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sadly, Firefox developers shifted from "fast and simplified feature set" to "include lots of features to make the web fun & easy." They're working on Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 right now, both of which are feature-driven releases. Astonishingly, the one feature for Firefox 3.5 that makes the release competitive with Chrome & Safari—the new javascript engine, TraceMonkey—was almost cut from the release because it is/was too buggy to fit into their release schedule.

    The Mozilla 2.0 project, which is supposed to refactor a good deal of the Gecko code in order to make it leaner and easier to deal with, is not getting much attention at all while the feature-driven point releases consume everyone's attention. Mozilla developers have lost any focus they once had on the fundamentals of browser innovation, and are now given over to the same level of feature bloat that killed the original Mozilla browser (now SeaMonkey). Extensions were supposed to be the solution for this: extra features could be implemented by users so that developers could focus on making the browser faster. Not anymore.

    It will not surprise me if the hard core of geeks that abandoned Mozilla Suite for Firefox now abandon Firefox for Chrome and Safari. The first one of those browsers to get an extensions/plugin framework allowing for ad-blocking and development tools will start sucking a lot of folks over.

    --
    The Rise and Fall of Online Community
  20. Don't trust browsers from companies that sell ads by Logic+Worshiper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google makes it's money by selling online adds. Why would they make a browser giving you the tools to block those adds? They won't. They'll make a browser which gives them more control over your browsing experience, and you less. Hell, Chrome doesn't even let you block 3rd party cookies, because they don't want the 3rd party cookies they put on your computer to be blocked. Any browser google makes will always be limited by google's business model of selling online adds.

    Chrome will never give me the control I want of my browsing experience, because that's not in google's interest. Other community developed versions like SRware might do it for me, if they give me the control I want, and block adds.

  21. Linux version isn't ready at all.... by Pausanias · · Score: 3, Informative

    Allright, I decided to bite and put in the PPA repositories into my synaptic in Ubuntu Intrepid. Installed chromium-browser. Neither slashdot nor NY times loaded at all. Proceeded to remove the repository given that it was a daily build. Not that you can blame them. When the browser stars, it tells you that it's pre-alpha and that it's gotten too much exposure, with too many people trying it out and expecting it to work.

  22. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or this one, race conditions are solely a problem with multithreaded applications.

    Race conditions happen in multi-process systems all the time. Ever seen one process create a file, then try to open it, while another deletes it right as it was closed?

  23. Re:Wake me up when... by NorQue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    e.g. heise.de, a German publisher for IT magazines, which also offers the best informed German language IT news and a very good online magazine on society and culture, hosts all ads themselves. Blocking heise.de would mean also blocking one of the best sources for Germans on the net. Adblock (with a German blocklist), on the other hand, conveniently blocks all the ads and doesn't touch anything else. Impossible with a hosts file.

  24. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The "Linux" Chrom(ium) is 32-bit only, and everything indicates it is also Linux-only, meaning they just replaced crappy platform-dependent WinAPI code with not-less-crappy Linux code. Wake me up when I can compile Chrapmium on OpenBSD.

    There is no way you can compare a visualbasic gui slapped on top of WebKit with a full-featured cross-platform browser like firefox. Process separation sounds like a good idea now that everyone has crappy code that crashes every now and then.

    I would rather Firefox developers focusing in making the code more stable and threadable instead of adding unneeded process overhead.

  25. Re:Firefox is a stinking pile of garbage by eulernet · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mod the parent troll !

    Chrome is very responsive, but come on, IE 7 is slow as hell !
    Try to use about:blank as the start page, and you'll see that it takes around 2-3 seconds to start, with a message saying that it starts to connect !
    Its Javascript engine is super slow, so using GMail is a PITA. As a developer, I have encountered nasty bugs in IE (like authentication problems, that need to reset the preferences !), so I don't trust this browser.

    I didn't test IE8, since I never install MS betas anymore. Having tested a few of their hard-to-remove products was enough for me.

    Anyway, I agree that Firefox gets worse and worse, not because of the memory isolation (who cares ?), but because it's slow to start.
    Anyway, the plugins definitely make it the best browser experience !

    Chrome is very fast and nice, but if you wait for AdBlock, it's like waiting for TV channels to stop ads.

    Frankly, you should stop using speed as a reason to use a browser.
    The main point now is TRUST.
    I trust in Firefox+AdBlock+NoScript more than any other browser.

  26. Re:Wake me up when... by eulernet · · Score: 4, Informative

    Note also that when using hosts, the whole computer tends to slow down when your hosts file is very large (install SpyBot and use the vaccination tool, and you'll see what I mean).

    Also, when you use XP Pro with a webserver, the localhost blocking will show your site, since basically you do something like www.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1, which is VERY uncomfortable.

  27. Stop the Chrome/Google extention FUD please by riffzifnab · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mod parent -1 uninformed

    http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions