Slashdot Mirror
Google Returns Chrome To Beta, Touts Speed Boost
CWmike writes "Google yesterday reversed its decision to ditch the beta label from its Chrome browser, saying it is restoring the moniker to some builds to get faster feedback to developers. 'Since we took the 'beta' tag off Google Chrome in December, we've been updating two release channels: developer and stable,' said Brian Rakowski, a Chrome product manager, in a new blog Google kicked off on Tuesday. 'With our latest release, we're re-introducing the beta channel for some early feedback.' The first beta, Chrome 2.0.169.1, includes several new features, said Rakowski, and it boasts a significant speed increase over the current stable version of the browser, 1.0.154.48. According to Google's tests, the beta is 35% faster than the stable build when measured by the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite, and 25% faster on the company's own V8 tests."
Reader Al notes too that "Google has launched Chrome Experiments, a site where Javascript coders can upload projects that make use of Chrome's speed and processing abilities. The site already features a handful of cool 'experiments' including a balls that jump between browser windows, a gravitationally-challenged version of the Google homepage and a game that runs through nine different browsers. It's cool stuff alright, but some experts wonder whether browser security might be a more important thing to focus on."
It'd be nice if a company that prided itself on not being evil released the browser for more than one platform (dare I say, the evil one?)....
Cemil.
Just because a company's informal motto is "Don't be evil." doesn't mean they have to release their products for Linux.
Now I think it'd be unwise if they didn't release it for Linux, but it definitely doesn't make them evil.
Who wanted really fast JavaScript?
When can i get a Linux version???
All i've got at the moment is CrossOver Chromium v.0.9.0 - which isn't much use really.
Chrome is not in beta, there has ALWAYS been beta builds around for Chromium & they are advertising those builds more since the new features are pretty solid (and the speed too) but Chrome is NOT in beta.
One of the cooler ones I saw for Firefox 3.1b3 was real-time chroma-key replacement* in video. (i.e. The blue screen technique) Does anyone know if this new version of Chrome supports the video tag yet? I've been doing experiments with real-time video effects in Firefox, but I'd like to start ensuring that they're cross browser.
* I did my own version of the Chroma-Key replacement that ran a Javascript function for each pixel. It managed real-time playback even on slower PCs!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It makes perfect sense for Google to release a fast Javascript browser. Many of their apps require active javascript and the performance of these apps, or at least the perceived performance, is directly related to the javascript speed.
On Linux it's an interesting story. Firefox is slow. I use it on a daily basis, and unfortunately, it's annoyingly slow. Bugs that should have been fixed months ago are still evident. Granted, some of these problems are related to Flash, but not all.
(I'd go as far as to say that Adobe Flash is deliberately being crippled because it works so poorly on Linux.)
The article summary refutes itself.
There are multiple Chrome release channels.
There is a stable, non-beta channel (1.0.x).
There is a beta channel (2.0.x stable-ish).
And there is a dev channel (2.0.x, bleeding edge, weekly builds)
They are not "returning" Chrome to beta. They are working on the next version of Chrome.
The version numbers are kind of a big tipoff. FYI.
Google has not reversed their position. This is the beta for what will be 2.0 eventually. The 1.0 branch is and will be release. See: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/17/2345216
nah they too busy restarting their browser
I find it vastly amusing the amount of press that browser "speed" gets (compared to trivialities, like, say, "usability in peoples' computer-based work patterns").
Ok sure, javascript engine speed might be important, but javascript clearly is inadequate as a rich-client development platform anyway.
I for one do not sit here on my macbook or my dual-core 2.6GHz 2G RAM pc and think to my self "damn these 70 browser windows and tabs are rendering slow - damn damn damn". No, I pretty much never have to think about that, thanks to good work done by hardware and software engineers over the last 15 years or so.
Speed is SO NOT the key issue anymore. Netbooks prove this. Usability in the context of always-on info and my persistent context and where the hell is the stuff I was working on etc. is way way more important as a surfing quality of life issue.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Is this a master beta?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Well, since no one cares about your opinion, e.g. "trash", just stuff it. Fact is, running on Linux will have little impact on the usage of Chrome.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The web inspector is much better, though.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but what's all the fuss with a "faster" browser, at this point? They're pretty damn fast as they are (pick one). The big problem, in my mind, is their memory use. That goes for both "normal running" memory use, and "my god it's leaky" memory use.
Currently, Firefox is running with 360M virtual and 131M resident memory utilized. The browser window has been open for 85 minutes with exactly 20 tabs - no flash, and 1 slashdot page. I've got to shut down firefox due to excessive swapping/poor system performance more often than I used to have to reboot Windows 9x due to stability issues!
Firefox, IE, and Opera have all shot up in their memory use extremely quickly - to the point where Firefox has become almost unusable on my laptop with 512M, while having Tbird and OO.org open at the same time. And that's only with about 20 tabs open, noscript, flashblock, and a bunch of other things to reduce the memory overhead.
Just because RAM is cheap doesn't mean you should leave people out in the cold who have older stuff. Likewise, if you bloat your products, porting them to portable devices (cell phones, etc.) is going to be a bit troublesome: RAM doesn't seem to be having the same speed or capacity leaps that CPUs are - and in a portable, sticking more RAM in is only going to decrease battery life.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do not use this version! I'm constantly suffering non-responsive tabs that do nothing for ages and cannot be closed or reloaded without killing the process. Stay away!
...although a browser that's faster than other browsers on a modern dual-core desktop is not necessarily going to be faster than other browsers on a netbook. If people are going to benchmark browsers, there probably should be at least two separate sets of benchmarks.
I agree that competition is forcing Microsoft to change, but I don't think it is at all fair to say they're "losing badly to competing browsers". They still have a sizable majority of the browser market right now.
They're not making significant changes to IE because they're losing, but because they want to keep winning.
I'm confused when this is said I have 4 tabs open in FF including this one. For addons I have NoScript, Adblock+, Filterset.G updater, bugmenot, Firemacs, Flashgot, McAfee SiteAdvisor, and User Agent Switcher.
According to Process Explorer the working set is 64mb and the peak is 67.
As stated on the warning page.