Slashdot Mirror
Google Announces Chrome For Mac and Linux Dev Builds
Dan Kegel (who admits to being a Chrome developer) writes to point out a post from Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, Product Managers for Google Chrome, with some good news for non-Windows users who want to play with Chrome: "In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux (for a couple of different Linux distributions), but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software." (The announcement continues below.)
"How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.
Meanwhile, we'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible ..." The downloads are available through the Chrome developer's channel.
Meanwhile, we'll get back to trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible ..." The downloads are available through the Chrome developer's channel.
Quote: "How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print."
:)
What the hell did they release? A box of crayons where you have to draw the Internet manually?
But they aren't... SEPARATED INTO PROCESSES!
OK, seriously and drama aside, I do think that's a good idea, and it also seem to help as a way to help out with memory management. I always thought Safari sucked a lot of RAM, especially on Windows.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I just installed the .deb on this laptop, running Ubuntu 9.10 alpha. So far, seems nice and pleasant :)
I seem some rendering problems, but Hey, I blame google!
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I've been using Chromium for some time on my Eee 1000, since FireFox hangs intermittently (slow SSD, which does not like apps that write a lot of stuff).
Chromium is a pleasant experience, fast and snappy. It used to crash all the time (e.g. when doing a copy/paste) but has been improved daily, and is now stable and usable. I don't know what the Google branded version would add on top. "DON'T DOWNLOAD" sounds like reverse psychology. Definitely, download, and use if you have a machine that is a little slower than the average desktop.
My blog
Why would I need this? I already have a webkit browser with tabs on top.
Because you want one that doesn't suck.
Why would I need this? I already have a webkit browser with tabs on top.
Because multiple players means competition, and competition means innovation, which leads to a better browsing experience for all of us, regardless of which you're using.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
How does this differ from the Chromium daily builds? Is it identical only officially a Google product, or are there technical differences?
I don't think open source software is necessarily about what you want it to be. Just because Firefox is better than the competition today doesn't mean that Firefox will always be the best but if nobody tries to make anything better then stagnation will ensue. Monoculture is bad no matter who is director and I would rather see 20 options than 2.
I'll just wait for the final release.. can't take to long.
Even if the rest of that argument (let's not have competition now that the browser I think is good is winning) made sense and all that matters is killing IE, Chrome is an additive force. In a world with only IE and Firefox, if you disliked Firefox, there'd be no alternative. There are people who like Chrome better than Firefox; if your goal is killing IE, that's *more* switchers, even if a bunch also switch back and forth between Firefox and Chrome.
However, outside of that, there's nothing bad with having many browsers around. What is bad is having many contrary *concepts* around. Chrome didn't drag a new rendering engine in, they used WebKit, which is good. Actually, they used a fork of WebKit, which is bad, but WebKit has been able to handle this stuff by merging in the necessary abstractions in the past.
"[...]but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
Of course I do. I used Windows 95 for years!
They say it like it's something dirty!
Girl: "Mom, I've got a new boyfriend."
Mum: "Really, pumpkin?"
Girl: "Yes. He's a Chrome developer!"
Mum: "Oh!" *faints*
Dad: *finally looks over his newspaper* "Straight to your room YOUNG LADY! You're grounded for a week with no telephone!"
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Not on a Mac it doesn't. While Fx 3.0 is far better than previous versions on a Mac, it's still pretty poor. And you can't use Fx 3.0 on older Macs at all.
Adblock and flashblock etc are coming for Chrome. I use Firefox now, but unless Fx4.0 works significantly better on a Mac, and is multi-threaded, my continued use of it is time-limited. That's entirely Mozilla's own fault. They seem to be focusing on rebuilding Firefox as the Netscape suite, rather than actually making the core browser work efficiently.
Google has, unfortunately, been very slow about developing Chrome for Mac (as they usually are for all their software, Macs users appear to be an afterthought for them). This version appears to be intel only -- I sincerely hope that this is going to change. I have an old G3 running 10.3 that looks great and works well for surfing and playing music. I'd absolutely love to get Fx 2.0 off it, and use a browser that works effectively.
Trust me, I admire Google. But I am mad at them for using the "wrong" toolkit in developing Chrome for Linux. Slashdotters, this is *my* opinion having used both toolkits and deployed software though not as complex as a browser on all operating systems.
And I have at least one supporter on this front.
What they should have done is to fund development of Chrome using the "right" tool for the job. What would be wrong with that?
I'm posting using Google Crone, it's probably a bug
Firefox for Linux is actually quite shitty, they haven't fixed that scrolling bug in ages.
- Posted from the x64 .deb version of Chrome, which is working suspiciously well.
Undoubtedly due to the Javascript JIT.
Here's why I'm excited about/anxious for Chrome on OS/X:
I used Firefox for awhile, a couple of years back. It bogged down the CPU, especially after running for awhile.
So I switched to Opera (and shortly thereafter went from Windows to OS X). It was a peppier experience. But with newer releases, and the increasing use of Flash (I think) on the Net, it started getting slower and slower. I don't like having my fan run while I'm simply sitting and reading a static page. Turning off all plugins seems to avoid that, so I point the finger at Flash. But not having Flash, or only having it on demand, is fairly annoying. Also, there's some sites Opera just won't render properly. Not many, but some.
So I switched back to Firefox, with the advent of 3.0. Even doing nothing, sitting with a few static pages open (and Adblock, Flashblock) it seems to still hover at 10% CPU usage. Bleh. Enough to keep my fan humming all the time.
When I tried Chrome on Windows, I was quite excited, with the process-per-page approach. I can see *what* page is slowing things down, and kill it if I chose. That's my biggest beef with Opera/Firefox (I won't even let IE into the discussion :P): you can't tell *what* page is slowing down your browser. I've tried JavaScript debuggers, other dev tools to try and found out, but have had no success.
I'm praying that Chrome on OS/X will be my salvation (although I've become dependent upon some Firefox extensions, particularly vimperator :P). Upon first glance, it looks pretty good (and I'm using it to post this article). It seems to suck up 30% CPU for 20 seconds or so *after* finishing loading a page, but then does settle down.
Right now I have about 5 tabs open, and each is using 2-3%, which is slightly concerning. That could add up to be just as bad as Firefox/Opera. But for now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt of being an early release, and keep my fingers crossed that the "Browser That Finally Doesn't Suck [CPU]" is on the horizon...
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Because you want one that doesn't suck.
And that would be the one that doesn't let you change the (marketing dept. approved I presume) privacy settings and search engine?
I smell a rat.
Most Eee PCs have two SSDs: a large, slow one and a small fast one. Firefox became a lot snappier once I moved my profile directory to the fast SSD. Obvious in retrospect, I know...
If you have >512Mb in your netbook you could do what I've done: I keep the entire profile in RAM (on a tmpfs filesystem). On bok the profile is copied in to the ram drive and on shutdown it is rsynced back to the SSD (using --inplace to reduce copy+write operations on the urlclassifier db).
OK so it lengthens boot time a little, but it isn't often the machine is properly shutdown anyway (it tends to be suspended when not in used instead) so doesn't do a full boot often.
The urlclassifier db appears to be the main culprit for the "unexpected" IO in firefox. and even with all the relevant features turned off it seems to keep updating the file. If you don't want to put your whole profile in RAM (there is the risk of losing important bookmarks and cookies and such if the machine unexpectidly loses all power including battery or if normal shutdown scripts otherwise fail to be callde) you could probably just copy this file in and replace it with a symlink.
I would bet that while you can't print, view YouTube videos or change your privacy settings yet, the core functionality of aggregating data about the user's browsing behaviour and sending it to Google with a uniquely identifiable ID is firmly in place.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
$ apt-get install chromiunm
I tried that but all I got was a stupid scrolling arcade game. :(
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Using the Fedora Linux here and have been for a rather long time. I am very much "anti-advertiser" simply because they have a huge propensity to "go too far" with their advertising and data collection. (I have nothing against advertising when it comes to respectful means that the customer seeks out for himself.) Google, for everything else they do in terms of evolving the internet technologies, is still an advertiser. I don't trust them. I can't imagine why anyone else would either.
Really, an alpha build is expected to be considered a finished product? They never said we won't let you change privacy settings/search engine, it's called "we haven't even bothered coding features because this isn't stable".
If your ass smells like rats, that explains where your head is.
Sorry for the extra reply. I forgot to recommend Camino which uses the Gecko rendering engine but is a real Mac application, and has built-in ad blocking.
Yes, hurry up with that.... so you can keep them in BETA for 5+ years afterwards. :p
Reply to That ||
DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.
How ironic, they announce new Mac and Linux versions and tell you not to download them unless you use Windows.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Does it still send unknown encrypted data back to google at will?
Thanks, that's all I need to know about this browser.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
A friend wrote up a Gentoo ebuild for it, which I went and installed (for the amd64 version - I run an almost entirely 64 bit system). Try to run it, and got this message:
That's odd ... double check ... yes, /usr/lib64/libgconf-2.so.4 exists ... No ... they couldn't have ...
$ file /opt/google/chrome/chrome
/opt/google/chrome/chrome: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, stripped
*facepalm*
The 64-bit Chrome is *NOT* 64-bit, and will not run on 64-bit systems which are missing a number of 32-bit libraries.
And why do you think Google is interested in preserving Firefox as an end goal? They are not a non-profit foundation. They are much more like Microsoft or Apple: they want to make money.
One potential way to make money is to control the internet content all the way through end-user delivery. It may enable some things that seem otherwise impossible: delivering protected copyrighted content, for example. If they offered a browser that wouldn't let you save YouTube streams, then maybe the RIAA would let them display music videos. Maybe book publishers would let them display Google Books along a Kindle model. Or maybe Google has a workable micro-payment system in place that depends on the browser not spoofing the for-pay site. Or maybe they just want to make sure that Google AdSense and google-analytics can't be blocked by the end users.
A "non-trustable" browser (like Firefox with all its Greasemonkey scripts and Noscript and AdBlock etc.) can't offer the rights-holders enough assurance that they can deliver their data without it being copied. Chrome may be the guarantee that lets them make money.
Before another DRM flamewar erupts, I'm not saying that Chrome can technically offer any more magic solutions than CSS or copy-protected diskettes or any of a thousand other failed DRM schemes. But like Apple's Fair Play, it might be "enough" protection to convince the copyright holders to distribute their content through Google's tubes.
John
Last time I checked, chrome, firefox, safari all did this?
Several approaches are being investigated; see
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxSandboxing
http://lwn.net/Articles/332974/
http://www.imperialviolet.org/2008/11/27/sandboxing-on-linux.html
None of them do it very well. Try to drag out a tab to its own window when it's playing a video on YouTube, for example, and the video will go back to the beginning. Whether that's the fault of the browser or the Flash plugin though, I couldn't say.
Avoiding software monoculture. On both OS X and Windows, Safari has been shown to have a substantial number of security flaws. Even if I liked its minimal configurability and general look and feel (I don't, but that's a personal thing) the security issues would lead me to avoid using it, much like IE6. (Hmm... is this some kind of rite of passage for a browser bundled with an OS? I hope Apple gets its security act in gear faster than Microsoft did - they're starting to become popular enough to be a worthwhile target.)
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Sorry to reply to myself, but it seems the latest chrome /does/ work properly with this. Could be to do with how it runs plugins in a separate process.
And how it doesn't suck then? I'd say that Safari and Chrome are comparable.
Chrome is obviously not ready for real use on OS X or Linux yet, but it is an architectural leap forward. It has real sandboxing of tabs so that one tab can't make the others unresponsive or take down the browser is a huge leap forward. With the Web being so central to most people's workflow these days this is akin to the move to a multitasking OS. I think that's what has most of us excited, not speed or new features at this point. It has a long way to go, but the underlying architectural decisions provide for more potential.
But they aren't... SEPARATED INTO PROCESSES!
Check out Stainless for Leopard... it's still lacking a few features, but it's coming together quite well.
Stop! Dremel time!
<Steve Erwin impression>...and here we have one of the rarest of all specimens: the +1 Flamebait </Steve Erwin impression>
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
No its not.
Was IE released for WINE? No.
Was Safari released for Windows? Yes.
Chrome is obviously not ready for real use on OS X or Linux yet, but it is an architectural leap forward. It has real sandboxing of tabs so that one tab can't make the others unresponsive or take down the browser is a huge leap forward. With the Web being so central to most people's workflow these days this is akin to the move to a multitasking OS. I think that's what has most of us excited, not speed or new features at this point. It has a long way to go, but the underlying architectural decisions provide for more potential.
I know they advertise this, but it honestly hasn't proven to be true. I've been using Chrome daily since it came out (less bloat than Firefox, less suck than IE), and when a tab freezes, they all freeze.
But that's kind of the point. Finally, we can severely reduce memory bloat due to memory fragmentation by separating tabs into different processes.
Chrome has a higher memory footprint at first, but then as Firefox continues to use more and more RAM, Chrome's memory usage remains consistent.