Google Betas Chrome 4, Touts 30% Speed Boost

CWmike writes "Google upgraded the beta version (4.0.223.16) of its Chrome browser yesterday, boasting a 30% speed improvement over the current production edition and adding integrated bookmark synchronization. Developers Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin, who announced the release, tout Chrome 4.0's faster JavaScript rendering speeds. 'We've improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, and by 400% since our first stable release,' they said, referring to Chrome 3.0. The new beta includes the ability to sync bookmarked sites across multiple computers."

Comments

Smoking

[Nithendil]

Loads reddit.com and slashdot.com almost instantly. Occasionally the browser will just hang for a second but it makes firefox look like molasses. I have serious reservations about using Google as my search, browser, voicemail, and email but it is difficult when they keep blowing the competition out of the water.

Re:Smoking

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm right there with you. Basically all of the free tools from Google have no serious competition in terms of quality. Other tools may have more users, but it's not because they're better.

I'm not saying we give them a free pass, but have there been any serious breaches of privacy by Google? We've seen dirty moves by Microsoft, we've seen slow moves by Firefox. We've seen silly moves from Yahoo. We've seen invasive moves by Facebook.

I see Google as pretty freaking amazing. I think even the people who take issue with one thing here or there would have to agree that they are definitely the least of all evils.

Re:Love to use it, but...

[ltmon]

FYI, nightly builds for all platforms (Mac, Win, Linux, Linux x64) available here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

Should get official versions soon, I guess, but I find any given nightly build (on Linux) fast and reliable.

Re:Love to use it, but...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Mac

Hello PC, Whats that you have there?

PC

Oh this? Its Google Chrome and its faster than IE and Firefox.

Mac

But it still gives you viruses and spyware right?

PC

Oh Mac, you're such a brainwashed little cunt.

PC (Cont'd)

Look, it uses WebKit, the same stupid thing your Safari browser uses. Happy now?

Mac

Sort of. I'm a Mac and I want it my way. I want Google Chrome now!

Mac (Cont'd)

PC... give that to me.

PC

You know Mac...You could just buy a PC, or at the very least boot windows on your over priced PC hardware.

Mac

But then I will get viruses...

(PC Throws his arms up and walks away)

PC

I give up.

Speed is nice, but lets get some basic features

[pyrico]

I really wish they would put at least one developer on getting some of their basic features requests done.

For example, I wanted to use Chrome as my HTPC browser as it does a good job scaling it's plugins to the system 2x DPI (unlike Firefox where flash applets are tiny squares in big dark frames they are supposed to fill).

But Chrome does not save the full page zoom setting! Every time you open a tab or browser instance you have to Ctr + which becomes unusable. It has not browser-wide options related to full page zoom and their font options are confusing and seem to make no effect.

Worse is the how easy it is to fine lots and lots and lots and lots of people complaining about this on their own help forums without a single response from the developers.

I know they are avoiding feature creep and keeping things slim, but even by a 80/20 rule, this kind of thing should be picked up (and could even replace their useless font settings dialog).

Re:100% less advertisements would be nice...

[Temporal]

I know. Perhaps this is the real reason Chrome even exists. They can prevent people from blocking ads, and of course track peoples surfing habits.

Actually, Chrome 4.0 has extensions, and multiple ad blockers have already been written using the system, without being stopped by Google.

Quite sad actually. The browser is pretty nice overall. Its too bad they will most likely treat their users like most corporations do... like shit.

Actually, we're a little bit smarter than that. As it turns out, treating users "like shit" -- for example, by crippling our products just to drive away the small minority of users that run ad blockers -- is actually not profitable. On the other hand, making the internet better for users, in general, is profitable to us, since it directly leads to more usage of other Google products. Which is why Eric (the CEO) frequently tells employees, in plain terms, that we should be doing whatever we can think of to improve the internet for users, without worrying about how to monetize it -- in the long term, this approach is far more profitable than being dicks.

(This post is my personal opinion -- I am not authorized to speak for Google.)

Re:Cheating on my first love - Firefox

[aardvarkjoe]

What is with people whining about AdBlock all the time? OH NOES TEH ADZ@!1!One. Is it really that big a deal? Thanks to my Slashdot obsession and excellent karma, I have the option to disable ads on Slashdot natively, but I don't even use the option. Why do people care so much about little images trying to sell things?

Because web advertising has gone way beyond "little images trying to sell things." Instead, we get Flash monstrosities that slow my computer to a crawl, pop-ups that jump in front of the content you're trying to read and steal mouse clicks, and pages full of blinking, animated pictures that make it difficult to find the actual content.

Just because you don't mind having your time wasted in that way doesn't mean that everyone else will put up with it.