A Mixed Review For Google Chrome On Linux

omlx contributes this link to LinuxCrunch's short review of Google Chrome on Linux, writing: "The summary of it is that although Google Chrome is in a beta stage, it is fast, stable, and has a simple, clean, and effective GUI design. On other side, Google Chrome has a small number of extensions, doesn't support RSS, lacks integration with KDE, and doesn't support complex scripts very well. Personally, I didn't succeed in using Flash Player on Google Chrome beta 1 (I am using OpenSUSE 11.2) and I wonder how the quality of Google Chrome OS will be, especially if it's based on Linux and Google Chrome."

Comments

UI responsiveness

[sopssa]

Speed

If you look for a fast web browser, Google Chrome is the answer to you. The start-up speed is amazing comparing to Firefox. The Google developers did a very well job in this regard. the reason behind its speed is that Google Chrome does not use a cross-platform framework unlike Firefox which uses XUL. Google Chrome in GUN/Linux uses GTK+ directly without any layer in between. It uses also a different GUI library for each operating system it supports.

While I dont myself use Chrome, I have to agree here. UI responsiveness in such things like a browser is REALLY important. I have asked firefox developers and users many times why the UI isn't more responsive, and the sum answer of that is XUL. I love Opera's UI responsiveness. I love Chrome's UI responsivess. But Firefox's and IE's is just shit. It's really something Mozilla should work with, because until it's on those twos level I wont be using Firefox. What is the real reason to use it then? Many people say its easily extensible. sure, XML like language probably is. But you could even try to optimize it. Convert it to byte or machine in run time, or something. Firefox is really lacking behind on this aspect and I'd really like to see them improve it.

But why are both Opera and Chrome better in UI responsiveness than Firefox, IE and other problems? Is it because they see the advantage on it, or is it really that hard? What could be done for it?

Re:UI responsiveness

[Hurricane78]

I don’t know how many times I have recommended this simple and effective solution to the XUL problem:

Just compile the damn stuff into something faster! Like a library, but a bit safer (sandboxed).
Leave the XUL files where they are, monitor them with inotify or at specific events, and re-compile them if they were changed (e.g. by installing a extension. Do not accept pre-compiled stuff in an extension. That way you still get to see all the source.

There, done. I don’t get what’s so hard about this. The whole parsing and error handling thing is already done. Just walk the tree with functions that replace the nodes with binary code or something alike. And get the dragon book if you haven’t already. :)

Re:UI responsiveness

[DrXym]

Just compile the damn stuff into something faster! Like a library, but a bit safer (sandboxed).

It already does. On first boot XUL / JS is parsed into objects which are serialized as prototypes into XUL.mfl where mfl stands for Mozilla Fast Load. The next time the app starts it constructs the prototypes from the fast load file rather than the XML. The mfl file is regenerated when the XUL changes of course.

Flash not working

[avandesande]

I thought flash not working is a feature.

Re:Flash not working

[GF678]

So not being able to view video on sites like YouTube seamlessly (ie. without requiring extensions/workarounds to view FLV files in a 3rd-party player) is a feature?

And do give me that shit about YouTube not having anything useful to watch. If so, you just aren't trying very hard.

Google Chrome linux

[cavedweller96]

Personally, I disagree. Flash works flawlessly on chrome. More features can be added later, you have to remember it is a beta. finally, as a person who had compiled Chrome OS, It works great. My only problem with it is lack of wireless card support, but once again BETA.

Re:sigh

[pclminion]

"Don't criticize it, it's a beta." That's nonsense. The whole reason you release a beta is to get feedback.

As far as the KDE thing, though, I agree. Exactly what sort of "integration" with KDE was expected?

Re:Not Chrome's Fault

[Ethanol-fueled]

Hell no, bro. I finally transitioned to an all-Linux household after the release of the ultra-mature, ultra-stable Ubuntu 9.10. It worked wonders right out of the box. The only gripe I have about 9.10 is the default desktop wallpaper which is colored like tubgirl's whale-spout.

My 7 year old Dell Latitude D600 runs the compiz cube and with all the pretty window effects and dosen't even slow down until a skydome image or 3-d windows on cube rotate are added. All hardware is detected with the best drivers and there are no issues with hibernation. There's also no need for command-line boot options. It just works(tm).

Next up for Linux, media production software. What the fuck is up with Hydrogen and Ardour? Can't they get at least one real musician on their design staff?

Getting Flash to Work

[Kelson]

I had two systems, both 64-bit Fedora, that I tried Chrome on. On one, Flash worked fine from the moment I installed Chrome. On the other, Chrome didn't even notice the plugin existed. Flash (32-bit, wrapped with mozilla-plugin-config) worked just fine in Firefox on both computers. When I compared the two systems, it turned out that one was missing a symbolic link. The file is in /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped, but Chrome was looking in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins.

Adding a symbolic link solved it.

More info: Getting Flash to work on Google Chrome for 64-bit Linux.

Nothing but praise here

[lessgravity]

I have installed both Chrome and Chromium on about 15 machines and 3 flavors of Linux. In each case the UI responsiveness is amazing. Huge improvement over Firefox. So far everything has worked beautifully on each of these machines. No problems with Flash. I'm surprised that the link review complained about the lack of extensions. There are plenty of extensions. Kinda made the rest of the review look poorly researched.

Re:Nothing but praise here

[__aamnbm3774]

It not only has tons of extensions, (all the basics included, like Ad Blocking, Gmail Checker, etc) but has a fantastic way to search for them... on par with Mozillas plug-in search.

I agree, if I even bothered to RTFA, I would have stopped reading at that point.

Re:Nothing but praise here

[eqisow]

Last I checked (two months ago?) Chrome had no ad blockng to speak of. Sure, there's AdSweep and AdBlock+, but they just hide ads with CSS, where Firefox stops the ads from ever being downloaded. When I was using Chromium regularly I ended up using Privoxy for ad blocking.

As I understood the situation at the time, this shortcoming was due to the functionality not being possible in Chrome. So, the browser from the company that sells ads has limited ad blocking functionality. Is anyone really surprised?

Re:sigh

[bvankuik]

As far as the KDE thing, though, I agree. Exactly what sort of "integration" with KDE was expected?

I would appreciate it if Chrome took it's default font size/color from the KDE settings. What would even be better is if there was a KDE theme that also took over the KDE look and feel for the browser window and the tabs, and the buttons and dialogues that Chrome has.

RSS in Chrome

[John Whitley]

It's worth noting that RSS support is an extension for Chrome, written by Google. It presents the usual RSS location bar icon, and is configurable:

The extension comes with 4 feed readers predefined (Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines and My Yahoo) but also allows you to add any web-based feed reader of your choice to the list.

No RSS-as-bookmark folders support, but I don't miss that as I vastly prefer a dedicated (desktop or webapp) RSS reader.

Works great for me on Linux. OS X users will need to grab a dev channel build for extensions support; the usual disclaimers about unreleased code apply. The recent Mac Chrome release doesn't have extensions turned on yet.