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Looking At Google's Flashified Chrome

An anonymous reader writes "Google quietly released a new beta version of its Chrome browser, which not only blows its rivals out of the water as far as performance is concerned, but comes with half a dozen new features, including direct integration of Adobe Flash. First benchmarks show that the new beta is about 10% faster than the previous beta in the SunSpider and V8 benchmark, and about 30% faster than Chrome 4, which remains the fastest JavaScript browser available today."

16 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. OMG! Including direct integration of Adobe Flash!! by Bearhouse · · Score: 4, Funny

    When will it be available for my iPhone & iPad?

  2. But Father Steve says no Flash by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it a sin if I download this? I mean a lot of Catholics use birth control, right? So will I be excommunicated from the Apple store for this? Will I be forced to commune with infidel Windows users? I'm conflicted here.

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    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. Re:Thanks Google! by D+Ninja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmmm...I think saying that Flash is "about to die" and that "nobody uses Flash for anything serious" is...well...wrong.

    As it stands now, Flash is, by far, the most popular and ubiquitous plug-in in use on the internet. It is used in many different places and can be relied on more than trying to rely on the fact that users will have new, up-to-date browsers. Yes, Apple won't be supporting Flash, and, yes, I hope HTML5 replaces a great deal of Flash (as I can't stand plug-ins). But, in no way is Flash going the way of the dodo anytime soon. Heck, even to get everybody to switch to HTML5 is going to take at least a few years, and probably more.

  4. Re:Thanks Google! by V!NCENT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If YouTube would switch perma to HTML5 vid, the very second about 60% of the world is going to want to have it running.

    It is not new: YouTube already stopped supporting IE6 and it is... not working anymore =D

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    Here be signatures
  5. Re:I could really use proper CSS3 multicolumn supp by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 4, Funny

    So much flakiness in the WebKit support of CSS multi-column layout... don't even know where to begin. Firefox is much farther ahead in this case.

    Eventually DIVs are going to have to go away completely, so that all HTML is semantic.

    Silence! Real web users spend all day continually refreshing the ACID3 test. Nothing else matters.

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  6. Still has the same old problems by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it, but it looks like it still suffers from all of the "problems" (ie things i don't like) that i've complained about before.

    In particular, it's still lacking a lot of options that i think ought to be available, like making new tabs open at the end of the list, having a minimum size that tabs can shrink to and a scrollable tab bar, having a drop-down list of all open tabs, and the ability to move the tab bar below the rest of the toolbars. Which is mostly just a list of all the fixes that the Firefox browser has already introduced. There's no shame in benefiting from the experience of those who have come before if you're unable to think of a way to improve the interface yourself.

    Obviously not everyone wants those features, which is why the should be options and not defaults, but i think enough people do that it _is_ worth making them options. Unfortunately Google's view towards user customability remains... unencouraging at best. (Or, IMHO, "stupidly wrong.") Luckily _some_ of those changes can be implemented by extensions, but not all of them.

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  7. Re:Can it display PDFs? by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    PDFs displayed inside the browser window is a bug more than a feature. Almost 100% of the time, this causes problems, of all kinds. Whenever I install a browser, or get a new company computer/laptop, I disable PDF display in the browser window.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  8. Re:What about for us normal folks? by armanox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Javascript is used for normal browsing. Websites that regular uses visit (Facebook, Google, etc) are full of it.

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    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  9. Well by kenp2002 · · Score: 4, Funny

    DO NOT WANT. I don't need any more proprietary crap rolled into a browser. Lean, mean, and a solid plug in architecture. Great now how the fuck am I supposed to block all those fucking retarded flash ads with the damn flash engine embedded... grr.... on the other hand:

    I for one welcome out cowboyNeal worshipping Dancing Baby overlords but question their ability to run Earth better then a borg augmented Bill Gates. WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong besides Steve Ballmer throwing a chair and breaking the series of tubes we call the Internet. The only thing worse then a suddenOutbreakOfCommonSense coupled with the release of Duke Nukem Forver is the return of Charlie the Unicorn during a Chocolate Rain. In Soviet Russia Snakes on a plane get You but under the new rulership we are as screwed as the Star Wars Kid getting the hookup with a Wii Fit Girl. If you don't think things can get worse, I am fine with that, OK Go, but all your bases are belong to us then. See if I care. But when Dear Leader forces you to do the Hampster Dance in front of the Saugeen Stripper after the JK Wedding Entrance Dance you will beg to be thrown in with those Snakes on a Plane flying to the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny! I know that CorrelationNoCausation may apply here but I am certain that the new overlords computer will be superior to our current technology, but does it run Linux and can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of their computers! My Epeen is huge thinking about it to the point of a joygasm! Perhaps with their technology we could getyourasstomars in the time it takes to watch the Last Lecture! Imagine the number of Libraries of Congress we could store using their technology! Mod me Troll? How dare you you insensitive clod! Now to distract you while I steal the Netcraft report confirming Gentoo
    Linux is dying. LOOK OVER THERE! OMG!!! PONIES!!

    (Did I miss anything there?)

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    -=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
    1. Re:Well by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Funny

      Meme overload Captain!! She'll fly apart!

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      May the Maths Be with you!
  10. Re:Can it run adblock, flashblock and noscript? by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Informative

    The next version of Firefox with have plugins in a seperate process. The rest of the project is still going to take some more time.

    https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

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    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  11. Re:Can it run adblock, flashblock and noscript? by darrylo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chrome's adblock is nowhere near as good as firefox's, because chrome's is really an ad hider, and not an ad blocker. Chrome still downloads all of the ads, with all of the assorted performance and privacy issues.

    Yes, yes, I know that people have been saying that this will be fixed someday, but I'll believe that when I see it. Google has a lot of incentive to disallow this and other features.

    And, as others have said, lack of noscript is a deal breaker.

  12. Re:Can it run adblock, flashblock and noscript? by pitdingo · · Score: 4, Informative

    problem is Adblock on Chrome does not block ads, it only hides them. All the ads still get loaded and all their tracking scripts still track you and run in the background.

  13. Re:Thanks Google! by __aapspi39 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you think that Flash is dead or about to die then maybe you need to have a look around... ...for example the websites that won each category in the webby awards (announced yesterday http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php) are almost all made entirely in flash. The same goes for the peoples award for each category.

    For anyone in the real world it looks very much like Flash is going from strength to strength, both in terms of what it is capable of and usage.

  14. Story and article is bogus: Opera excluded by hkmwbz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google quietly released a new beta version of its Chrome browser, which not only blows its rivals out of the water as far as performance is concerned

    Yeah, if you leave out Opera. However, if you do include Opera in the test it beats even Chrome 5.

    First benchmarks show that the new beta is about 10% faster than the previous beta in the SunSpider and V8 benchmark, and about 30% faster than Chrome 4, which remains the fastest Javascript browser available today.

    No, again, that is Opera.

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  15. Re:Its just not the fastest browser... by hkmwbz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Opera has historically been very fast at HTML parsing and DOM manipulation - while lagging behind the leaders at JS interpreting speed.

    No, that is completely wrong. Opera was the fastest browser by far until some time after 9.5 was released. After that, Apple introduced their new JS engine. For a year or so Opera was no longer the fastest. Now Opera is the fastest at JS again.

    So Opera has traditionally been the fastest, and now is the fastest again.

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