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Shuttleworth: Chrome Nearly Replaced FF In Ubuntu
jbrodkin writes "Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is a big fan of Google Chrome, and says the browser could replace the standard Firefox in future versions of Ubuntu Linux. 'We looked at it closely in the last cycle and the decision was to stick with Firefox,' he says. But the work that Google is doing with Chrome OS — essentially the Chrome browser on top of Linux — is potentially leading to a future in which 'Chrome on Ubuntu and Chrome on Linux is a better experience than Chrome on any other platform [i.e. Windows and Mac].' In a wide-ranging interview, Shuttleworth also discussed why he spent $20 million to become a space tourist but doesn't own a smartphone, controversies over Linux and Unity, the future of Ubuntu tablets, and says the move toward putting personal data in the cloud is 'a little scary.'"
Does Chrome have a flexible JavaScript blocker like NoScript yet?
I have to admit, I've forgotten about Firefox since using Chrome on Ubuntu...
Reasons being the one process per tab feature as well as speed and stability.
Puppy Linux has the non-google Chromium as its standard browser, and it works well for that compact distribution, but I do miss all the Firefox addons. Like Youtube downloaders, Flash video downloaders, NoScript, CW's video plugin to watch free shows, and so on.
I'd sooner that Ubuntu stick with Firefox.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If he likes Chrome so much, why not invest in developing FOSS browser based on Chromium?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Is it wise to run a browser (and when Chrome OS comes out, a full fledged operating system) pushed by the biggest advertising, tracking, and marketing company on the web? Wouldn't it be better to use something that does not have a vested interest in tracking everything you do online? Or is the source for this browser fully open so any nasty evil bits would be spotted by vigilant hackers and purged immediately?
This space unintentionally left blank.
Why contemplate Google Chrome? Dump the Google branding and install Chromium instead. Still, Firefox has vastly more plug-ins which make browsing more bearable, which is why it has a bigger following. If only they could stop some of the plug-ins from being so damn slow.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Epiphany. The world's most useless browser. Basically, it was Galeon with all its features removed, and then replaced with a silly tag-based bookmarking system that is so unintuitive to use that no-one would ever bother with it.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
On whether Chrome will replace Firefox in Ubuntu: Not in the next year, at least.
On companies wanting to own your personal data: It is a little scary.
On Unity vs. Gnome 3: Clearly, some people like Unity and some really don't.
On whether Canonical doesn't contribute enough to the kernel: That's not true.
On why he doesn't own a smartphone: Because he hasn't bought one. Yet.
On why there's no Ubuntu tablet: Unity doesn't really work as a tablet interface.
On getting everyone to use free software: It will be difficult and will take a long time.
Well, I certainly feel better informed!
Breakfast served all day!
Sorry, I thought chromium == linux build of chrome? If not, excuse my ignorance!
Anyways, I concur wholeheartedly with the above post, to extremes even. There are countless Linux distros that differ from their parents solely by the default included software, all of which is easily grabbed via the package manager. It's certainly handy to have it preassembled, if the given package list is what you want, but otherwise it seems like a lot of unnecessary clutter.
Why GIMP being included or not in the default Ubuntu install was news at all, for example. Who cares? If it fits, great, if not just grab it after install if you need it.
Software installed by default is a major deal with an OS such as windows, that comes preinstalled on regular systems. Ubuntu doesn't. Sure, there's some niche manufacturers that sell pre-installed Ubuntu systems (and the odd rarely purchased Dell model, now and then), but the *vast* majority of commercial desktop/laptop systems are windows based - obviously excluding Apple.
These users - buying pre-built systems from bigbox retailers - they often have no idea of their options in browsers and other software, so the default install has significant value.
Users installing Ubuntu on end-user systems however are by nature at least sufficiently literate with the system to be aware of their options and to pick the packages they want.
So, yeah... who cares? Why is this even news?
All that said... Chrome on Linux is a much better experience than FF, or at least it was for me a few builds ago, haven't installed the 11.xx ubuntu builds or the later FF/Chrome builds.
Meh.
The Cloud is closed. Even more closed than all IBM's, Microsoft and Apples of this world ever have been. Does Mark realise that he makes his entire Ubuntu project obsolete by trusting The Cloud? We can just stick with the pre-installed Windows or OSX, if all our stuff is in that fucking Cloud. Actually would be more secure than using Googlezillas Spyware...
Not to use Ubuntu and to stick with Linux Mint. Why is Ubuntu so prone to horrible choices like this?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The choice of a default browser for a distro that caters toward less-experienced users (like Ubuntu) is very important. Frankly, most users probably won't change away from whatever the OS came with.
It's a similar situation for the other Window Managers. Why require a user to install and configure major interface-changing software like that, when you're marketing your OS as dead-simple to use?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
While I appreciate the enormous strides Google and their Chrome team have achieved, the Chrome browser does not cut it in my case because: -
1: It still *is* an unfinished product...(read, "lacks print preview"). I understand this issue is now being addressed as of Chrome 13.0.782.1 Beta.
2: I find its interface weird...(consider what happens to the interface once extensions are installed).
Question: Is it just me?
Shuttleworth should much more rely on what users want, instead of making decisions for users.
Canonical can tell what users want based on usage statistics. Once close to 30-50% of users post-install Chrome or Unity, with a growing trend, then consider making these things the default. Until then, keep the old, tried and true the default.
Take the gecko or webkit source, make your own shell, call it UNity Internet eXplorer (UNIX), bundle it up for only using with Ubuntu/Unity and leave the real browsers for the grown ups.
oh for mod points... this is exactly why it matters and why parent post is completely missing the point.
Well why not make the ubuntu installer ask whether you'd like kde or gnome or xfce instead of managing 8 *buntus...? Seems so terribly redundant.
If you're catering to folk that are too derp to apt-get install firefox, they could install 5 browsers by default and pop up a pretty window asking them which they'd like to try, in the age of terabyte HDDs.
Sent from my PDP-11
Even if this happens, which I think it might, I am still going to use Firefox. Firefox 4 is awesome, and I do like Chorme, but then again I also like Opera since version 10 and I still use Firefox as it just works for me.
If I skip your derp comment, I've always said I've gotta be the central midline Linux target. I need a little help, but I'm no turbo-newbie either.
Firefox was my learning gateway to ditch IE. Cue the extensions. So I don't have mutch patience for the new fad of "OMG Chrome is 6% faster". Anyone that fickle is in trouble in other areas.
To get a Linux distro going, SOMETHING has to be stable. I'm already wrestling over the desktop environment question. KDE isn't perfect. I'm just about to try XKCE or LX-something etc. I need the browser to stay put in all of this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Chromium is the open-source version of Chrome. I don't know what exactly is different, except Chromium doesn't have Google's tracking code in it.
So?
I thought we already had a CD and DVD release: Give out one stripped-down CD ISO with one WM etc, and release a DVD with all of them and an installer that lets you choose(with pictures).
Doesn't have adobe flash or pdf iirc.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I like chrome a little better... also a fan of "always up to date" as the default to avoid a 6+ year old browser being an option too.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Can be added no problem
Actually, Ubuntu has a very easy little store interface that anyone can install browsers from.
But the point is that you're trying to bring in users who are barely aware that there are keys to the left and right of the spacebar. "Oh look, would you like KDE or Gnome or XFCE or Afterstep or Sawfish or Blackbox or CDE or..." Most of those the average person can't pronounce, let alone remember the name of or have any clue about. And quite frankly, the only difference I can tell between KDE and Gnome is that they massively screw up the simplest of tasks in slightly different ways.
I couldn't tell you if my car had electronic or mechanical fuel injection. I bet my mechanic couldn't off the top of his head tell the difference between Firefox and Chrome. While I'm mildly curious about fuel injection, I haven't looked it up. And my mechanic hasn't been bothered to find out about the different browsers. And you know what? He shouldn't have to. It's a browser. It's a piece of software fundamentally there to get out of the damned way so that browsing can happen. Anyone who *really* needs the particular type of ad-block available on Firefox above the ad-block available on Chrome can install firefox. They didn't ask me when I bought my car to set my suspension stiffness, tune the relative braking force, adjust shift timings, and configure an optional NOX system.
It's just a means to an end. Ubuntu gets that. That's why they're currently #1. That's why people are buying iPads. It's not that they're dumb. It's that what matters to us doesn't matter to them. And when it does start mattering to them, they can figure out how to do it.
The ______ Agenda
Chrome's interface and stability are what eventually won me over. It really does simplify the browser interface down to what is needed.
The ______ Agenda
Being 6 years out of date has never been a problem for a browser on an up to date version of Ubuntu,
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson
The URL bar doesn't do tab-completion. It was reported as a wishlist bug to replace the non-useful "tab to search" feature and after a very long discussion got marked as "WONTFIX" because "the tab key is already overloaded". Yeah, thanks to you you fuckers. You have to take your fingers off the home keys and use the down arrow. Very frustrating, and I'm so used to hitting tab to go to URLs I forget, so the browser is unusable to me. You can't even configure it. there's no "keyboard shortcuts" panel. Until I can use tab completion, the browser is utterly uninteresting to me.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Mark,
Can you alienate people any faster?
Why not join Oracle while you are at it.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
It's still important for the distro to fit on a single CD.
Why?
Up the space to a single layer dvd like the fedora dvd releases, and you can fit pretty much all the software you will ever need on it. All the common window managers, compilers, ides, games, etc.
I never understood why people think that the software for their entire system has to come in at under 600mb, in 2011.
This fixes those people that are like 'I'm not going to use k*whatever because it needs me to download QT, because it is already on the system. (not to mention they fail to realize they only have to download it once then they can access all of the qt apps without downloading it again).
Should minimalist cut down versions of distros still exist? of course, and they will serve their niches. But there is no reason that this should be the default for everyone.
According to this article the Mozilla foundation started being funded by Google in 2004. Firefox was originally started while it was still in AOL back in 2002 so at most it could have only been funded by Google for at most 9 years :-). Google provide 86% of Mozilla's funding back in 2009 but those are the latest results I could find.
Wouldn't they have to switch to Chromium?
This is the case with Lubuntu (version of Ubuntu using LXDE instead of Gnome/KDE/others). It uses Chromium as its default browser, although others can be installed.
Lubuntu is not yet an "official" version of Ubuntu, but is expected to become one with the release of 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
This really is bad news, Chrome is a dreadful browser with its missing menus and propensity for phoning home every few minutes. The experience of trying Chrome on Windows, where it secretly installed two services to keep itself updated, and a hidden scheduled task to reinstall the services, has convinced me that no free software project should have any kind of association with Google whatever.
What do you mean by the distro? When I install *BSD, I usually use the boot-only ISO, which is typically about 5MB. The base system is usually about 300MB, maybe less depending on the particular configuration (OpenBSD on CF in my firewall is a lot smaller), and then there are packages. The available packages are several GBs (not sure how many), but I don't want them on the install media, because there are probably new versions available fixing security holes since the ISO was made (last Chromium vulnerability: two published on June 7), so I want to grab packages over the network anyway. If anything, I'd rather have a version-independent boot CD that would always grab and install the latest version. It just needs to ship with enough drivers to be able to control the network, display and input devices.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You can embed evince (and presumably okular or whatever), which loads slightly more slowly and doesn't capture the Ctrl+F and Ctrl+P hotkeys (those will be picked up by the browser and not work), but has a few more features than the non-free PDF viewer by Google Chrome.
I've also had trouble getting the Chrome viewer to work consistently in Chromium. It repeatedly crashed or failed to load, requiring a browser restart. This could be related to version discrepancies, though, as I used the .so from Chrome 13 (dev) with Chromium 11 (stable).
The statement that "The chrome experience on Linux is better than the Chrome experience on any other platform" does not imply that "The Chrome experience on Linux is better than the Firefox experience on Linux."
'Chrome on Ubuntu and Chrome on Linux is a better experience than Chrome on any other platform [i.e. Windows and Mac].' he almost acts like Ubuntu is something other than Yet another Linux distro. with that statement.
Thats the reason not to adopt chrome and stick with a non spying fox. Apart from that and the lack of the FF extensions we learned to love, i actually like chrome.
Sig? Heil
'Chrome on Ubuntu and Chrome on Linux is a better experience than Chrome on any other platform??
Won't happen until fonts on free operating systems get better. I am writing this on a Ubuntu VMWare image running on a mac and, on the mac the text just looks prettier.
-- The Grand Teddy Bear has Spoken: "Windows 8 Source Code Available NOW! more disgusting than your pr..."
Facebook is actually losing customers in North America and Europe.
Why not keep them both?
Sorry, I thought chromium == linux build of chrome? If not, excuse my ignorance!
Nope. Chromium == open source version of Chrome; Chrome is a binary version of Chromium with proprietary bits attached (like internally provided Flash and PDF codecs). Both Chromium and Chrome are available on all three platforms.
I am not devoid of humor.
I say codecs, I mean plugins. My bad.
I am not devoid of humor.
Everytime I use Chrome (or indeed have an article comparing Firefox to Chrome anymore) I learn to abhor it that little bit more.
If chrome were a car it would 'upgraded' to a different model every six months, while they slowly pulled out your manual transmission for an automatic, accelerator for cruise control, steering wheel for google maps integration, brakes for collision detection, windshield for a blank screen, all while for some godawful reason telling you how good you have it why would you need any of those to drive.
I liked chrome as a concept originally, but for the love of god enough already. I'll stay with Firefox thank you very much.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Just because Shuttleworth's decisions sometimes agree accidentally with some statistics doesn't mean he picks by statistics.
"Better" for who and according to what criteria? Many users want something that just works, not something with more features.
In my opinion too. But opinions shouldn't count much, actual usage, feedback, and user needs should. I don't know what the effect is of switching a large user base from Firefox to Chrome by default. Are there common extensions a lot of people use that don't exist for Chrome? Are there usability problems that you and I don't know about yet?
Shuttleworth should look at usage and ask its users instead of deciding ex cathedra like he's the Pope. And he should justify and communicate clearly what user needs major changes address.
Possibly because putting all the desktop environments on one CD would take up too much space. The WUBI installer (that installs Ubuntu with its boot partition in a file on an NTFS partition that can be installed and removed from Windows with Add/Remove programs [note, its still a dual boot, not a "runs under Windows" system like, e.g., Portable Ubuntu]), which grabs packages from the internet to install, does ask what desktop environment you want, while the normal CD-based installers don't.
What de Hell does it matter what default? I Chromie, you Foxy, WTF? Waste of bandwidth.
Linux is only my operating systems. (Made you read it twice huh?)