Slashdot Mirror
Google Releases Chrome For Android Beta
An anonymous reader writes "Today Google announced the availability of a beta version of its Chrome browser for Android. Unfortunately, it's limited to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) devices. Google is trying to keep Chrome fast and easy to use, and part of that involved redesigning tabs so they work more naturally with touchscreens. 'You can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you're holding a deck of cards in the palm of your hands, each one a new window to the web.' They've also including synchronization functionality that allows you to move from desktop browsing to phone or tablet browsing and pick up right where you left off."
Needs flash and desktop mode.
Didn't Android *always* have Chrome?
When Google first announced Android, they stated it's web browser was based on WebKit with the V8 JavaScript engine, just like Chrome on the Desktop.
Thirty four characters live here.
Android users who are able to run Chrome Beta (that is, who are running ICS) are literally the 1%, according to Google's platform pie charts:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
I prefer that they exploit the full power of their latest and greatest, but it's sad that only a mere 1% can access the latest and greatest :( (as of today, I'm sure this will change very quickly)
Google should stop putting "beta" to their products, it's like we're going to see a 'final' version in the future.
Chrome is based on the open source projects WebKit, but I can not see any source code released yet, just a vague promise of "upstreaming" changes to WebKit, no promise of release the code. Sorry, that is not good enough.
Unfortunately violating the license of WebKit seems be becoming a trend. Apple has not yet managed to release their WebKit changes for iOS, but in fact just released the binaries in their so-called source-code, see: Apple's binary WebCore source-code.
Is the LGPL really this weak, or has the big companies just stopped caring about legality?
They're not looking at who can run it today, but who will be able to run it in the future.
On a side note, I think it's a good thing that the app is not part of the core OS, (like Gmail was removed from the core OS a few versions ago) and can as such be updated separately.
I won't install any beta software on my phone if I have a choice. I try to avoid unstable and poorly functional software in general. And if they feel their software is stable and functional, they shouldn't call it beta.
'You can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you're holding a deck of cards in the palm of your hands, each one a new window to the web.'
Pretentious bullshit advertising.
Now implement synergy, native cards for multitasking, unobtrusive notifications, and a gesture area with intuitive, consistent gestures throughout the OS and all applications.
I've put this on my Galaxy Tab 10.1, which I recently updated to a developer release of CyanogenMod9 (The forthcoming ICS based Cyanogen). It really is nice. I can load up the full desktop version of Google+, which only sorta-kinda worked under the standard ICS browsers, and sorta-kinda worked differently under Firefox mobile, and it works 100%, no compromises. And doesn't feel much slower than my desktop either. That's great! The only annoyance is that it does seem to identify itself as a mobile browser, and I haven't yet found an option to change the user agent. No problem for sites like Wikipedia or G+ that give you a link to escape their mobile versions, but could be annoying elsewhere, since so many mobile sites are terrible. Surprising overside, since the stock browser in ICS includes an option to "request desktop site".
If it's not an official ROM, don't expect support. Running EncounterICS Beta 3 on a Droid X here. And like other users of unofficial ICS ROMs, it doesn't work. For me, the problem is that all web pages are blank. Being that us bleeding edge custom ROM users are used to being bug testers, this is good for the beta and hopefully will be fixed soon.
I8-D
Works perfectly on my Nexus S with ICS. Some people are complaining that Flash is not supported, but I could watch Vimeo videos just fine. Even has an incognito mode ;-)
Feels very snappy - but I'm used to the built-in browser, so can't compare it with Opera or Dolphin or the others.
My phone is still stuck on android 2.3 -.-
4 is god knows how far away.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Firefox has been doing this for a while. It is one of the primary reasons I use it since there is great synchronization of bookmarks along with it being a great mobile browser. I'm surprised it has taken chrome this long to do it and I'm also surprised it is only good for the newest version of android. I'll stick with Firefox mobile for now until the chrome works in 2.2 or 2.3.
Old format easier to browse and decide.
Who was the moron who decided to region lock a web browser? Jesus H. Christ, Google's stupidity never ceases to amaze me, in a very bad way.
Tax those 1%-ers. Make 'em send in 30% of the bits.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you want to try that, be aware that it doesn't support HTTP proxying. Kind of an epic fail on Google's behalf, given that they have just added system-wide proxy setting in ICS after several years of users complaining about the lack of this.
So are all the people who trashed Apple for making Siri exclusive to the iPhone 4S going to trash Google for making Chrome exclusive to ICS devices? Recall that ICS is currently only on 1% of Android devices.
It'll actually be a bit of interesting news when it's available for the majority of android users (those who are not using 4.0). As it stand now, it's just a technology preview with limited appeal for a pretty limited selection of users. Hopefully Google intends to backport this to older android versions, so those of us stupid enough to participate in the extended Android Beta with perfectly fine hardware such as the original Galaxy Tab that won't be receiving an update to 4.0 can use it as well. Provided, of course, that carriers such as Sprint don't see fit to block it from the Android Marketplace (as Sprint currently does with the Bing app, for some reason).
I was amazed that when my beefy server was struggling this much to show the YouTube preview windows that the tablet had done so well.
It could be the case that the server didn't have a video card supporting AVC and thus had to decode AVC on a CPU core, while the DSP in the tablet supported AVC.
Most people will be able to run it within 2 years.
Only if carriers were to stop selling Gingerbread (2.3) phones today. Otherwise, someone who buys a Gingerbread phone two weeks from today will still be under contract two years from today. Do you remember how long it took after the release of Eclair (2.1) it took for carriers to stop selling phones running Donut (1.6)?
Vimeo videos also eat into your monthly data cap ten times faster than Flash vector animations. Compare the byte size of Weebl and Bob in SWF format on Weebl's web site to the byte size of Weebl and Bob in AVC or VP8 on YouTube.
One of the huge advantages to Firefox Sync, and especially the killer feature Firefox Mobile has, is that Mozilla has zero-knowledge of the data stored in your sync; they have no ability to decrypt your data and read it, the keys are all client-side.
Last I checked, Google Chrome merely stored sync data in a hidden Google Docs spreadsheet; over the wire between the server and browser is just an SSL connection, but any Google employee would have the ability to read the data stored there.
Too bad it requires OS 4. :-(
I would like to use chrome on my Kindle Fire. Lots of sites are broke in Silk. Speaking of broken sites, what are you supposed to do with a touchscreen when a website wants to use mousover to bring up a drop down box? Hmm...
When the websites I routinely visit stop posting content in Flash, I won't want it on my mobile devices anymore.
Which should be shortly since Chrome on Android will not support Flash either.
With no mobile platform supporting Flash it makes a ton more sense to simply drop Flash everywhere and focus on HTML5 support, even for desktop use.
As it is there is pretty much nothing I have missed Flash for on an iPad. And I've greatly enjoyed the far longer battery life I get as a result.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
is it going to give proper mobile browser support ??
It's crap. Well on my ICS tablet at least. The performance compared to the built it browser is crap, the no desktop mode makes it even more so. I will be sticking to the built in one until Chrome makes some SERIOUS headway.