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Chrome 24 Released, Chrome Beta Channel For Android Added
An anonymous reader writes "Google has released Chrome version 24 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can update to the latest release now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. The biggest improvement on the user side of things is the speed increase. Google's own Octane JavaScript test shows that this is the fastest Chrome release yet. When the beta came out in November, the company was touting that Chrome had become 26 percent faster on Octane than it was last year. Now it's even faster. Google also announced it is introducing a new Chrome beta channel for phones and tablets running Android 4.0 or higher. You can download version 25.0.1364.8 right now directly from Google Play (since this is a beta, it's not available via search; you'll need to use the link). The release of version 25 is significant because it means Google is attempting to bring Chrome for Android in line with the desktop version. The current release of Chrome for Android is version 18, last updated in November."
I am posting with from:
Google Chrome 25.0.1364.5 (Official Build 174090) dev
OS Linux
WebKit 537.22 (@138211)
JavaScript V8 3.15.11.2
With silent update the meaning of these announcements is that it is time to check Can I Use? to see if any more css3 elements are now in widespread use so you can use them in web development.
Work bio at MMWD
For those of you who for whom English is not your native language the word "can" does not mean "will." It just means that it is possible. Also, for those of us who use linux and relay on package management systems you should consult your distribution's documentation to see how to update your system.
Managing memory better so I don't have to keep shutting down web browsers every day or two. Most power users have many windows and many tabs up, and some are relevant for weeks, but most are unused and could be backgrounded much more effectively in terms of processor and memory use. Hint: Replace with a URL and a snapshot image updated infrequently.
Also, speaking of tabs. If I use them, I can't easily see visually which pages I have up, in the overview of windows display modes that most OSs offer. There is a usability disconnect here.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
By your logic, Chrome should've been mentioned by Slashdot only once, during it's initial release, since it includes a silent updater from day 1.
Between mobile Firefox being a thing again and Chrome being improved we can finally see some competition for Opera Mobile on Android :)
The state of the Android browser is fairly pathetic, so this is really quite important.
Right now the only reason for chromebooks to exist is that Chrome on Android is meh at best. When this changes they can stop deploying ChromeOS. Hopefully they will offer some kind of upgrade path to Android on Chromebooks, so that the community doesn't have to fumble its way through :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I still think it's really neat that I can click install in the Play Store on my PC and watch it start downloading on my phone...
You don't. You can force the update. Otherwise it will update with it's next scheduled check.
And people get irrationally upset about Firefox's release schedule?
what a fucking awesome idea.
I've noticed that for large SVG files where much of the content has display='none' (so it is only displayed when something is clicked to trigger a change in the display property) Chrome seems to take several seconds to become responsive after the SVG page load is initiated, while other browsers seem to handle it almost instantly. Since a display value of none "indicates that the given element and its children shall not be rendered directly (i.e., those elements are not present in the rendering tree)" it seems Chrome shouldn't be spending so much time processing such stuff. Version 24 doesn't seem to fix that issue.
I'll wait for Chrome 31.1 for Workgroups. Hurr durr.
Chrome's functionality sounds great, but I do not like its attitude: it establishes numerous connections "on the side" talking back to Google central all the time, almost constantly transmitting all sorts of information: Google intercepts and highjacks most of the traffic when someone uses Chrome, that much is obvious.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
My understanding is that the silent update mechanism checks in with the mothership periodically, either as-scheduled or with some consideration for system load/onbattery vs. on AC/etc. The Chrome release team has their own schedule that the update mechanism has no knowledge of.
So, if your silent update mechanism is active, you will automatically receive the newest release; but only when the updater next phones home. Depending on when it last phoned home and when the release occurs, this might be a matter of several days. If you force a check it should happen about as fast as bandwidth allows.
Worth noting that this release 100% breaks monitor color profile support, which sucks if you're someone that cares about photos. It's incredible that this is not a more important to the Chrome developers, but maybe most people don't care about quality. Just speed.
Before this release, you had to use the --enable-monitor-profile command-line switch to enable monitor profile support. It wasn't perfect but it worked most of the time. Now this does nothing. Lame.
What are you doing that you need a tab open for weeks? During a session I'll have some tabs open and when I'm finished close the browser. What are these people doing with 100 tabs open at a time?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If it's a silent updater, why do we need press releases for new versions?
Perhaps the press release is intended for web developers, to let them know that they can design web applications around the new features.
I'm not sure how it can be tiring... there's nothing you have to do on your end. The updates automatically happen.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
If you are asking a rhetorical question that is the exact opposite of "just asking." Also, not everyone has Chrome installed and using it regularly, as well as paying attention to when updates occur, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to know what is going on in the industry. Maybe I share a computer login and somebody else was using it when it updated. I could then decide to see if it already updated on its own, and force the update if it didn't.. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons. Finally, your assumption that there was a time when Slashdot didn't consider new releases of products a large portion of their readership use as news is totally off base.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Even if an undisplayed element is not in the rendering tree, it's still in the DOM.
I have the same feeling about computers. Why can't technology just stop getting better? Why do people always have to improve things?!
My logic is that only things that are actually interesting should be reported on.
Both you and I know this is extremely subjective.
It's a major release and as such it should be reported. Firefox also has a similar release schedule and it gets reported as much on Slashdot. I do find this new kind of release schedule (both on Chrome and Firefox) completely idiotic, but that's a whole different issue.
With these kind of release numbers, 100 is a more appropriate major release.
What I want is for them to fix Crome's broken printing. I've had no end of problems printing from within Chrome. I realize it works for many people but not for us. Their default print preview will not print multiple copies, ignores color settings, sometimes ignores duplex settings, and has other problems besides. I've had problems and so has at least one other person in our company. We have to use the system dialog each time we print. I've sent in some problem reports but nothing has seemed to update in the last 6 months.
Chrome 24 breaks the use of animations in GWT 2.4 compiled code. If Google truly backs both of these products, they'll hopefully issue a Chrome patch ASAP. For more information see http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=158910
system load/onbattery vs. on AC/etc.
Huh?
*sigh*
If the system load is high, they don't want to suck the CPU down any more (the update is a big CPU hog)
If the system is on a battery, they don't want to risk the update being aborted during an update if the battery dies.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
They've got opus audio for their remote desktop feature and WebRTC last I heard, but they STILL haven't added support for it in plain old tags...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Teach me to blindly click "post" - that's "Opus in support", for "plain old " (html5) tags.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
when are they going to create a secure password generator? Lastpass is great but it would be so much smoother cross device if Chrome handled it all.
It's incredible that this is not a more important to the Chrome developers,
No its not, because,
most people don't care about [color profiles].
(FTFY)
I dont know of anyone (outside of IT colleagues) who would even know what a color profile is. I dont know that Ive ever used one, or that I care to.
Firefox crashes way too often for my taste, but since about version 13 it's gotten a lot better on memory use. I haven't used Chrome in a while, just tried it and found that yeah, it's really really fast. It used to be a real memory hog, and I won't be able to tell if that's still true unless I load it up with a lot of tabs. (And unfortunately, since I'm stuck running 32-bit Win7, I can't just throw enough virtual or real memory onto the laptop to handle memory bloat, and modern browsers don't seem to like waiting for Win7 paging anyway.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks