Google Chrome -- key reasons for its debut

[app103]

Check out the Chrome beta if you get a chance -- it's definitely stripped-down: no status bar, no menu bar, and only a single toolbar (for bookmarks). Chrome is minimalist in the extreme.

-zridling (September 04, 2008, 03:58 AM)

I can't. My OS is not supported and will never be supported.

Which OS is that? They've already announced that they will release Linux and OSX versions after the Windows version is beta tested.

-zridling (September 04, 2008, 03:58 AM)

Windows ME

app103: as a user of old&slow machines, you should've appreciated MSJVM... it performs helluvalot better than sun's crap. The fact that MS did some somewhat dirty practices with it of course is bad, but the whole lawsuit thing sucks because in the end we're stuck with a single sub-par JVM.

-f0dder (September 04, 2008, 04:31 AM)

I agree, but thanks to dirty practices, we no longer have the option of using it, do we?

10x faster than the JS engine currently in FireFox, and open-source?

-f0dder (September 04, 2008, 04:31 AM)

As far as open source goes, Firefox will win here...and I think that is the real intention and why Mozilla isn't very nervous about it.

Squash IE and any browser that depends on it's engine like Maxthon and AOL's browser, squash Opera, squash anything closed source. Kill any chances of anyone ever developing a browser and profiting from their hard work, unless they have google's permission to do so, which can only be done if you support their search engine and whatever else they tell you. How else is an open source browser going to make a dime for its developer unless Google is the default search engine?

I believe mouser could be partially right. It's a bullying tactic. But Mozilla and Opera aren't the only targets...all browsers are.

They're actually hoping other browsers will implement their javascript improvements to create a more equal level playing field, and provide the support to do so.

-justice (September 04, 2008, 05:04 AM)

Can't do that unless your browser is open source.

Google's goal is all browsers to be open source and sporting Google as the default search engine, and developers will play their game or starve.

So this should be all good.

-justice (September 04, 2008, 05:04 AM)

Good for Google.

[justice]

from: http://www.alleyinsi...rence-goog-?src=buzz

Q: Would you consider it a success if IE9 was built on Chrome?

A: Sergey: We would consider that a success, and even if IE9 was much better, we would consider that a success. Our business is Web usage, and that's why we work hard on making sure people can access the Internet on cell phones, that's why we bid on the wireless spectrum. Any improvement to any set of browsers is good for Google.

[Mark0]

A negative take on Chrome from OSNews.  Not saying i agree with all of it, but i think it's worth sharing:

-mouser (September 03, 2008, 02:37 PM)

Indeed, near all the comments agree that's one of the worst article OS news has ever published: highly biased, inaccurate, presenting personal conjecture as facts, etc.
Maybe is a sign of the MS damage control team/army in action? 

[f0dder]

app103: as a user of old&slow machines, you should've appreciated MSJVM... it performs helluvalot better than sun's crap. The fact that MS did some somewhat dirty practices with it of course is bad, but the whole lawsuit thing sucks because in the end we're stuck with a single sub-par JVM.

-f0dder (September 04, 2008, 04:31 AM)

I agree, but thanks to dirty practices, we no longer have the option of using it, do we?

-app103 (September 04, 2008, 05:44 AM)

I wonder just how dirty MS's practices wrt. the JVM was, though, and how much Sun wanted to shut MSJVM down because it made them look like silly snails. If the whole complaint was about "extensions", keep JNI in mind. (But yeah, provide anyting substantial through JNI, and that would be bullying from MS...)

[kartal]

zridling and mwang

While I have posted rather these long terms worries under Chrome topic, I am not that worried about chrome itself that much in short terms. It is more of a product and it is rather a solid structure where I can distinguish it and leave it out if I do not want to, at least for now. On the other hand Google`s other services have softer lines you do not know where one is ending another is starting. And that is how google data mines and connects the dots. That is where many people do not understand how these gray  lines can be invasion of your privacy. Google tries extra hard to blend these borders and promote it as convenience to end user. But never ever forget that no for profit entity is interested in your convenience only. They want something back in return, something that is more than they spend (naturally), which is called profit.

I do not use any google service or tool , so it is easy for me to complain and pinpoint. I have made this desicion and it is my desicion. But the problem is that that sticky slug never leaves me around pages. Where ever I go there is google adsense, when I look for a house or apartment, all linked to google maps. ANyways sure I am blocking all adsense , and never click on those google map links. But you get the picture. The issue is I need to work very very hard and give up alot to stay away from Google and its services. If you think this is convenience that is fine but it is hardship for me.


Those who tries ridicule meaningful discussions like privacy would say but your cell phone company can track you , you know that. Yes I know they can use triangulation to find out where I am(if my cell phone has no gps). That is why I turn my cell phone on only when I need to call someone. Now I am not worried about them watching me at all, I am not worried that ohh man they will come and get me. That is childish. But I know and understand the game and the technology where a man is just a blinking light on the map, just a data that leaves a data trail behind. And this idea bothers me so I do not like to be part of the this game. It feels like the very generic scientific experiment where the mice tries to find the exit in a maze. I do not want to be part of this game where my movements are recorded in any possible media, analyzed, destructured, turn into a product and served to me later as a new convenient product that can be used to track my habits further more. If you are fine with this game it is your choice. But there are those like me who want to enjoy life as it is rather than these preplanned, foreseed life styles. In these modern times everything is planned for you, they work very very hard to make sure that you think like what they want you to think. You may try to ridicule this idea if so that means that you have no idea about the limits, the abilities  and the tools of social engineering, public relationship, lobbying,marketing companies. Everything you see on the tv is preplanned to put you in certain mood or feeling. I do not own a tv and I have not watched tv for 10 years(except 5 minutes here and there like at airport for news. And I am probably more informed about many issues than most of you because I use that time to read and analyze rather than spend on shitty tv shows).  Everytime a politician talks about something, they prepare a set so that his/her message is supported extra in case their message is very weak. Now if you are happy with this kind of life where everything is a facade, everyhing is part of a movie set, a hollywood gig or mtv studio, I unwillingly say that is fine. But I do not enjoy this. And Google plays its role in this rig. Google is singled out because it has become so big so omnipresent that it can provide more dangerouss tools to those who like to manipulate societies further. That is why Google should be scrutinized more.

When you see these things happen in a movie you all watch and enjoy, like in minority report or other genre movies. But the fact is that we are already living in the future, just that it seems like many of you sleeping and dreaming in past.

zridling, when you say that "Google has never correlated data", do you have any solid evidence that it never has done it? I myself was not accusing google of particular injustices so I can not give you spesific example. My problem with Google or Googlelikes is a larger issue of dominance and power. I am sure they do not abuse the data they collect(except in chinese goverment case) . But that does not mean they should not be collecting the data they are collecting now. At least the data they are collecting in different services should kept seperate. But you know every of those companies mention sharing your data with 3rd parties to improve their services. This is such a dark and shady area that has kept me away from using services of many companies, including Evernote. everytime I see this third party bullshit, I just stay away.

On the otherhand back to browser wars, I always thought that Opera was more intuitive than others in the game. I am not an Opera user but it seems like Opera has understood things in a different way. And that is probably because of origins of these browsers. As I know Opera is from Europe on the other hand IE and FF have more American slant. I am neither european nor american so i can see the difference under different light.

[urlwolf]

Just did a quick benchmark with memory usage.
If you open task manager, you'll see as many chrome.exe processes as you have tabs + 1. Adding that memory is quite worrying, actually.

With a few tabs open, I got:
35 + 10 + 6 + 26 + 19 + 8 + 34 + 65 = 203 Mb. quite a lot, doble than Opera with the same tabs open.

These things I really miss from Opera:
Smooth scroll
Fit to width
M2
intellicomplete working

So I'm sticking to the broken, but trusty, Opera for now.

[justice]

Couldn't resist when i saw this on the blog (in reply to the osnews article):
"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful

"Considered harmful" essays are not only a sad cliché at this stage of the game, they are counter-productive to reasoned debate and most often do far more harm than good to whatever cause they promote. It would therefore seem obvious that the only intelligent course of action is to abandon their use entirely, and instead look to more constructive forms of essay writing in the support of debate positions.

[tomos]

Couldn't resist when i saw this on the blog (in reply to the osnews article):
"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful

-justice (September 05, 2008, 03:21 AM)

There are those cases where such essays are written because the author enjoys grandstanding, and knows that use of the "considered harmful" format will get them noticed. A piece of this type is usually so over the top that it is easy to spot. For example, a piece titled "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" would very likely be a case of using the "considered harmful" format to draw attention for its own sake. We will ignore such essays in this commentary.

-
   
thanks justice

[mouser]

OSNews has a long article about Chrome and the marketplace out today.. I have to say whether you agree with OSNews or not, they've lately been generating a nice amount of original thoughtful writing.. Very nice to have a different take on stuff beyond the normal bullshit technology press-report regurgitating journalists out there.

http://www.osnews.co...e_Than_a_Browser_War

[f0dder]

I don't always agree with osnews, but I definitely find it a valuable resource, with (usually) pretty well-written stuff. I think I originally stumbled upon it from a link here at DC, and I've had the rss feed in website watcher ever since.

[clif_notes]

An ad-block for Chrome would be nice. If you're serious and you use multiple browsers, using Privoxy may be a better choice.
See this article:
http://lifehacker.co...ads-in-google-chrome

Personally, I don't block any ads. I see them and ignore them.

[mikiem]

RE: Privoxy, I like the TOR/FireFox portable myself, though don't use it for everything. FWIW I also agree, clif_notes, about just ignoring ads etc... I wound up removing, with a big sigh of relief, the CA AV software suite - when you block everything a lot of sites just won't work, so you're forever adding exceptions. While I wish I didn't have to make the choice in the 1st place, & while ads etc are annoying, the extra effort spend circumventing them didn't bring with it real or practical benefits.

Otherwise I've enjoyed the more philosophical arguments so far -- personally I try always to keep it simple. From my perspective, everything on-line may be virtual, but it's still a market driven society. If there's a catch, it's that there are so many kinds and types of currency driving it. One of those is perceived (self or otherwise) power &/or credibility... Some of power's benefits go to ego - some translate into hard cash in the off-line world. Often it's a very long-term investment, and often it's sought simply because others expect you to pursue it. Perceived power helps determine MSRP.

With a free product Google stands to gain more power (in all sorts of ways). It isn't really free, because besides cost for installation time/effort, users contribute to Chrome's popularity, & thus Google's power. Not using another browser takes away power from that browser's owners, increasing Google's relative, perceived worth. With Chrome, it's assumed Google will be able to maximize everything else they do to make money -- even when/if that's not true, perception that it is lets Google max their MSRPs.

RE: Privacy:
Now while power does corrupt, I'm not sure that enters into anything, &/or that we as individuals enter into anything when it comes to Google corporate. We, us individuals, are in a virtual ant farm... We get moved here and there, some live, some die, and we get observed en mass as part of a song & dance (in this case) Google puts on to demonstrate to it's customers why MSRP is in fact quite a good deal. Sure their tracking practices can be subverted, by crooks and lawmen both, but all Google ever sees is one really big ant farm - I'd have to do something like drive into the side of the Google CEO's car at 50 mph before I ever became relevant enough to merit any interest, or be noticed as an individual.

That approach, sort of a privacy by virtue of inconsequence, applies most everywhere. I can undress in front of an open window, & the local PD's going to be concerned about what the neighbors saw rather than the fact that they invaded my privacy by looking in the window to start with. About the only time I, as an individual, warrant attention is when some individual (or small group of individuals) wants to take something from me - precisely what I want to avoid. SO, I have the same concerns about protecting my data, my privacy as the more ardent privacy advocate - just different reasons...

I'm also the guy that carries a laptop in the cheapest looking pack I can find - the nicer the laptop, the nastier the bag. What you can't avoid someone seeing, can be packaged to discourage interest.