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Topic: Emerging Tech

Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

Summary: Google must be very happy with the coverage Chrome has gathered. But it's not all good news.

Rupert Goodwins

By for Mixed Signals |

Google must be very happy with the coverage Chrome has gathered. But it's not all good news. Here are eight of the more interesting things to come out of the woodwork since the browser broke cover.

It's got bugs. No surprise there - but the good thing is we are welcome to read the buglist and follow their progress through the debugging cycle.

Whether you press enter or not, the auto-suggest feature will deliver all the keystrokes you put into the combined "Omnibox" URL/search field to Google, who'll store 2 percent of those – with the IP address of the user.

Chrome was built over two years and at least twenty developers, but combines elements from a whole host of small companies bought by Google and other outside sources.

Chrome is probably going onto Android, Google's mobile platform. To that end, key components such as V8 and WebKits are already available in ARM.

Is Chrome fastest? The argument rages – with Mozilla now claiming the SunSpider crown for TraceMonkey on FireFox 3.1.

Chrome's already had its first security flaw – a problem with the WebKit rendering engine. The problem has already been fixed in later versions of WebKit than the one the browser uses, so is in little danger of making it into the release.

According to Clicky's analysis of 45,000 websites, Chrome is now the world's fourth favourite browser, generating around three percent of monitored clicks.

V8, the engine behind Chrome's performance, was conceived in a Danish farmhouse.

Chrome requires an as-yet-unreleased update to Java, Java SE 6u10, to run Java code.

Topic: Emerging Tech

About

Rupert started off as a nerdy lad expecting to be an electronics engineer, but having tried it for a while discovered that journalism was more fun. He ended up on PC Magazine in the early '90s, before that evolved into ZDNet UK - and Rupert evolved with them into an online journalist.

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  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    Google's new browser will give you their web and email services, photo processing, mapping, office applications that will run in said browser and will make you a cup of tea. This is all paid for by personally-directed text ads in your tea leaves, based on analysing a DNA sample taken when you sip the tea and sending your genetic code back to Google for future targeting.

    http://notnews.today.com/?p=57
    David Gerard
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    Personally, I don't think it's that great a browser. It's like most developments these days where the product is trying to be all things to all people i.e. think Facebook.

    Chrome however is the G's next step in enslaving us all in the G Machine. Soon you won't be able to interact or communicate without using, seeing or needing a G app, product or service.

    Where companies have achieved it to some degree in other fields of activity, the G is working towards their own version of monolithic control in the cyber-space.

    By coming from so many directions and providing so many different parts to a model they're probably already aware of, the G Team knows they'll soon be embedded for good. It's really just a bit by bit process.

    Next is the Gee Whizz Device - Android.

    Beyond that, it's the final inculcation frontier. With the flick of a switch we'll see everyone connected in some way, shape or form to the Ubiquitous G System. To what degree we will then rely on the G's existence is anyone's guess. There may even come a time when it will be near impossible for any one person, company, organization or government to not have some connection to or influence from the G factory.

    TFD

    PS. Anyone noticed how practically anything Google, searched for in Google, is number 1, 2....
    thinkfeeldo2001
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    Oh, and BTW, I made the following list from product names in your post just to demonstrate how much stuff (names, terms, definitions, attributes etc) users/ adopters have to learn and remember. Pity the millions of folk who are moving ever further away from those who 'get IT'.

    Chrome
    Omnibox
    Android
    V8
    WebKits
    ARM
    Mozilla
    SunSpider
    TraceMonkey
    FireFox
    Java
    SE 6u10



    TFD
    thinkfeeldo2001
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    Well, I've tried it twice and I'm sorry but it's not friendly, it has no Autofill(!), the favourite list is all over the shop and trying to stop it showing sites you might like or have been to, is not intuitive. I'll stick with good old IE7 for now. But let's wait and see.
    anonymous
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    I love Chromes speed. It is by far and away the fastest browser I have ever used. I just wish they had a drop down box for previous sites visited
    jjbaulikki
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    It sounds miracle~
    I ll have a try soon~
    anonymous
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    I have concerns about Google - it seems to be turning into another MSN which eventually means that we will become dependent upon it and then we'll get well and truly screwed. They stifle competition and with aggressive marketing and freebies aim to control the market. No surprise then that I am not terribly impressed with Chrome. Bias aside, I think it's somewhat lacking and both IE7 and Firefox stamp on it. I can't imagine what I must have been thinking when I downloaded it because the result certainly wasn't worth the effort.
    jonte-6160d
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    i tried chromes, it always get dead. so i unistalled it. but it is nice designed really.
    anonymous
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    Need firebug clone or somethig else to inspect code and dom. Is there any available for Chrome?
    akloid
    Reply Vote

  • Google Chrome - nine things we've found since launch

    I use SRWare Iron which is Chrome with the the tracking elements disabled, so far as I understand, except of course, when you are actually googling.

    Further to the comment above, I do not miss the autofill for sites already visited (I never liked that feature, too intrusive) but I'm not sold on the History opening in the browser. However it does at least open in a new tab and is informative. I'm getting used to it.

    It also took me a while to appreciate a new tab opening with the most frequently visited sites displayed but, again, this is useful when you get used to it.

    I do find it extremely useful to have the Home page and the page(s) which open when the browser is started set separately

    Several sites do not work, notably my bank and my webmail.

    The Alpha of Chrome for Linux has only just appeared but, on a quick appraisal, works quite well except that it will not run Flash yet.

    And finally, I found it difficult to set as my default browser in Windows 7 which didn't want to know until I found a work around.
    The Former Moley
    Reply Vote
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