The new Google browser has recently sparked some interest in the developers world with its speed, security, and many other claims.

As it is still in beta, there are many things that can be fixed. But as for its current state of development, how do you all think it is?

I personally love it so far. There are some kinks here and there and I'm using both Firefox, and Chromium on and off.

To list the currently known features:

• Multi-process browsing (each tab has its own process, preventing one tab from crashing the whole browser)
  
• V8 JavaScript Engine: "[...] a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers."
  
• Easily navigatable, clean and "out of the way" design.
  
• Fast page rendering
  
• Mixes simple features from both Opera and Firefox

and theres a list of countless other features I'd rather not go through

So far I'm liking the browser a lot.

My only problem is the bugs. I've noticed that when I type a continuous line half of the word disappears when its dropped down to the new line (only for some words, especially when the textarea isn't scrollable yet). This happens a lot when I try and type out something that is inserted inside a paragraph. It sort of writes over all the letters until that line has to drop another word or two down. This makes it VERY difficult to delete words or segments from a paragraph already written. I recommend, in the meantime, writing out your long posts in a text processor before pasting it in to the textarea and submitting it.

Another thing I've also found is where the images on a page have finished loading, but have trouble displaying. Its like the browser "thinks" its loaded the images, when it really hasn't. This happens a lot with background images especially, but not always, on buttons.


As for our end of the deal, we always get stuff as developers

Chromium includes a JavaScript Debugger tool and an advanced source viewer (that includes an element inspector and other useful information about a page). Basically like having a build-in Firebug tool, except not as rich in complete features

This isn't a new browser. It's been out since about, early September/late July I believe. So it is relatively new, but the spark as pretty much died - as stated by this blog post.

It's going to take some 'uhmf' to get the Chrome hype I saw before back up and alive.

Oh, and about Chrome still in Beta, keep in mind that Gmail is still in 'Beta' after four to five years... Chrome will probably never leave 'Beta,' as a few Google Products have (Docs is another big, long 'Beta').

I meant "new" as in old, but they still say its new. I was on the homepage the other day and it said something about "New Google Chrome Beta!" or something similar. I figured everyone else here knew that it had been out for a couple months now.

And yes, it probably will stay in Beta for the rest of its existence, sadly. I do, however, like some of its features. Including things like the ability to resize the textarea with the little arrow in the bottom right corner 0x5

But yeah, so far its "okay" status, but again: I'm still sticking with Firefox until something else comes out that surpasses it (or Google Chrome gets better ... lol, you can't even middle-click scroll!)

I am actually surprised I haven't seen anything on it on the forum yet.

Meh. Chrome has some major annoyances (automatic downloads for one - HUGE vulnerability), and just isn't a tempting alternative to Firefox.

Firefox is still the only one with extensions - extensions that single-handedly make it the best browser of the bunch. As for the JavaScript speed - meh. Firefox 3.1 will have a new JavaScript engine that is even faster (check out some of the benchmarks of the beta - the thing is wicked fast). That said, I don't have any speed issues with JavaScript sites the way it is, so I still don't really care about that point.

I'm still sticking with Firefox; as nice as Chrome seems, the bugs just break the deal for me, and Google or no Google, Mozilla has a huge dev team that I trust quite a bit.

Um, then don't turn it on. I'm using Chrome right now and it asks me whether I want to download something or not.


That certainly seems a little out of character for you...


I love Chrome's speed. If I boot into Windows for something, I always pull up Chrome as my first choice. That said, I'm rarely ever in Windows, so I don't really have the option of making it my main browser.

My main bug with Chrome was a security issue. I couldn't get Chrome to load at all when I first downloaded it. After some googling, I found out that you can't run Chrome with Cisco Clean Access running (which is something my college requires you to use in Windows in the dorms). I added a parameter to my desktop icon and it works fine, now. Also, I just noticed the text box thing. The box refreshes itself and nothing is messed up when you click in the text area, but it certainly looks unclean.

Seperate processes for each tab is a wonderful idea. I haven't had any tabs crash yet, but it happens in Firefox all the time and it's quite annoying. As for extensions, the only one I really use is Stumble-Upon, and all that does is distract me from doing real work.

I think what you mean is "then turn it off." It defaults to on, after all.



I promise you that you cannot tell a difference between Firefox 3 and Chrome on my system. Both are very fast, and Firefox 3.1 is going to pass Chrome back up in speed.



Seperate processes for each tab is more of a hack than a feature. If sites crash in your browser, that is a bug - regardless of whether or not only a single tab or the whole browser goes down. Sites don't crash for me in Firefox, so its not a problem. Windows also has this really annoying habit of crapping out when multiple process all demand CPU time. This isn't a problem normally, but it is when you have the buggy flash player that maxes out the CPU usage in two different tabs. In firefox that will be limited to 50% of the CPU. In Chrome, thanks to them being in two processes, it'll max out your CPU and bring the rest of the system to a crawl. Not cool, no thanks.

Fair enough. I don't remember going through options, but it's been a while since I installed it so I'll take your word for it.


It's the opposite on my system. Chrome blazes past Firefox 3, but I can't tell a difference between Chrome and Minefield.


The way a program handles bugs is still important. I like this system better.


Windows crapping out with multiple processes is a Windows problem. If Chrome's multi-process system is efficient, then more browsers and other programs with also use that method. That will put this Windows bug higher up on the 'to fix' list.

Valid, sure, but that sounds like a typical fanboy argument. "My program is right, so therefore the company that writes the OS should change its code rather than having our paradigm shifted to interoperate around a particular OS's quirks."

Eh, all that being said, I think I'm still going to keep chrome around.

I use both firefox 3 and chrome, and I find that they both do exactly what they are supposed to do. Firefox is powerful and has lots of convenient features (not too hard on resources, either), and chrome had blazing fast startup speeds and javascript rendering. Maybe I just like having the choices...

The problem is that Google is abusing processes to get around poor programming. What Chrome SHOULD be using is multiple THREADS. Processes are supposed to be independent by nature, and process spawning and switching is extremely expensive compared to thread switching (on all systems). However, multiple threads introduces concurrency issues and they would still then have to catch plugin crashes and such to prevent the browser from going down. So since the proper way (that would be faster and use far less RAM) is too difficult, Google hacked together a system of exec'ing new processes. Hence, its a hack.

You would think Google would actually do better then that... lol

But what can you say? lol

I use both Fx3 and Chrome personally. I use Chrome when I'm just jumping on to check something and Fx3 when I'm on for a while. Fx3 keeps my sessions saved with my 39479823 tabs open so I can just open it up instead of opening the websites up, lol. Bookmarks would be useful but I use those for storing something for a long period of time that I might need in the far future

I like Chrome because its quick, out of the way, and it just gets the job done when I need it to.

I'm sure lots of you saw this:




Opera has now responded in kind:

Heehee, he got trout slapped. I had seen articles about that video, but I'm afraid I hadn't had a chance to give it a view. I noticed that the potato times seems to be jumping non-sequentially.

Haven't seen any of those. Great videos, though

I've been using Google Chrome for a while now and it has over come virtually all of the bugs I mentioned before that rendered it unusable as a default-browser from my prospective. I don't even have Firefox on my computer anymore, and, as always, I have IE disabled.

I don't need any other browsers other then Google Chrome because it seems to get the job done pretty well and for web design I just use the Adobe BrowserLab.

Seconded. The beta channel is awesome.

personally i think that google chrome is not very good...

it is simply a bit graphics flashy...
its slower then opera and doesn't have Opera's widget fun, and doesn't have Firefox's addons. Nor does it have IE's security.

plus it has a processi that stays running even when chrome isn't running... (just press Ctrl Alt Del and go to processes and you will fine that little spyware...)

to rap it all up, i would say it sucks in all fields lol

Graphics flashy? That's a matter of opinion. I could say that Firefox with all its theming is more graphics flashy than Chrome.

Slower than Opera? Opera may have some of the fasted start-up times, but I believe Chrome maintains the highest page load speeds. If not, it's still pretty darn close.

Widget fun and add-ons? Chrome has extensions. It might not be completely customizable, but it has most of the basic necessities like ABP and WoT.

IE... secure? Internet Explorer was, is, and forever shall be the least secure internet browser on the face of the planet. Have you been ignorant of the millions of issues it has had since its conception? Chrome is many fold more secure with its process sandboxing.

As for the "process that stays running", Chrome sometimes has trouble shutting down right. Same with Firefox. It's not spyware or anything else malicious in nature.

um... IE 8 is the most secure web browser in all of history so far you know?

it is the most recommended for businesses and online banking
as for speed... chrome is kinda slow... Opera is definitely faster...

btw... i am kinda confused about weather your defending chrome or contradicting me for fun...

What Kool-aid have you been drinking, there have been a few times where even MS themselves have advised against using IE 8 until a bug was fixed and rolled out through MS update. If you really need the proof that IE is is only second to Safari when it comes to security holes I'll find the news articles to back up my last statment.