Google Chrome Browser

By CoolCatBad
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Grand Master

SMELTN

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my only worry is :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10030522-2.html

Ina Fried[/url]]Moments ago, Google went live with its Chrome Web Browser. I immediately clicked download, but not before I saved a copy of its terms of service. I like to know what I am agreeing to.

Here are a few things that stood out to me.

1. Google reserves the right to automatically update and install Chrome.

This is becoming standard fare with much software these days, but worth noting.

"The software which you use may automatically download and install updates from time to time from Google. These updates are designed to improve, enhance and further develop the services and may take the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new software modules and completely new versions. You agree to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver these to you) as part of your use of the services."

2. Although you retain any copyrights to content you own and use in the browser, Google says it has a right to display some of your content, in conjunction with promoting its services. Here's their exact wording.

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

3. Don't be surprised to see more ads.

Traditionally, it is Web pages and not the browser itself that serves ads. Google isn't saying it will change this paradigm, but it's terms of service don't rule that out either.

"Some of the services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the services, queries made through the services or other information. The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the services are subject to change without specific notice to you."

Also worth paying attention to are the settings when you install it. By default, Chrome will add all manner of shortcuts, so if you don't want it to do that, be sure to click "customize these settings." Of note, it does not make itself the default browser without a user agreeing to do so.

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Proficient

Si_

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I'm not really liking Chrome. It just looks weird, when its not maximized it looks like there's something missing between the tabs and the top of the window.

No real improvement on page load times either, back to firefox.

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xpgeek

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First impressions;

VERY fast. Gmail and Google Reader are wayyy faster then in Firefox 3.

I actually very much like the simplistic interface, looks good on Vista.

Built in spellchecker, but its not perfect.

Love the no statusbar but shows when hover over a link.

Installed to my local user files instead of Program Files too, don't like that, but I can deal with it.

I miss Adblock+.

VERY fast, and very responsive for me, really like it.

Needs some tweaking and a few more features, but excellent for a first release.

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Popky

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I have just been playing with the settings, I turned off the phishing filter and it seems to open pages a LOT quicker, ever after clearing the cache.

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Grand Master

Julius Caro

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Here's the thing. Lots of great ideas, the comics if you've sat and read all 30 pages get you really excited as a web developer...but then my first impress when I opened it was "oh, no title bar? oh no status bar?".

I know they want to "redefine" what a browser should be, the browser hasnt really changed in over 10 years, but it doesn't NEED to change. Theres no problem having a status bar, theres no problem having a title bar. Its removing something for the sake of it.

I'll give it a few hours use, because already I can see its quicker than firefox...not that that's a difficult task.

Godam its so fast.

Making me realise how SLOW firefox is.

The status bar is actually there, but it doesnt take the whole thing, the title bar I kinda miss it but it's not that important.

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Neyht Member

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2.2 seconds on the SunSpider benchmark. It beats the latest mozilla nightly by 1 whole second on my computer.

Now if I could only access the acid 3 test page...

Edited by Ned
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Emon

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Try this JavaScript Benchmark Suite:

http://code.google.com/apis/v8/run.html

.. Scores are not comparable across benchmark suite versions and higher scores means better performance: Bigger is better!

Results:

IE 7: Score: 16

Safari 3.0.4 (Mac Version): 68

Safari 3.1.2 (Windows Version): 88

Fx 3: Score: 108

Safari 3.0.4 + Webkit Nightly (Mac Version): 342

Chrome: Score: 824!!

Edited by Emon
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12Iceman

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Sadly, the "Restore the pages that were open last" option does not appear to be working for me. When I reopen Chrome, I am presented with the new tab page rather than my tabs from the last session.

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Grand Master

Ayepecks

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OK, I've tried it some more and here are some things I don't like... mind you some of these are very minor, I'm well aware.

- For me it runs extremely, extremely slow opening pages. I've read that for some of you it's very fast... but not for me. No clue why. Firefox is much faster for me.

- Maybe I'm just stupid, but editing Bookmarks is annoying. If you want to move them, it moves them but exits you out of the bookmarks view (if that makes sense) and you have to hover back over it and do it again, etc. Just annoying.

- Why is there not simply a bookmarks editor like in Firefox or Internet Explorer?

- I'd really like the options menu/area to be fleshed out some more. I'd just like to be able to customize everything about my browser and would prefer more options.

- Going hand-in-hand with the last comment, I'd really like some add-ons available, like in Firefox. Internet Explorer doesn't really have any, but I think they'd be a nice benefit to Chrome.

- The ability to actually have a menu bar would be nice. It may seem "simple" to advanced users like Neowin, but almost any "beginner" I know is going to abhor not having a menu bar, at least for the first months of usage.

- Why (in Vista) is the area next to the minimize/maximize/close not the normal size? (see this post: https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=589732656 ). I know it's a minor issue.

- Where is smooth scrolling?!

- The "floating" status bar is annoying. I'm cool with it disappearing and all that, but why does it go under the actual window when I mouse over it? Again, I know this is a minor quibble, but it's just annoying.

EDIT:

- Oh yeah, remove the "Google" logo. It's extremely out of place. lol

Edited by Ayepecks
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Grand Master

The Teej

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First impressions:

The rendering isn't too bad at all. I don't like how there's now an orange stroke around the text bar on this forum, but I figure that's their way of emphasising focus.

I quite like the way tabs are now the main focus, it really emphasises their ideology of having each tab as a separate process. I wouldn't have said Google Chrome was twice as fast as Firefox 3.0, at least not according to side by side youtube loads ups, and in fact, it took longer to load up the same search query on Google Chrome then it did Firefox 3.0 (I searched for potatoes on another forum, Chrome took 0.77 seconds to load, Firefox 3.0 took 0.59). Still though, the speed difference is barely noticeable and nevertheless, it's very fast.

The UI overall is very clean and doesn't seem like a traditional browser at first. Like I said, there's absolutely no menu toolbar, and there's only 2 buttons to access most of the options found in the traditional toolbars in Firefox. There's a couple missing, such as plugin manager (for obvious reasons), and print preview, but compared to IE's 5 buttons, it's still much better, and both buttons fit in nicely with the address bar (instead of taking space in the tab bar where they clearly don't belong).

Another downside is the lack of a dedicated search field, this is instead built in to the address bar where typing in a search term will bring you straight to google with the query. You can indeed change the default search engine you want to use in the options, so you're not completely out, but it is a 5 click process to do so. The only real deal breaker for me is the complete lack of RSS support. I understand they want stability over features, but RSS has really become part of my everyday browsing routine. In my opinion, this is a key feature that needs to be implemented quickly.

One little bit I did like, however, was the fact that I can use ctrl + b to quickly get rid of bookmarks menu if I want that small extra space.

There are a couple of things I'd like to see implemented, such as adding words to the dictionary, rss feeds and plug in support, but it's not even in version 1.0 yet, so it's totally understandable. All in all, while there's work that needs to be done, it's still a very robust browser for 0.2 beta, and the trade-offs for small bits of functionality over stability is definitely worth considering for those on the fence.

Edited by The Tjalian
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