Google Chrome

[DANGERMAN]

New browser from Google, the people who brought you such search engines as Google.

The bumpf goes something along the lines of it being based around videos and images rather than text like 'old' browsers. It's also supposed to be more secure and not likely to crash (it will only crash 1 tab rather than the whole browser). It also supposedly designed with its online microsoft baiting programs (writely etc) in mind, and by the sounds of it, you'll be able to run them without opening your browser!

People who know more about this stuff than me say it's a lot like the mighty Opera, which is no bad thing and it certainly looks nice. It's got a very uncluttered layout I'll say that for it, however the web address bar+search bar combi is something I've definitely seen in Opera.

Probably the best feature is that it can run in incognito mode that (i dont know how this works but this is what i've heard) makes it impossible for your work place to see what you've been doing. I'm sure they've got a better reason for its existence than that, but if i felt confident that it'd work thats what I'd plan on using it for.

The most worrying feature I've seen so far is that its got an Opera style favourites page when you open a new tab. For those that dont know, on Opera you have 9 boxes displayed when you open a new tab that are shortcuts to your favourite sights, and can be hotkeyed (this site is ctrl 1 for me ). On Chrome though these seem to be your most visited sites, great in theory, but what if I check my email twice a day but load www.horney-naked-sluts-fucking-donkeys-who-are-being-fucked-by-midgets.com 4 times? It might be customisable I haven't had that much of a play around with it yet.

Also the scroll wheel on my mouse isn't recognised for rapid scroll (or whatever it's called) but does work for just scrolling down

Funniest thing so far is that it's got a built in spell check (more like firefox's than Opera's) and google has a red line underneath it

Anyway, this is only the beta so i'm sure they'll fix anything people dont like. I might stick with Opera for the time being, but I'll definitely be playing around with this a bit more

EDIT: http://www.google.com/chrome

Ooh it automatically but that in url brackets ^

Quote from Incognito mode

"Going incognito doesn't affect the behaviour of other people, servers or software. Be wary of:

Websites that collect or share information about you

Internet service providers or employers that track the pages that you visit

Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys

Surveillance by secret agents

People standing behind you"

There's also supposedly a porn mode but i'm not sure what thats about or where it is. By the sounds of that quote tho you cant hide what you're doing from a company servers, only if they manually check your history

Further Edit: Turns out porn mode is incognito mode and it stops things appearing in your favourites boxes

[Hendo]

Getting it now.

Was reading about this earlier from someone's Twitter update, with a link to the Google blog:

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

[Oliath]

Outstanding!

Google are awesome.

I wish they would just hurry up and release a computer and an operating system.

Very curious to see how their Android phone competes with the iPhone!

[DANGERMAN]

I used it a bit last night and it is very good for streaming video, getting on for twice as fast* as Opera (and Opera seems to be quicker than most) Admittedly the video wasn't much better quality than youtube but at least something they tried works.

The lack of fast scrolling annoys me quite a lot, they really need to get that implemented. Aside from that I'd say it was better than an unmodified Firefox, certainly better than the last iteration I've got installed and had to use for work. Btu if you've got your browser set up how you want it I'm not sure there's a reason to switch yet. It is nice though

*slight exaggeration

[hinn888]

ive been lookin at screenies of it, and i have to say it looks very nice.

I might download it, after the latest firefox is letting me down

[HandsomeDead]

Opera, Firefox now this...

.. I'm starting to feel I'm the only one who just uses(and suppose is happy with) the default MS explorer..

[Jimboxy]

if your happy with Internet Explorer, then you aren't using the internet correctly..

[HandsomeDead]

if your happy with Internet Explorer, then you aren't using the internet correctly.. guffaw *snort* guffawfaw.

Oh, I guess.

[Jimboxy]

lol, touche

[Hendo]

And there's Safari too. I have to say I'm a FF man through and through.

I couldn't live without my spellchecker extension and the adblocker, among many others.

The adblocker makes FF worth it alone - Google ads, stupid obtrusive ads that cover Eurogamer, CVG, etc....all gone!

[retroed]

I haven't tried Chrome, but I think I'm going to stick with Firefox. I just love it, and it's fine tuned and set up just how I want it. Adblock Plus, NoScript, TinyURL creator, and tons more, all laid out to my own preference.

Part Timer, get Firefox. Seriously, IE is total shit and gets flooded with not so nice internet stuffs.

[stoobie]

All this talk of Firefox made me download and give it a go - everything is fine so far and I can already see it being better than IE - my only problem is that now my Egg Moneymanager wont work as it says it will only work with IE 5.0 or above.

Any ideas what to do when something like that happens - or will I still need IE for some sites?

[Jimboxy]

sadly that's the way of the internet. There will always be some sites that for some reason are built around IE with all its security holes and display issues. Until Google or Mozilla make there own OS and completely leave Microsoft out of the equation i think IE will just be a necessary evil in some circumstances.

At least Microsoft will have the console market to fall back on anyway..

[stoobie]

Yep - Egg uses ActiveX which Microsoft wont let anyone else play with - ah well - I only check my bank balances once a day anyway - not like I need it all the time

[Hendo]

The best thing to do with FF is start messing round with the settings and making it look and feel how you want.

If you right-click on the blank space above the address bar(to the right of the Help menu) you can customise it all like size of fonts, how the buttons look, etc.

If you go to Tools and then Add-ons, you can find a ton of different stuff to install. I recommend AdBlock Plus as a must.

Install some different themes too - I'm running iFox Smooth which looks very clear and crisp, with small buttons, no text underneath them, and with no toolbar other than the Bookmarks toolbar so it's all very minimalist.

Here's the top part of my FF so you can see what I mean:

[hinn888]

ur ifox smooth looks different to my ifox smooth :S

And is that drop downs on ut bookmark toolbar?

[David]

I tried Chrome, it has promise but right now nothing can tear me from the mighty Firefox.

[retroed]

Yep - Egg uses ActiveX which Microsoft wont let anyone else play with - ah well - I only check my bank balances once a day anyway - not like I need it all the time

You can get an IE tab add-on for Firefox, then you can get rid of the IE shortcuts altogether. There's also a Windows update add-on.

[Hendo]

ur ifox smooth looks different to my ifox smooth :S

And is that drop downs on ut bookmark toolbar?

Yeah individual pages you just click on to go there, but the arrows are folders so they just drop down.

I also make my taskbar on Windows disappear so I've got as much space on a page as possible.

[Sly Reflex]

Well, it looks like they put another update out for this, the first noticeable one since they did away with the nine most visited boxes on opening. Not sure what differences they have done, I notice the URL bar is a little longer and they did away with the little cog in the upper right. Other than that it's just the same old same old as far as I can see.