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Google may offer Chrome detailing on new PCs

arstechnica.com — Google has big plans for Chrome, and they don't involve keeping the browser in a perpetual beta twilight. The search giant intends to seize a significant chunk of the browser market in 2009, and could offer competition the likes of which Internet Explorer has never faced.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 22, 2008

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  • daveisfera, on 11/21/2008, -3/+58Competition is always good and I think that Chrome is a VERY forward thinking system with some neat ideas, but it's just lacking in some key usability features and (at least right now) it's just not up to compete with the likes of Firefox.
  • whosmatt, on 11/21/2008, -1/+38I'd love to use Chrome more (or webkit or whatever, really) as it really is quite fast. Problem is, Firefox is my de facto desktop. As many computers as i use on a daily basis, Foxmarks + iGoogle makes it almost seamless to transition. Windows, Linux, Mac, it doesn't matter. It's all there.
  • MAGZine, on 11/22/2008, -0/+30So wait.

    Google ISN'T going to hide Chrome behind the 'beta' insurance policy?
  • Jambi, on 11/22/2008, -2/+29I agree. The lack of addons is a pretty big minus.
  • TSK05, on 11/22/2008, -7/+31Is there ad block for Chrome yet?
  • slothlovechunk, on 11/22/2008, -5/+17I disagree. I have been using Chrome exclusively since it came out. I open firefox every once in awhile when Chrome just doesn't work. These times are becoming less and less common with each update.

    Chrome is so clean and the user interface is perfect. Nothing bugs me.
  • thecolorifix, on 11/22/2008, -0/+11Um, google doesn't make the operating system, that was the beef with Microsoft.
  • hartley, on 11/22/2008, -2/+13Linux and Mac versions first please.
  • MAGZine, on 11/22/2008, -1/+11No, just your comment. (hopefully)
  • Hegemony, on 11/22/2008, -0/+10Show me some extensions and we'll talk.
  • Mpwns, on 11/22/2008, -5/+14ill stick with fire fox, i don't mind waiting .05 seconds longer for a page to load.
  • donut2d, on 11/22/2008, -2/+11Mac Chrome status page: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/MacDetailed ...

    It seems to be quite a ways off. But it's okay, they're building the interface with Cocoa instead of trying to use some universal interface engine like Firefox does. That alone makes it worth the wait.
  • inactive, on 11/22/2008, -8/+16Why is becoming a digg motto to ask if chrome has adblock, really it's quite annoying and hardly relevant to the actual browser
  • itsinmyeyes, on 11/22/2008, -1/+9you wait..... and even then it might not come.
  • itsinmyeyes, on 11/22/2008, -4/+11Not only that but it's missing tons of plugins and a lot of the plug ins don't work with it
  • praisethelard, on 11/22/2008, -1/+8That, and I don't really like GoogleUpdate.exe always running. Or AppleUpdate.exe. Or any automatically updating crap. I'll update on my own, damnit!
  • thegman3, on 11/22/2008, -2/+9Interesting how Google has a piece of every pie.
  • realwat, on 11/22/2008, -1/+7Add to the fact that in some countries, Internet access is so slow! You do see a huge difference.
  • HigherLogic, on 11/22/2008, -3/+9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file#Blocking
  • Nephersir7, on 11/22/2008, -0/+6I always run chrome at school because it is blazing fast to install (1 minute from .exe clicking to download and startup) and it does so almost without any user clicks and autodetects proxy settings. That is not the case with firefox 3, my browser of choice at home (both on linux and windows). But what chrome really needs to improve on is https because it is broken.

    Chrome may not be as good as Firefox 3(.1), but it is definitely better than every version of IE (8 included). I really like the user interface, especially the animation when you start a download. What I also like is blazing fast speeds for Google services like Google Reader and Gmail
  • Myztry, on 11/22/2008, -1/+7Microsoft may not use the beta disclosure, but anything short of Service Pack 1 is always known to be beta grade software anyway.
  • Relikh, on 11/22/2008, -2/+8Yeah, I love chrome. Using it right now. But I find myself constantly going back to firefox for basic things. Hotmail doesn't even work properly on this thing. Whenever I try to reply to an email it won't let me click in the field where I write the actual letter. That just seems kinda ridiculous.
  • sendaletterbomb, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6I used Chrome exclusively before recently switching over to Linux. Chrome needs to be ported over to Linux!
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6Haven't tried it, but I did see one a while back for the modified version of chrome called greasemetal.
  • netneutrality, on 11/22/2008, -5/+10It is relevant. Being able to block ads, and especially the overwhelming conglomeration of trackers that follow one around the web is damn important in my opinion.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6Slow? I don't see any difference in speed between adblock and privoxy. And I have adblock running native on linux and privoxy/chrome running in a VM.
  • e2superman, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6My company actually banned Chrome due to security issues. The Beta Tag probably is holding back a lot of people.
  • drakethegreat, on 11/22/2008, -3/+8Yes because the 80% of IE users right now who get IE through windows care so much about whether they can run Ad Blocker Plus, Web Developer, Firebug, etc. Such a huge market for that and thats totally what Google is going after.
  • MAGZine, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6It's in development. It's not the primary focus right now, because why make the same incomplete browser twice, to update and maintain. Once it gets closer to a feasible 'hard push' date, you'll see Mac and Linux versions appear on the horizon.
  • al1encas1no, on 11/22/2008, -4/+9Now extrapolate that .05 second for the three trillion web pages you'll view in your lifetime.
  • sloppychris, on 11/22/2008, -0/+5I expected Chome to cut into Firefox's market, but not into the "what's a web browser?" segment. But if Google goes after OEM preloads it changes everything.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6Then use chromium instead of chrome. It doesn't autoupdate.
  • MAGZine, on 11/22/2008, -1/+6And in other news, Bananas are yellow.
  • Meyithi, on 11/22/2008, -0/+5Use "Homer" and "HostsXpert" and you block everything in all applications with no overhead, I've been using hosts files for years with no problems dunno why it's having such a hard time taking off tbh.
  • ccheath, on 11/22/2008, -0/+5and that's really the core point of this story, isn't it?
  • kingofthezyx, on 11/22/2008, -0/+5Completely different. Google is free, if Google can find a way to give us basically everything computer-based for free, why shouldn't we let them? Especially when most of the free things they offer are the best in their respective fields.
  • donut2d, on 11/22/2008, -1/+5YES!
  • srg13, on 11/22/2008, -2/+6Really? Firefox 3 starts for me in about the same time as Safari, and with all the same tabs open, Safari is using about 8MB more memory...

    Firefox 2 was really quite bloated, but Firefox 3 is a huge improvement.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/22/2008, -1/+5It's coming. If you do a checkout of the source, you can already get a barebones version of it compiled. Most of the work right now is going into making sure the gui actually feels right, and gives good performance, in osx.
  • Daniel591992, on 11/22/2008, -0/+4Kinda like Picasa :(
  • MAGZine, on 11/22/2008, -0/+4Ars Technical *used* to be the bomb, then things changed. It's not a bad written article, but I prefer to Ars Technica 1.0, compared to before the time the changed the formating of their news/webpage.
  • texxel, on 11/22/2008, -0/+4Go to your room and think about what you just wrote.
  • arunforce, on 11/22/2008, -6/+10It's quite relevant, most of us won't switch unless there is an AdBlock extension.
  • mattgilberg, on 11/22/2008, -1/+5IMHO, Chrome is quite similar to Firefox when it comes to competing with IE but the major difference is that Chrome is and open source browser with a multi-billion dollar company financing it.
  • marymixtoes, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3I feel that one of the big advantages that Firefox still has is how it can be extended almost infinitely via add-ons. When chrome has those kinds of options it could really be a serious contender.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3Eh, kind of. They're not quite extensions in the same sense as firefox, but greasemetal does autoload external javascript files and apply them to either all or specified pages. Not so amazing for things that would need to have a gui, but for something that's going to be applied to all pages equally it gets the job done.
  • JPOnion, on 11/22/2008, -2/+5For all those asking about AdBlock on Chrome, what's wrong with Privoxy? Yes, ok, it's not built in, but it does the job. I don't get any ads.

    http://www.privoxy.org/
  • mustang460, on 11/22/2008, -3/+6I prefer chrome to FF, but without adblock I'm sticking with FF, I can only take so much "congradulations! You Have Won a Free Ipod nano!"

  • wachuuu, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3My life for the swarm!
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