Chromefirexplorer girds loins against rich and closed What's the thinking behind Google Chrome, the Chocolate Factory operating system web browser that just lost its beta tag? Mountain View Oompa Loompas continue to say that replacing Firefox and Internet Explorer with Google-controlled software is not their primary aim. "We just want to push the web platform forward," Chrome …
I don't know if this is the crud collection effect: any app collects so much crud over it's lifetime that a "new" version emerges which basically the same thing without all the add ons.
I can tell you this, though, Chrome is *BLOODY* fast on AJAX powered sites. Try accessing a Zimbra groupware site - this tend to take a couple of secs before the whole framework is loaded and running. Not with Chrome, it's as close to immediately available as possible. Impressive.
Now it is, of course, time to find the security bugs, and then it'll take a couple of years for banks to approve it (whereas IE somehow is already considered "safe", whoehahaha)...
"Now it is, of course, time to find the security bugs, and then it'll take a couple of years for banks to approve it (whereas IE somehow is already considered "safe", whoehahaha)..."
AFAIK, banks don't approve browsers based on their security. They just approve them if they've bothered to test their site with other browsers (or that they haven't done the heinous crime of hard-coding to IE)
This strategy does actually make good sense.
Why invest time, money & effort into the web standards that allow you to drive your business model forward, when the implementations are so (comparatively) poor.
By implementing their own very "compliant" product, they a create an instant market for the solutions they want to "sell", as well as creating competitive pressure on other browsers to improve, and thus increase their potential market in the long run as well.
You could argue, why don't they just contribute code to Firefox, but they have no control over what is actually released, or it's long term product direction. Too much pressure and Mozilla becomes a "Google mouth piece".
If they fork Firefox and run on their own, then they get accused of all sorts of nefarious activities against a well regarded OSS project.
Neither outcome does Google's reputation any good.
There is also the bonus, that even if Chrome only gets a 5% market share that's still 5% fewer users they have to pay to have redirected to Google services.
Personally, even as a Firefox fanboy, I very much welcome any standards compliant competition. Thanks in a large part to MS, the web's potential has stagnated for far too long.
No, not all browsers render sites identically. But to keep moaning like that does a disservice to everyone that's got us to where we are now. Firefox, Safari and Opera render pretty much the same, and the forthcoming IE8 should bring Microsoft in line.
I've been developing web sites for about 7 years and I've never known development to be this easy. Even with IE6.
Have other people tried using Firebug for debugging like me only to find it very irritating? Breakpoints and code profiling not hooking correctly for page unload events, Firefox search-as-you-type functionality not supported, no horizontal scrolling to active code, no ability to reposition the executing statement line, frequently forgetting the chosen script file and slower than Microsoft Script Editor? Though I don't like it, I often fall back to using MSE in IE to debug script.
Interesting get-together. Did Opera get more than 24 hrs notice? Geez.
If we want web debugging to get easier faster, so developers aren't going wacko, and we free up their time for better/faster/cooler, switching to Opera if the best thing you can do (and think of all the time you save with it's rocket-fast Presto engine and auto-sync of bookmarks, history, notes and search engines with Opera Link -- on your phone also). WebKit builds are pushing 100% on Acid3 also.
(The corollary is: Get crappy IE share below 50%. This will do wonders. Anyone trusting MS rhetoric after all these years is fooling themselves...wait and watch...again. They will drag their feet forever.)
Also, Opera Dragonfly is evolving nicely, for joint desktop/mobile development and debugging. Check it out, you'll be amazed. ;)
Another reason for Chrome is that Google gets a window into the habits of web surfers which improves their AI and advertising. Microsoft and Apple have their own browsers and this gives them an advantage as they have an eye from the client end. So even if Google get 5% of the browser market it is enough to get valuable information on clients surfers habits and coupled with their other stats and information at the server end, they get a fuller picture of what is going on.
"But Google is merely interested in making the web a happier place - not raking in billions upon billions in additional ad revenue. According to Google."
The author is being a putz -- in both senses of the word (see http://www.thefreedictionary.com/putz). The chrome product manager plainly states that he hopes that "JavaScript gets 20 times faster and there are multiple web browsers that do what we want... we're going to be a more profitable company." But don't worry Cade, you're still insightful and clever, no matter how much you ignore the content of your own story.
Or, the only reason for Chrome as I like to call it.
The "making the web better" bit is pure and total bullshit. Either they comply with the standards and contribute to the standards enhancement processes (and there's no need to make your own browser to do this), or they produce Googly "enhancements" in Chrome to suit themselves, making their pages look better than anyone elses (best viewed in Chrome - download now). My money's on the latter.
Bill, because he invented this strategy.
when you use it with a flaky 3g broadband connection - cos of it's architecture with each tab being in effect a seperate browser instance - it means you don't get 3g tab freeze like you do with firefox / ie - that is, when trying to get data the entire browser stops responding. I know this could be fixed by using anything other than hutchinson 3g as a carrier, but ho hum...
Except it's about priorities - before Chrome, Javascript rendering speed wasn' t much of a concern to end users or the Mozilla/IE projects.
Now, it's set a new bar to aim for - rather than Firefox jamming in a ton of new features they're starting to think about speed and stability.
Chrome is nice (I use it for daily browsing as it's fast and lightweight), but it doesn't feel like the power-browser that Firefox does (even if it's orders of magnitude slower). From day one it's felt like a proof of concept to promote Google's priorities on to other browser makers.
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