Google spins out Chrome 2.0 pre-beta alpha

Google has released an alpha of Chrome 2.0, even though work on version 1.0 of the browser remains incomplete. The unpolished Chrome 2.0 rocked up in the early hours of today and comes loaded with the latest WebKit release that adds support for various CSS functions and speed improvements. Spell checking can now be enabled or …

[Jerome]

Plug-ins

I'll try Chrome again the day they add plug-in support.

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn*

And, like, does anyone care?

The browser market is saturated. Unless they're planning to make google.com only work with Chrome or have some utterly killer feature up their sleeves which nobody else thought of (telepathy maybe, just think "show me big boobys* " at your screen and off it goes...), they'll get the same market share as Safari and stagnate there.

*thats's a kind of bird, in case you're wondering - see http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Bluebooby

gd&r

[Damien]

Chrome

I use chrome for the majority of my daily surfing, only stuff I do elsewhere is my MOSS tinkering.

I love the speed

[Geoff Johnson]

Needs Ad Blocking

I can't imaging ever using a browser without it these days and I can't see Google enabling it in Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Printing

Have they added the option to print background colours yet? *sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

@Jerome

yeah... for firefox plugins plz

[nobby]

@Plug-ins, By Jerome

you mean you *want* plugins? why? aren't those the first things you try to disable in any browser?

[K]

re: Plug-ins

With you on that one Jerome... Google have missed a real opportunity here.

[martin allen]

Mactard?

What's with this new(ish) moniker for Mac users? Linux users can get just as uppity. How about LinTards? For that matter lets have WinTards and, erm UNTards...

[Rob Beard]

Version 3

So presumably version 3 alpha will be released at about the same time as version 1.0 is complete? :-)

I've had a play with Chrome on a friend's laptop (he says it's the best thing since sliced bread) but to be honest I can't really see much difference between that and Firefox. Guess I should give 2.0 a try when they release a Linux version.

Rob

[John Robson]

Not a bad system...

They do a basic set, use a couple of easy libraries to get a quick release out, then go and rewrite those as they're dodgy and non portable.

Just hope that v2.0 is actually properly portable - get them to drop mac/linux v1 ideas and do it with v2

I like Chrome on my VM, but don't like having to fire up a VM to use it, so it's only rarely touched.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why everybody asks ...

... for Chrome release on other operating systems. As I remember they introduced this browser to compete with IE. All other browsers are petty advanced in terms of web standards support. Only IE is lagging behind. Google wants people to ditch IE so they can use more advanced CSS and JavaScript features to produce more incredible web applications.

I doubt that Linux or Mac OS X version of Chrome can reduce IE market share. So, stop complaining, use Firefox (or Opera, or Safari, or whatever)!

[Steven Knox]

"loaded with the latest WebKit"

Maybe it's just too early on a Friday, but am I the only one who read "loaded with the latest RootKit..."?

[Matt Smart]

Sigh

Come on Google, where's the Linux version? Surely it makes more sense to get the browser out for all operating systems at version 1 before working on version 2... oh well.

[Alastair]

Re: Jerome

Then you're not the target market, then. Chrome isn't trying to be Firefox (too many AdBlock users to make it worthwhile, ha)- it's trying to be an "every-day user" browser. Hopefully it'll hack some market share from IE.

[Matt Taylor]

....and still

It does not work with mobile me website me.com

The only time Chrome worked with me.com was when it was in BETA back in november it stopped working

ARGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn , just another web browser

Why do some people get excited about browsers? The only time I ever got even midly excited about one was when I first saw Mozaic back in 94 and at least it could claim to be a revolutionary application. Now all we get is a checklist of:

- A user interface with more eye candy

- Another variation on tabbed browsing or some other irrelevant GUI interface method

- Yet another HTML rendering engine which will be mega fast Real Soon Now

- Yet another Javascript engine, ditto above

- Yet more promises that this is the One True Browser and will be virus/trojan immune (for Windows users, other OSes need not worry)

FFS , who cares? Wake me up when someone really does come up with something revolutionary and not just another boring variation on some very old themes. Might as well get excited about new versions of telnet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox does it all

Why would I care what comes out of the New Evil Empire?

[Jerome]

@ Alistair

"Then you're not the target market"... "Hopefully it'll hack some market share from IE."

I think that's the problem. The geeks are happy with Firefox and a fistful of add-ons. Everyone else is happy clicking on that little blue e in order to "start the internet". Chrome, nice and speedy though it is, seems to be stuck in a middle ground that nobody really cares about.

[Andre Thenot]

Mac Version... what for?

Since Chrome runs WebKit, what's the point? Mac users already have Safari. And if they want the latest version, nightlies can be grabbed at webkit.org.

Does Chrome also have the same DOM/CSS inspector & editor, network transfer/latency charts and JavaScript debugger like Safari does?

[Joel Clark]

Is the constant Mac-bashing really necessary?

It was funny the first few times, but now it's getting a little old. Seriously, knock it the fuck off.

[David Gosnell]

Better?

I wonder if it fixes the flowed divs bug that blights all webkit browsers to date, making them crawl like treacle? Took ages to nail on one of my sites, eventually fixed by making the divs inline blocks - but I hate having to browser sniff to work around things like that.

[Rob]

Google releases

Do google ever actually release final versions of anything?

How long has Google Mail been in Beta now? Or is it when all these products stop being beta that we have to worry cause that's when Google will start charging for them, which will be shortly after the world finds out they too are another dodgy internet company that has an over-inflated worth?

Could 2009 see Google collapse in the financial crisis?

[Toastan Buttar]

It's good for YouTube

I'd been having a hell of a time trying to get Flash 10 working under IE7 or FF when using limited user accounts on XP. Chrome has no such problems, so it's the browser of choice in our house, where YouTube is the Killer Web App. We use FF (with ABP) when running Ubuntu.

I still prefer the UI of IE7, though. Please don't throw things at me.

[tardigrade]

@martin allen

Arf!

UNTard is totally incorrect it would have to be NixTard, or properly *nixTard. I believe LinTard and nixTard are however covered by FreeTard which is a hateful thing and also incorrect. Curse you ElReg for that, you suck ass!

WinTard or perhaps WinHoes is overdue though.

Anyway what is this Chrome thing then? Being a Linux luser I've never heard of it.

[David Wilkinson]

I think the definition of a Mactard is ...

IThe definition of a Mactard is someone feels the Mac is the perfect platform. Therefore anyone who chooses not to use a Mac must be acting out of ignorance and/or stupidity. Furthermore the perfect platform by definition runs all the best software so anything that does not run on it must be unworthy.

You know the people who argued the vast inferiority of intel x86 processors until suddenly Apple announced the switch, then Intels chips went from being 5 times slower to 5 times faster.

Apparently there are Mactards and Freetards but no Wintards. That's because us Windows users tend to view our platform of choice with a healthy skepticism. Most of us are dying to jump ship as soon as Linux or OSX can even come close to meeting our needs.

[JT2008]

@Joel Clark

"Is the constant Mac-bashing really necessary?"

Yes.

I ...am ...so sick of the whiny MacTards on here.

Paris, because even she can use a Mac.

[JT2008]

@tardigrade

I prefer to call them uniTards.

[Steen Hive]

@plugins

Shurely shome mishtake? Npruntime plugins run just dandy in Chrome. At least the ones I write do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Love it

I've been using Google Chrome for a while now. I have to say, I love it. It's a wonderful browser. It's blazingly fast, sleek and sexy, and has, in my opinion, by far the most elegant interface in the market. I've started using it for all of my daily tasks. In fact, at this point, the only time I use Firefox is when I'm either developing or when I need to dip my toe into untrusted websites where I need NoScript capability (although I've yet to experience a security problem with the browser).

Having said that, it is still missing some vital features, some of which you might not even notice right of the bat. As you all know, it lacks plug-in support which is a major downer. I consider NoScript essential but thus far I've managed by not visiting sites I've never been to before in Chrome. Of course this also means I have to bring up Firefox, which feels really slow and bloated after using Chrome for a while, whenever I need to visit a website the first time, download an FLV, rip a site, use a macro, develop/debug a website, or any other in-depth task that requires Firefox + plug-ins. The browser does have an integrated element inspector and JavaScript debugger but these tools aren't on par with Firefox + Web Developer and Firebug.

As for the missing features you might not notice: for one, there's no 'print preview' feature. There's also no RSS reader and no auto-complete. There's no full-screen mode, although the browser is nearly full screen when maximized anyway. Nor can you click the center mouse button and scroll using the mouse, although the scroll wheel does work (Thank God). There's no browser-only proxy support built in either. Additionally, a very select few popular sites still don't display properly.

All-in-all, Chrome is my new favorite browser and I've been a loyal Firefox user for quite a few years now. I encourage all you nay sayers to at least give it a try before you wave your hand and dismiss it. You just might like it ;-)

[Alastair]

Re: Jerome (Chrome market position)

Well, no... Firefox is and always will be the browser of choice for geeks and those who want customisation. But the only reason the every-day user uses IE is because it's what was there when they first turned their PC on. Google is already supposed to be working with it's OEM partners (that already install Google Toolbar and stuff) to provide Chrome as the default browser instead of IE.

As a web developer, I hope they succeed...

[P. Lee]

it isn't a browser...

well, not for the masses anyway.

If you own the cloud, you want to at least do a proof of concept for robust application delivery from the cloud to the desktop!

[Zap]

Google needs to sort out install before anyone can use in corp environment

I was very keen to try an alternative "thin" browser and set about installing Google Chrome.

Sadly I had to remove the application as it broke some of the fundamental install rules of windows. It bloated my windows profile by nearly 60mb and installed EXE files in the profile eather than in the program files folder (or a folder of my choice).

This made is unusable because on our standalone PC's we install via an admin account and users run on limited accounts (so they could not run the program as it was located in the ADMIN user profile folders which they quite rightly do not have access to).

For our 20k+ network users it can't be installed as it would bring our network to its knees dragging anoth 60mb per user of files back and forth on roaming profiles. Our security manager also does not allow EXE files to be stored in profiles.

So for us Google Chrome is not even of Alpha quality in V1.

It was a pain to uninstall, it is just as well we found out now, perhaps these issues will be resolved by the time it gets to version 8!