Not totally on topic but I'm curious

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

Any of you guys get to try Google's new Chrome browser? Any thoughts? Anyone else immediately think how incredibly grandparent-unfriendly it is?

Comments

[insaint.livejournal.com]

Grandparent-unfriendly? How so?

[cjkline83.livejournal.com]

You mean... like Vista?

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

Mainly that not everything is instantly apparent. No "home" button, no search bar, no "mail" button...

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Browsers have a 'Mail' button?

I haven't seen that since Netscape.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I.E. 6 has it (it may not be visible/enabled depending on the installation...). Don't know about I.E. 7 because too many work application don't work with it to want to upgrade to it.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Here's what I said in techsupport_ot:

I wish there were more installation options. I don't like this "poof, you're done!" shit. Maybe I want the option, say, to default to Promiscuous Mode (which I'm just going to call "Porn Mode" from here on in)

It does take a long time to load up flash and script heavy pages, but once they're loaded, they fly. It takes awhile to load Youtube, Slashdot and GMail.

And I'm not liking Google integrating everything I do into one neat little ball. That's fine for some people, but I'm not high on this "WE'RE GONNA KILL MS!!!" shit. It is starting to feel like we could be killing Hitler for Stalin.

Other than that? It's a good little browser with some AWESOME features. I like the task manager (right click in Explorer, you can close individual tabs and see which one in particular is eating your system resources), and I like how nice and clean it is. It NEEDS some plugin support (Adblock!!!), but other than that, this is as good a start for a browser as I've seen.

EDIT: What the fuck is this Snap shit!? I've never seen this in Firefox! Adblock, take me away!!!

EDIT2: I like the little thing you can use to drag text blocks!

[jecook]

+1 on the "Hi! we are gonna drop it into your 'docs and settings' folder" complaint.

I do not have a lot of space on the drive that I installed XP on- I have a seperate 80 GB partition that houses about 90% of the apps on the machine. So you can imagine my annoyance that it dumped it in that folder (which, I might add, is not where one is *supposed* to drop apps, according to M$!).

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Typically I'd say F.U. M$ to that. (see the stupid-long path Outlook defaults to for PSTs)

In this case, I'll agree with you though. There is a time and place for following convention, even if it does come from the Perpetual Profit Stream creators in redmond.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

*psst* If you go to options for Chrome, there is a spot to choose the default download directory. Yes, quite annoying that it chooses My Docs... oh wait, you're talking about the fact that it installs and runs out of application data. Yes, also very annoying. And why?! Why not in program files if it's going to install itself automatically without giving a choice?

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Because Ap Data is hidden by default.

They're really trying to go Idiot Proof with this, and the more Idiot Proof things get, the worse they get, to the point where only the idiots can do anything.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Snap exists in Firefox, too. Clear your cookies.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Not with Adblock, it doesn't.

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

You did invoke Godwin's law, but I approve of the message. +1 on that.
Interesting how people are starting to pick up on google having a monopoly on information might not be a good thing after all...

;)

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

Snaps is annoying, I hate it, but you can turn it off. It's a cookie, so you've gotta do it every time you clear 'em, but it still can be turned off.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I never ever see that stuff in Firefox because every time in Firefox, I'm using Adblock.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Mac guy here. Will try tomorrow at work (XP on VMWare).

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

it runs on windows only. Sums it pretty much.

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

They're releasing a Mac version "soon," apparently, but Linux users are SOL it looks like...

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/mac.html

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

I think not. (http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/linux.html)

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

Not really concerned: I won't be running it.

I don't even let Google set cookies that last beyond me closing the browser.

[the-reda.livejournal.com]

The one thing that I read about that might tempt me to try it is the separate session tap function. Being able to log into different accounts of the same site at once is really tempting. On the other hand: oy firefox, I can has that add-on NOA?

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

I like the separate sessions in general, as well as the breakdown "task manager" - it's really a brilliant addition.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a bonus. I'd like to have, for example, work and personal GMail accounts open at the same time. The question is whether bookmarks could be set up to actually open both inboxes (or DeviantArt homepages, or Photobucket galleries etc) without having to separately log on to both accounts each time. I suppose it would be viable if an entire session could be saved as a bookmark...

[emsporter.livejournal.com]

This may be is a stupid complaint, but I hate the way it doesn't integrate with my theme in Windows. I use the good ol'fashioned Win2K theme, and then Chrome comes along...

Not overly fond overall. Snappy enough, but I don't have any problems with Firefox's speed.

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

Tried it five hours ago, still using it.
It's amazing.

[digitalraven]

No adblock, no customisation, no use.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're looking at making AdBlock (or filtering in general) a separate function external to the browser.

Have files containing lists of block/allow sites, and then run an interface on the PC which blocks certain connections or lists of connections depending on the application, user, or other criteria.

[uchikikun.livejournal.com]

Advertising is Google's livelihood, so...

[caira.livejournal.com]

Text advertising is Google's livelihood, I thought. Which tends to get through all the ad blockers I know of . . .

[tanetris.livejournal.com]

It's fairly simple to kill Google ads, and other sorts of text ads as long as you can figure out the domain they're coming from, with Opera's content blocker. Never tried Firefox's (didn't get that far before deciding Firefox was unacceptably slow and ditching it (note: these were my impressions way back somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0, and I have had no reason to poke at it since. I realize that my impressions are probably outdated and certainly unpopular))

[moopet.livejournal.com]

Really? FF with adblock, element hiding helper and customize google here, and I only see google text ads on other people's machines.

[caira.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Obviously I'm just not trying hard enough. ;o)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

So if they equip their blocker with filters for everything *except* Google Ads, all of a sudden lots of people's online advertising experience is 100% Google.

Of course, being Google, they'll allow Google Ads to be blocked manually by the sufficiently technically-minded, which means they retain their recommended-by-techies status, quite useful when those same techies are setting up PCs for friends and family or making corporate recommendations.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

If they were to do something like that, antitrust types would be falling over each other to get to Google first. And they'd be right.

[caira.livejournal.com]

Question is, are Google big enough to win the suit anyway?

</cynical bastard>

[superbus.livejournal.com]

It's funny now that according to the INQ, Microsoft is making accusations ALREADY of just that, because of how tightly it's being integrated with Apps.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

So they make the blocker target image-based ads only in its default configuration, rather than specific domains.

[jethro.livejournal.com]

Anyone read the EULA? Esp. this part?
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. 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.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services."

[edling.livejournal.com]

I was just going to mention that little doozy- looks like we're going to be prepping that 'Do not install this on your work PC on pain of death' mailout :)

[cjkline83.livejournal.com]

being very retarded when it comes to law... can someone break down that wall of text into plain english for me?

Does that mean anytime I make a post in LiveJournal with Chrome Google automatically gets the copyright? Why would they need/want that much power?

[edling.livejournal.com]

World + dog is having an argument about what it means, but potentially it could mean that Google has right to do whatever it wants to with anything that you upload or download through chrome.
It's a load of old cobblers and lots of people have spotted that it seems to be a generic EULA copied from one of their other services, but it's a bit of a publicity cock-up at minimum, especially given their 'Do no evil' motto.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

I believe their "do no evil" line is a load of bollocks, personally, but that's cut-and-pasted from their Apps EULA.

And there's a reason I don't use Apps: because I give no one copyright of my work but me.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

The whole "omg it's sooperfast with Javascript!" thing is, so far... spotty at best, almost entirely untrue at cynically-objective.

Even Google Apps itself runs slightly smoother on IE7 than on Chrome. The Echo framework (heavy javascript application framework that allows you to drag windows around, have translucent titlebars on them, resizable panes, etc, within your browser window) shows almost a 100% increase in the built-in benchmark on Chrome - but actually dragging windows around / resizing panes / etc is SIGNIFICANTLY slower in Chrome than in either IE7 or FF3.

So far, fail.

I do love the separate processes per tab, though, and the plain HTML rendering seems noticeably faster than IE or FF... for what little that's worth; I generally run God Boxes that aren't exactly going to crawl rendering pure HTML anyway. And without a plugin architecture, there isn't likely to be any Adblock, and good goddamn that is a SERIOUS must.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

I'm agreeing with everyone here, I love the separate processes per tab and the tab task manager bit as well. The one thing I've also fallen in love with is "paste and go". Incredibly nice now when I don't have Chrome as default and thus am pasting addresses a lot more than I would if it was default.

It really truly needs plugins/customization before I'd completely adopt it. For one thing, the theme isn't that bad, but I would prefer having a choice. Also, as was pointed out to me last night, the speed of an animated .gif in Chrome and the speed of the same file in Firefox 3 are significantly different (Chrome being the slower of the 2).

Has anyone discovered any other about: entries other than about:memory (brings up the handy dandy tab task manager)?

[superbus.livejournal.com]

There's one thing I noticed:

There's a way to expand text boxes. Try dragging the corner of a standard LJ text box, and you'll see.