Chrome beta today

NogDog

For those of you who like to be on the bleeding edge of the browser wars, Google has announced they will be releasing a beta version of Chrome for Windows today.

rulian

yeah I was just reading up on it, I went on but couldnt find a dl link anywhere I take it I have to wait a bit longer

NogDog

Download link

NogDog

Already submitted my first bug report: it won't scroll up via my notebook's touchpad input, it will only scroll down.

nrg_alpha

Ah, thanks for the link. I was looking for that 😉
Going to install and give it a whirl.. but something tells me not to get my hopes high on this browser.

rulian

wow, it needs some major tune ups already.
But it is handling some of my JS better then or equal to FF
Let see what happens but right now it needs some major tune ups, I do like their developer toolkit it shows you resources it's good, it also does render fast
PNG support is also lacking

nrg_alpha

rulian;10884888 wrote:
wow, it needs some major tune ups already.
But it is handling some of my JS better then or equal to FF
Let see what happens but right now it needs some major tune ups, I do like their developer toolkit it shows you resources it's good, it also does render fast
PNG support is also lacking

As far as JS is concerned, nobdy pushes it like Safari.. Javsscript simply screams on Safari.

I feel that the browser is too minimalistic.. looks nice and simple and clean (which is their goal evidently).. but for it's simplistic use, I feel Opera 9.52 is faster. Granted, I think Chrome is a Beta.. so who knows.. mabey it will be faster when it reached RC stage.

As for PNG, it does support it. My website is build using PNG panels (the background can be seen tiling beneath it), and it seems to display just nicely.

rulian

mine it had some trouble when I loaded my website with PNG bg's, put the browser to the background, came back to it a few minutes later and my pngs were all opaque

dougal85

I love this browser! It's clean and its super fast.

It's faster than safari at JavaScript. The V8 JavaScript virtual machine is nice!

Just to back that up, there are plenty of comparisons on the web but this one looks pretty good. http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-chrome-smokes-competition-on.html

Seems that FF 3.1 with the new JIT engine is just about matching Safari. but in terms of speed, Chrome looks to be way ahead just now...

NogDog

It's based on the same engine as Safari, so I would expect it to have similar performance.

Some food for thought, though:

Section 11.1 of the EULA:

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.

Sort of makes you wonder what sort of info they might be gathering on your web surfing, if they can view and publish any web page you visit (your online bank statement?), etc. While I'm sure they'll say they'd never do that, how can we be sure?

Anyway, until I hear more about this aspect, I won't be using Chrome for private purposes until I see satisfactory evidence that what the above section seems to say is not what they mean. (The Firefox EULA has no such clause in it.)

dougal85

NogDog;10884896 wrote:
It's based on the same engine as Safari, so I would expect it to have similar performance.

It's got a totally different JavaScript engine. It uses V8

http://code.google.com/p/v8/

nrg_alpha

So I decided to test Chrome Beta using acid test 3. You know.. just for the hell of it.. see where this browser stands with regards to what web developers / designers want out of browsers...

Oh? What's that, Chrome? Page is down or cannot be found? Every single time I try? Even when all the other browsers got the page on the first shot? Well.. ain't that something? Thankfully, there is a link to try out the cached version.

Chrome fell short (only managing %58.. but then again, FireFox 3.0.1 fell short at %56!).
Chrome's more established cousin (a.k.a Safari [in my case...windows version]) faired better (%72). The browser that so far has performed the best was Opera 9.52 (at %78). On all tests, I had scripting / javascripting enabled. (Opera didn't have Java though..so I could not enable that one). IE 8 Beta 2 faired the worst by a long shot (%20).

Granted, with all this, Chrome is still in Beta.. I checked the limited amount of options out, and there was nothing listed about Java nor Javascript.

So I am curious if in the end once the stable Release Candidate of Chrome launches, if it will perform acid tests better than Safari. Chrome is fast, no doubt.. but I hope its developers didn't overlook the features web designers are looking for in a web brower.. so far though, so good.

dougal85

hmm I don't know what you did but I went to the link and it loaded fine. I also scored higher than you did too.

In my case it done better than Safari.

I think you might find some of the tests fail in a cached version. This would be because of cross-site scripting restrictions I guess.

I attached a screen dump

nrg_alpha

I just re-tried Chrome with acid test 3 link again (this time it loaded no problem) and scored %78! Wow.. not bad at all!

nrg_alpha

dougal85;10884968 wrote:
hmm I don't know what you did but I went to the link and it loaded fine. I also scored higher than you did too.

In my case it done better than Safari.

I think you might find some of the tests fail in a cached version. This would be because of cross-site scripting restrictions I guess.

I attached a screen dump

Well, it will fail if it isn't at %100 😉
But I wasn't aware of lower success rates using cached versions.. so it worked the last time I did it.. score matched Safari EDIT(oops.. I meant Opera 9.52).. so for a Beta.. looking very good indeed.

dougal85

nrg_alpha;10884972 wrote:
But I wasn't aware of lower success rates using cached versions.. so it worked the last time I did it.. score matched Safari.. so for a Beta.. looking very good indeed.

I just remember there being lots of huffing and puffing about IE8 when the beta's came out. The acid test worked for some people and not for others. It turned out it was only working properly on the site it was originally hosted on. This was due to some security features in cross-site code. I don't remember the details exactly but assume its connected.

nrg_alpha

dougal85;10884973 wrote:
I just remember there being lots of huffing and puffing about IE8 when the beta's came out. The acid test worked for some people and not for others. It turned out it was only working properly on the site it was originally hosted on. This was due to some security features in cross-site code. I don't remember the details exactly but assume its connected.

Well, I retested IE 8 Beta 2, and once again, it bombed in miserable fashion (again, sitting at %20). When I put IE 8 into 'Compatiblility View' mode (IE 7 simulation), it did even worse (%15)! Now since IE 8 Beta 2 overwrites previous versions on my harddrive (I no longer have the last stable release of IE 7), I cannot tell what that version's score would be.. but man.. IE is looking pretty freakin' rough about now (at least on my system).

I'm still sticking to FireFox and Opera for now.. but with Chrome entering the fray, I don't think Mircosoft is too happy in this department.. They better get their act together.. or their browser's market shares will continue to drop (which is perfectly fine by me!).

dougal85

To be honest, I don't rate the ACID test anyway. All it does it try out a few obscure things that are generally hard to do. If you pass the ACID test it doesn't mean you are compliant, it means you have implemented the rubbish needed for that test.

I actually think IE8 so far is a decent browser. I don't mind it.

nrg_alpha

Indeed, the acid test doesn't equal W3C compliance.. It's more of a 'wish list' that designers / developers would like to see in browsers more than anything else.

But from what I have been reading, apparently IE 8's final release is still going to be behind the likes of Firefox as far as W3C compliance is concerned. While it is shaping up to be better than any of it's earlier incarnations, I am steering clear of it. Chrome will add yet another option to people who prefer alternatives.. so hopefully, IE drops even more in usage.

I really don't like how MS sat on IE 6 for so long withouth remaining competitive.. You would think that given windows is their OS, they would have crafted the most compliant, sleekest, fastest and safest browser around... man they dropped the ball on that one! They deserve to drop out of the brower race entirely IMHO.

dougal85

nrg_alpha;10884983 wrote:
I really don't like how MS sat on IE 6 for so long withouth remaining competitive..

Only because they have had no real competition. Fair enough other browsers might be more standard compliant etc etc but it doesn't matter what you can do if you don't control the market share.

You should see some of talks/articles by Chris Wilson (I can't find the specific one I'm looking for right now). He's the Platform Architect for Internet Explorer. It's interesting as he talks about the troubles they have with updating the worlds most popular browser. They need to be very careful about how they proceed and changing things can cause loads of trouble, hence having computability modes. You may not take this in since I'm guessing your not a MS fan but I think its quite interesting. I try to remain neutral.

Anyway, they are getting better slowly and MS seems to be slowly updating its development methods. Thats the biggest problem if you ask me, they are such a huge beast and still stuck with methods from 10 years ago (or more?).