Google's Own Web-browser - It's official!

[Boggy1 45]

So, there have been rumours flying around for a while that the search giant Google will be entering the browser market, and today, in the form of a 38 page comic, the Google Team formally announced their browser; Google Chrome.

A quick lay down of the features:

Google Chrome is entirely open source,

Each tab has it's own seperate process - meaning that if a tab crashes, then the entire browser isn't compromised.

Each tab is also entirely confined and sandboxed; unable to read data from your disk without permission, download any data without your permission, etcetera.

The tab bar is now located above the menu bar. You are able to drag out elements of tabs, or tabs themselves, into new windows or tabs, while keeping all the permissions and values intact.

A special sort of tab is featured; one which logs no data whatsoever. You can access bookmarks and history, but after the tab is closed, no cookies or history is saved on the computer.

An URL bar, much like Firefox's 'awesome bar' that gives you suggested results, bookmarks, most clicked results, and popular websites.

When a new tab is created, you are presented with something very similar to the browser Opera; your most visited websites, bookmarks, and recent history; all a click away.

Anyway, the news can be found here, but warning, the site is slow due to high demand.

[coolotter88 2]

I'll stick with Firefox, changing browsers is too much of a hassle

[Patricius Maximus 236]

I saw it coming. Soon they'll have their own operating system .

Anyway, I have no interest. I'm used to Internet Explorer, and switching is too much trouble.

[belfastuniguy 18]

I may have a look at it. but I LOVE firefox after nearly 9 years of being an IE user....don't think I'll be changing.

[Hummer bob 1 4]

Yea, I'm sticking with firefox too. But seriously, what is google going to make next?

[Zelgadis 638]

Oh goody. I suppose Google is out to ruin browsers too. I see very little that's new there. Just Google's name on it. And if Google Chrome works half as well as Google search, then that's going to be pretty awful indeed...

Well, Google has changed one thing in my life. I don't loathe Microsoft anywhere near as much as I used to. There's a new number one for that spot now.

ISF

[fukuda 351]

Wow! Sounds very interesting! And I see cool features that could reduce the 90% of my Firefox crashes, sincerely, I have have no problems changing browsers as I already did with Firefox, and I wanna test new soft ! ^^

[SimRabbit 48]

Let's make predictions,

1. The browser will be full of ADs. Instead of showing a toolbar, it will show you revelant ads.

but anyways, i hope it's good as FF.

[sEAhAwk fAn121 0]

This sounds pretty awesome. I switched from IE to Safari when I got my mac but I use firefox every once in a while. It will be interesting to see what google comes up with!

[Duke87 1,070]

Google is a good search engine. It's also a good satellite viewing program. And a damn good online map. But its video site fell short (no matter, they just bought YouTube instead), its email service (though popular) is largely superfluous due to the existence of so many other services that do exactly the same thing, and its special toolbar is a completely useless and redundant waste of pixels on the screen.

At the moment, my gut's telling me that their browser is going to be made of prime, grade A, white meat phail*.

Withholding facepalm for now until more is known, but it's at the ready.

*misspelling intentional.

[hym 358]

My personal take on the mentioned features:

Google Chrome is entirely open sourcequote>

Doesn't impress me.  A developer can scream "Open Source!!!" all he/she wants, but if the software is bad, the software is still bad.

Each tab has it's own seperate process - meaning that if a tab crashes, then the entire browser isn't compromisedquote>

So if I have Windows running with 20 processes, and then open Google Chrome with 10 tabs, I'd have 30 processes running?  Wonder what kind of system resources it uses, especially if you have RAM-heavy plugins.  Even more interesting, I wonder what Chrome would do if I went into the Task Manager and terminated one of the processes.  And so what if a tab crashes and brings down the whole browser?  It's not like the session restore function in Firefox isn't capable of bringing everything you want back in a few moments.

Each tab is also entirely confined and sandboxed; unable to read data from your disk without permission, download any data without your permission, etcetera.quote>

Well, if you're going to make each tab as a separate process, I'd hope you'd do something like that.  Though it does beg the question:  Is Chrome an actual browser or a type of clipboard of sorts for a bunch of mini-browsers?

The tab bar is now located above the menu bar. You are able to drag out elements of tabs, or tabs themselves, into new windows or tabs, while keeping all the permissions and values intact.quote>

Moving the tab bar isn't special.  In fact, I'd call it a stupid decision (but that's based on my usage habits).  Dragging tabs, and elements and whatnot sounds good, though I have a FF plugin to handle all of my needs in that area.

A special sort of tab is featured; one which logs no data whatsoever. You can access bookmarks and history, but after the tab is closed, no cookies or history is saved on the computer.quote>

Not interested.  If you need that kind of security, you should be surfing on a portable browser anyway.

An URL bar, much like Firefox's 'awesome bar' that gives you suggested results, bookmarks, most clicked results, and popular websites.quote>

Nothing new here.

When a new tab is created, you are presented with something very similar to the browser Opera; your most visited websites, bookmarks, and recent history; all a click away.quote>

Doesn't interest me, though I guess it could be useful to some people.

[My Username 0]

been trough ie, netscape firefox, opera...

right now im on firefox because it has the least bugs, and i will try this new toy out for sure!

looks interesting...

[Hamish 1,370]

Hmm, it sounds like all the other, good, browsers out there...

I use Safari, not changing anytime soon, nor do I see myself changing in the future. Although I do use firefox from time to time if I really have to use it.

[Tia-may 0]

They actually wrote one as an April Fool's Day joke in 2006: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-browser.html

Synopsis from the page:

Presenting you Google Browser, a fast, versatile and secure text browser for the Internet. Google Browser is free, already out of beta, and the installer has only 1.68 MB.

Just open it, type g (that's from Google), enter a URL, press enter and visit the web through Google's eyes.

[jacqulina 162]

i will stick with what i have allready

[Boggy1 45]

(Hehe, I wasn't asking anyone to switch, just thought it was some interesting news for people who are into this sort of stuff. I probably won't switch either, but still)

Anyway, here is a screen shots of Chrome: 

It's certainly quite clean-looking.

The Alpha-build is meant to be released either today or tomorrow.

Also, the whole release comic, which talks about the features, can be found here.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Google is a good search engine. It's also a good satellite viewing program. And a damn good online map. But its video site fell short (no matter, they just bought YouTube instead), its email service (though popular) is largely superfluous due to the existence of so many other services that do exactly the same thing, and its special toolbar is a completely useless and redundant waste of pixels on the screen.quote>

I agree with most of that. I have Google Earth, and the Google toolbar. The only reason I have it is because it is more convienient than typing in the Google address. Sometimes I forget what I was going to search for after that . But, I agree that a lot of the toolbar is useless.

One of my friends has G-mail, and they like it. However, I like my Yahoo! account the best, and I stick with that.

I'm looking at the Google browser and it looks awfully similar to IE, and the new tab thing with the websites turns me off.

What will Google make next? Let's see... After this they'll make their own operating system, and then their own computers .

Really, I just think that Google is just looking for something to keep them busy. When you're one of the largest companies in the US, you have to do something to keep from being bored .

- Patricius Maximus

[Easy Bakes 253]

Wow another browser in an already crowded market.

Is anyone else anoyed by inbeded vidio on web sites that start when you load the page?

[Tia-may 0]

Google also advocates net neutrality (http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html) because it appreciates it for helping to make themselves so great. Without it there would have not been a browser by them at all. Worth a look at the browser.

[Boggy1 45]

Well, it's out. You can get it here. Obviously I'm not going to replace my trusty Firefox, but from what I've seen..it is quite awesome. Very very very fast, and clean and simple. The ST reply box is slightly buggy; it's missing all of the options, but then again, this IS an early Beta.

[Theirishnintendonerd 13]

Its nice and fast but its annoying the message editor doesn't work properly :@. I will use this browser for watching you tube videos and maybe downloading stuff from the stex.

[SimRabbit 48]

Tia-may: they try to look good, but they aren't.

They are a greedy corporation looking to make money from other sources besides ads.

The only reason they support Net Neutrality is that if ISPs take over the web, the ISPs will place their own ads on their network, which will ultimately kill Google.

[wishfulanthony 3]

Google Chrome is a new, somehow amazing browser that can compete with smaller rival Firefox because of its simplicity, and the interactivity of the browser is way better than Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7 (note: I use Firefox so frequently that it is the browser I always use). I like its simple layout (most visited pages, tabs, personalized features) that FF and IE8 lack, and I also like the speed of downloads Chrome has -- it is like, I will use more and more Google products as I go along because their innovations are great that I have so many of their programs on my laptop.

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: SimRabbit Tia-may: they try to look good, but they aren't.

They are a greedy corporation looking to make money from other sources besides ads..quote>

They are evil!!! lol

[TV-VCR 15]

I tried it, no thank you. One issue is that, Firefox is known for it's memory leaks. Having each tab as a different process seems like a good idea on paper, but within about half an hour of using it, it was eating up over 200,000 K more than Firefox. And it's missing a lot of features that should be a standard browser (not including functionality brought from plugins). It's a good concept but needs work.

Zelgadis: What's so wrong with google?

Edit: Just a random (but good) read. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2329246,00.asp

[Hamish 1,370]

I looks just too blue.

But, I suppose, it looks alright.

Hmm, wonder what the default homepage will be???

[ExiL3 10]

Running Google chrome now...

and I am VERY pleased. It imported everything from FF very fast (and I have a lot of stuff stored in FF!), and it's fast and reliable.

Atleast FF3.0< seemed to crash for me from time to time, when I viewed some Java sites.

Hamish: The default Website is a "Speed-dial" like screen that shows your 9 most visited sites.

,take care edit: here is an image attached to my post, from my "start page", In Norwegian btw

[coolotter88 2]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10030522-2.html

Read the fine print.

[saltandsauce 0]

if they make their own OS then it must be better than windows

[MrWacko 0]

Almost anything is better than Windows now a days. Vista was a colossal failure.

Anyways, back on point, it looks nice. I personally don't use tabs, instead using Alt-Tab functionality to switch between a ton of things. I'm also a firm believer in the file-bar, and don't like it when people take it away. Of course, I don't know if you can add it back in, since I haven't actually downloaded it, I've just looked at pics and stuff.