Comment Feed for Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Yggdrasil — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:49:48 GMT

Oh, here's another problem I've discovered - Chrome's download manager leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike FF's download manager or IE's annoying little standalone windows, Chrome's downloads don't keep the browser alive. This means that if I start a download and then close all open tabs (which, annoyingly enough, closes Chrome completely without warning), the download is cancelled. Furthermore, there is no option to resume the download later from the Downloads tab.

Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Elmer — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:16:03 GMT

I just find it annoying to see GoogleUpdate.exe running on my system, as a result of installing a browser.

Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Mark Wisecarver — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:32:52 GMT

I uninstalled Chrome after testing it...
Funny thing is you get this message:
Was it something we said?

Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Yggdrasil — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:58:31 GMT

A few updates, since it seems that a reasonable, balanced discussion does not an active thread make. :)

1) Scott Hanselman writes on the new trend of multiple processes rather than threads, including info on Jobs that span processes. It seems that Chrome will open 20 processes at most, and start reusing them after that, which makes sense but can be a bit hard to expect.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the process independence so far. Both the :% bug that crashes all processes together, and the apparent interdependecy between them - I went to a site that allowed me to upload a large file (www.morecowbell.dj, specifically), and while my file was uploading, ALL my tabs were frozen, including tabs spun off to different windows. Seems that there's still work to do to prevent shared resources from bringing down the whole system

2) I don't like the disappearing-reappearing status bar. Mostly a visual thing - the status bar, without borders, is all but unnoticeable, and when I do notice it it's because it's on top of text I'm trying to read. They should have it push the text up, like the IE-style Goldbar does on top.

Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

tfraser — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:20:32 GMT

The new JavaScript features look promising and with any luck they will see further implementation throughout the browser ecosystem, ideally with less of the limitations and bugs they are burdened with at the moment.

I don't think Microsoft needs to worry too much about Chrome. As has been stated before, it seems more likely that it will cannibalise Firefox's market share rather than Internet Explorer's.

Also, I am of the belief that the most important area to dominate in the future of the Internet will be the platform on which applications are run, in preference to the browser through which they are accessed. So far as I can see, there are no real benefits to browser dominance when each variant ultimately does the same thing.

Re: Re: Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Harlequin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:19:47 GMT

The big question though....how secure is it? It might be new and fast, but IE and Firefox have been around for a while. They've fixed holes, grew alongside the growth of the internet, etc. I don't care how fast a browser is if it's going to let my passwords and credit card number be stolen by some JavaScript hole or something.

Re: Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

vesuvius — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:26:44 GMT

My gravest misgivings are whether the IE team are going to allow themselves to be flexible enough to allow change this late in the development cycle. There must be some sleepless nights going on over at MSFT becuase PDC08 is going to bring big announcements, and that is going to be either Silverlight 2, IE8 or both.

My personal feelings are that IE8 has gone far too long down the development track to be changed, and commitment to the forthcoming windows OS will be a key feature. That is of course unless we get IE9 for windows next version. I don't see why anyone would use half a billion in advertising (mojave etc.) if the next OS was not due for at least another two years.

Re: Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Jonathan Sampson — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:01:34 GMT

evildictaitor said:
I also like the idea that if you're not using IE, that doesn't mean you have to use Firefox (and v.v.) Hopefully by having 3 major browsers, developers will write to the HTML spec, rather than to one browser and bug fix it for the other one.

Ah, good point! It absolutely kills me every time I see somebody suggesting the need for "IE Fixes" when I myself rarely, if ever actually, need to "fix" anything in IE. I write as close as I can to spec, using xhtml 1.0 strict exclusively for doctype, and my life is wonderful.

Perhaps adding even more variety in the mix (well, not really since it's essentially Safari) will force web developers to follow the spec. Once can only hope.

Re: Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

evildictaitor — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:54:27 GMT

Yggdrasil said:
The Options screen is divided into three tabs, Basics, Minor Tweaks and Under the Hood. I find this division meaningless and confusing, since what is a minor tweak for one is an arcane comand for others. Division by topic seems a lot more intuitive to me.

++ They should consolidate "Minor Tweaks" into the "Basics" tab, and call it something like "Options". "Under the hood" is a good name for most of the stuff there (DNS pre-fetching etc), but changing the language of an application isn't "minor" and changing the font should certainly not be grouped into the same sub-option category-window as changing the language.

That said, the IE and Firefox options menus arn't great.

Personally I'm really rather impressed with Google chrome. When I saw the "Google is making a browser" headlines I nearly audibly groaned with "oh god, yet another bandwagon for google to jump on. This is gonna kill IE in the same way that Google Spreadsheet killed Excel." But actually, having downloaded it, I would venture to suggest that it's actually rather powerful and it's bugs are relatively few.

If nothing else, it tells me loud and clear the age old excuse of "we wouldn't have built IE/Firefox in the way we had, knowing what we know about them now, but it's too late, we've got too much code so we'll have to live with it and bug fix it until 2050" is a bit of a rubbish argument. My personal hope is that the IE team can see Google chrome and see that it's a real threat and get their act together for a proper release of a browser that is faster, less buggy and less garish than the stuff that they've made so far.

I also like the idea that if you're not using IE, that doesn't mean you have to use Firefox (and v.v.) Hopefully by having 3 major browsers, developers will write to the HTML spec, rather than to one browser and bug fix it for the other one. With any luck, rather than starting a new browser war, Google Chrome may simply help to end the old one between FF and IE.