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Chrome Beta for Mac Nearly Ready for Launch, But Some Features Postponed

I don't understand why Google is rushing it. I'd rather wait a bit longer and have all the features then get a rushed release that isn't complete. Seems kind of dumb
 
JeremyK684 said:
I don't understand why Google is rushing it. I'd rather wait a bit longer and have all the features then get a rushed release that isn't complete. Seems kind of dumb
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It's a "beta." One wouldn't expect it to be feature complete (despite Google's predilection for calling EVERYTHING a beta).
 
I love Firefox because is safe and it doesn't crash every five seconds like Safari, But i hope Chrome is faster & Safer so i can make the jump.
 
I'm about to dump Safari because of the stupid bug that stops it loading pictures from Google Images results pages when the router firewall is on. SO I'm interested in comparing Chrome with Firefox, but FFs ad-blocking will probably tip the balance. Opera won't even load Google Mail, so I'm down to those two contenders.
 
trip1ex said:
I like Chrome because it seems faster than Safari. And seems to use less resources.

I swear Safari is always paging my hard drive. I think the Top Sites feature is responsible.

Chrome does another thing particularly well. It opens up links in the adjacent tab in instances where Safari either opens them up in a tab at the end of the row of tabs or opens them up in a new window.

I also like the tabs at the top design like Safari briefly had before. It saves on space.

I'm getting used to the address bar also being the Google search window. Still I miss the "search history" Safari has.

And Safari's browsing history is much better as well.

And Safari has a neat graphical drag and drop buttons to the toolbar interface. And has an option to email links and even page contents.

Safari is much more ahead in features in other words. Chrome is a bit behind. And this coming from someone that doesn't need alot of features.
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I do find that Safari has been laggy at times on the page load. Lately though, I haven't noticed it much. I don't know if cleaning out the cache and removing unused plug-ins from /Library/Internet Plug-Ins (lots of junk in there) and ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins had anything to do with it, but it seems to run fine now.

If Safari is opening links in new windows (hasn't happened to me once since Safari 4), you may need to set a hidden preference in Terminal. Most browsers will rightfully open a link in a new window based on correctly interpreting the underlying HTML code. It's only if the right browser preference is set that it will override the default. This used to be accomplished with Safari Stand, but since Safari 4, I've only needed to do this:

Code: 
defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Since it's such a common thing nowadays, it's time Apple brought this preference out of hiding and put it in Safari's Preference pane.
 
knightlie said:
I'm about to dump Safari because of the stupid bug that stops it loading pictures from Google Images results pages when the router firewall is on. SO I'm interested in comparing Chrome with Firefox, but FFs ad-blocking will probably tip the balance. Opera won't even load Google Mail, so I'm down to those two contenders.
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I don't have a solution for you, but I use Safari on Mac OS X 10.6.2 with my firewall on behind an Airport Extreme using NAT-PMP and I don't have any issues with Google Images. Are you saying that on your router you have a full-fledged firewall running? Which router do you have?
 
swarmster said:
Sorry, but bookmark support is a pre-alpha feature for a browser and not having it in place for a beta is embarrassing. It's currently a Priority 2 for Version 5 despite long being the bug with the most "stars"/followers in their bug-tracker. The bug entry gives no indication that there's any active development on the issue.

Chrome is the best browser on Windows, but they're going to have to show more interest in the Mac side. Maybe we can hope for proper bookmarks in another year and a half? Or are plugins now more important than basic functionality?

/rant
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Bookmarks are so 1990s. Like using a TV Guide with your satellite system.
 
I use Chrome when I'm on my Windows Bootcamp and love it. But I'm starting to really like Safari for OSX especially with the Glims plugin. It's dead fast and always reliable for me on 10.6.2.

I think I will be trying Chrome for Mac when it comes out however. Don't think it will get me off Safari though. Can't stand Firefox.
 
rdlink said:
Bookmarks are so 1990s. Like using a TV Guide with your satellite system.
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I'm pretty sure everyone does use some form of electronic guide or Tivo to navigate their channels. You just click on the show you want and it comes on.

What do you do to watch TV? Dial in the satellite heading manually and wait for the dish to swing around?
 
swarmster said:
I'm pretty sure everyone does use some form of electronic guide or Tivo to navigate their channels. You just click on the show you want and it comes on.

What do you do to watch TV? Dial in the satellite heading manually and wait for the dish to swing around?
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You just proved his point. Tv guide is a magazine with printed tv listings. No one uses it anymore because of electronic guides.
 
hzc71 said:
I don't have a solution for you, but I use Safari on Mac OS X 10.6.2 with my firewall on behind an Airport Extreme using NAT-PMP and I don't have any issues with Google Images. Are you saying that on your router you have a full-fledged firewall running? Which router do you have?
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I think it's a Linksys router (I'm at work right now), but the issue of Google Images not appearing is widely documented on the web. Turn the firewall off, images appear. Other browsers don't suffer the same issue.
 
cmaier said:
You just proved his point. Tv guide is a magazine with printed tv listings. No one uses it anymore because of electronic guides.
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I guess I'm not sure what his point was, since his analogy was completely backwards. I could only assume he was talking about electronic TV guides (including the ones branded by TV Guide) because last time I checked, bookmarks are electronic lists used for navigation, not a printed magazine.

He was the one suggesting that keeping written notes for interesting URLs and typing them in manually every time was more "modern". (Again, an assumed point, since he didn't actually provide a better suggestion for navigating the web.)

Unless he was arguing that instead of using a "90s" technology like bookmarks, we should all be back in the stoneage?
 
swarmster said:
I guess I'm not sure what his point was, since his analogy was completely backwards. I could only assume he was talking about electronic TV guides (including the ones branded by TV Guide) because last time I checked, bookmarks are electronic lists used for navigation, not a printed magazine.

He was the one suggesting that keeping written notes for interesting URLs and typing them in manually every time was more "modern". (Again, an assumed point, since he didn't actually provide a better suggestion for navigating the web.)

Unless he was arguing that instead of using a "90s" technology like bookmarks, we should all be back in the stoneage?
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I think he was suggesting that, like printed TV listings of yore, bookmarks are an outdated technology, replaced by searchbars with autocomplete, bookmark bars, homepages with aggregated links, "top sites" features, etc.

Not that I agree with him, but I see the point. I haven't used a "bookmark" in a very very long time.
 
Firefox is the undisputed champion as long as other browsers doesn't offer adblock.
 
I always tend to use two browsers: one as a workhorse, and one for quick, snappy usage. Firefox is my workhorse for the sole reason of when I quit and then start FF back up, all my tabs from the previous session automatically load. Plus, all of my bookmarks are on there. However, I have Safari set as my "main" browser so that when I click a link from an e-mail or something else, I get a quick-loading Safari page that I can peruse and quickly discard. If Chrome ends up being even faster than Safari, it will probably replace it for me. I love Chrome on Windows better than any other browser, but I haven't had a chance to judge it on OS X yet.
 
cmaier said:
I think he was suggesting that, like printed TV listings of yore, bookmarks are an outdated technology, replaced by searchbars with autocomplete, bookmark bars, homepages with aggregated links, "top sites" features, etc.

Not that I agree with him, but I see the point. I haven't used a "bookmark" in a very very long time.
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Maybe, although Chrome's auto-complete search bar pulls from your bookmarks, and I'd question differentiating between bookmarks on the bookmark bar and those anywhere else.

So if the suggestion is that the in the future browsers will only save links you visit daily ("top sites"), or stick everything on a messy homepage, I think I'll pass.
 
MacRumors said:


In a report posted yesterday, TechCrunch points to a Twitter posting from Mike Pinkerton of the Chrome for Mac team noting that there were only eight bugs remaining to be addressed before the Mac beta of Chrome is ready for its launch....
- Gears (offline support for Web apps; apparently being scrapped entirely in favor of HTML5)....
Click to expand...

Per today's New York Times, "Google Dumps Gears for HTML5". Quoting from the article, "It's official: Google is ditching its homegrown Gears offline web app API in favor of backing HTML5 for the win. Now that the Chrome browser is becoming available for Mac, and the Snow Leopard OS doesn't play nicely with Gears, a Google rep confirmed the company has decided to trash the whole works and wait for HTML5, even though the spec isn't yet ready and isn't supported by commercially available browsers....the party ended with Snow Leopard's release. A change in the newest Mac OS prevents Gears from running on newer Mac computers. Whether or not the relationship is one of causation or mere correlation, Google is now abandoning Gears."

And that's the news from our desk. Back to you, Jim :D
 
I'm running chrome for a month and I love it! I was really suprised how stable it was running on my little beast :D. The speed of this browser is damn fast compared to FF and Safari. However I'm still using FF and Safari as backup browsers;)
 
Truffy said:
Chrome has only one feature that I'd like to see in Safari: if you select text, right click, and select 'show in Google' it opens a new tab, as opposed to Safari's overwriting your current page with the search results.
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To do this in Safari, I right-click, hold down the control key and select "Search in Google".
 
hzc71 said:
To do this in Safari, I right-click, hold down the control key and select "Search in Google".
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Why isn't this configurable, so I can choose whether the right mouse click opens in the current tab or a new one by default?

That, and FireFox's "awesome bar" (stupid name for a great feature) is why I don't use Safari on a day-to-day basis...
 
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