Chrome Browser for Mac Beta Confirmed for December, Chrome OS Next Week?

[Speedy2]

Let Google's full-frontal assault on Microsoft continue! Android kills WinMo, Chrome OS punches away at Windows (which is all about the "bargain buyer," remember?, and Google Docs (next year, after extensive updates) shows enterprise that they don't need to be slaves to Microsoft's expensive software any longer.

Those who think Microsoft's iron grip on the marketplace can't be broken are in for a surprise.

Is that a joke?

Have you ever used Google Docs? It's a TOY compared to Word + Excel.
Have you ever used Linux? It's unusable for the masses and lacks both driver and application support. No one will recode all those custom business apps for Linux or the Web in the next 10 or so years. Wanna use VMs? Still need a Windows license for that. Wanna use WINE? In a business environment without any support from anyone? Dream on.

As much as I dislike Microsoft and their business practices and some of their products... they do offer viable business solutions right now and have no reason to fear some empty promises by Google.

The business market is probably the only market where MS deserve their strong position. They may have leveraged their way into it by using Windows as a Trojan horse. Still, there are valid reasons why everyone is using Windows Servers instead of Novell and Exchange instead of Notes, and Office instead of WordPerfect and 1-2-3.

 

[RazHyena]

Chrome and Safari are WebKit browsers basically. I don't know how much value there will be to Safari users in switching unless Google makes a dynamite interface. Historical signs point to no on that one.

The value will be switching to a browser with more support for web standards. And most likely better performance.

 

[Speedy2]

There is also the advantage that once you close a tab the process not only stops you also reclaim your memory. Far less chance of memory leak issues

Firefox has a feature to keep the last webpage and tab in memory for a while, so that when you go back or reopen a tab, this will happen instantaneously. I'm pretty sure Chrome has a similar feature, since it makes a lot of sense.

Who cares how much memory a browser consumes? RAM is dirt cheap and unless your computer is older than 2-3 years, it will have plenty of it. I use browsers very heavily with complex pages and many tabs and have never run into memory problems _ever_. (with 2 gig of RAM)

 

[Speedy2]

The value will be switching to a browser with more support for web standards. And most likely better performance.

All major browsers apart from IE support web standards very well. No reason to switch from Safari to Chrome. Performance-wise the difference between the two is miniscule on Windows, and it probably will be similarly tiny on OS X.

 

[RazHyena]

All major browsers apart from IE support web standards very well. No reason to switch from Safari to Chrome. Performance-wise the difference between the two is miniscule on Windows, and it probably will be similarly tiny on OS X.

Nope, they don't. I've had to download Firefox or no other reason than to access websites that Safari simply cannot display or is incompatible with. These include paying hospital bills online, utilizing job search services or work applications, my uni's student portal, etc, etc, etc..

I am confident Chrome will be more supported.

 

[LagunaSol]

Is that a joke?

Have you ever used Google Docs? It's a TOY compared to Word + Excel.
Have you ever used Linux? It's unusable for the masses and lacks both driver and application support.

Google Docs today is a toy. Google is claiming a lot of updates by next year:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10397215-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Will it make it a viable Office contender? Who knows. But I do know that enterprise someday will realize that their people don't use 90% of the features in Office and they're paying for tools they don't really need. And that's the day Microsoft is really in trouble.

As for Chrome - it won't be your standard-issue Linux. Android seems to be doing just fine - I assume Google will be able to pull off a respectable desktop OS as well.

 

[kate-willbury]

Who cares how much memory a browser consumes? RAM is dirt cheap and unless your computer is older than 2-3 years, it will have plenty of it. I use browsers very heavily with complex pages and many tabs and have never run into memory problems _ever_. (with 2 gig of RAM)

umm, how about people who browse the internet and actually do other things with their computer at the same time? duh. the fact that you only have 2 gigs of ram speaks volumes about how little you probably actually use your computer for.

 

[Oflife]

I agree with you

(IE, Android has potential.)

Google are intellectually light years ahead of Apple and most other companies. Their staff are a bit like those who create technology for the military - where developments are often 10 years ahead of consumers.

 

[kate-willbury]

Except that no one really uses the Chrome Browser despite the heavy free attention it received in the media. The market share is negligible and not going anywhere anytime soon. It's a good browser, but most people already have a halfway decent browser (yes, that includes IE8).

And similarly no one really will use Chrome OS. It's just another Linux with a Google bumper sticker on it. Why should it cure all the issues that have been keeping Linux from taking over the desktop for the last 10 years? It won't! It will probably take over the current Linux netbook market share, which is shrinking by the way. And that's basically it. Maybe Google is betting on a new wave of Internet tablets, sparked by a possible Apple tablet. But since many people are questioning the success of an Apple tablet, I doubt that this tablet phenomenon will make major inroads into the entire "computer device" market and allow Chrome OS a wider form of distribution. People prefer Windows-compatible netbooks. They are cheap enough already.

lol heavy attention by media? you mean tech blogs? chrome serves more purpose than safari which is basically the most pointless browser in existence.

chrome is faster, will obviously get better extension support, and has multi-threaded ability to handle tabs. safari just gives you 'lets coverflow everything!' crap no one cares about. a lot of people in the tech crowd use more than one browser these days. they generally use firefox + loads of extensions or chrome for quick browsing access.

and the reason google OS will easily overtake linux is because of their brand and name. people know google (well except china lol). just like people know apple and buy their products based on the brand name alone (despite knowing you can easily get way more powerful computers for way cheaper).

 

[shawnce]

(IE, Android has potential.)

Google are intellectually light years ahead of Apple and most other companies. Their staff are a bit like those who create technology for the military - where developments are often 10 years ahead of consumers.

Please... Yeah Google has some very good engineers but not in an meaningful larger proportions when compared to many other top-tier tech companies.

 

[jmadlena]

Nope, they don't. I've had to download Firefox or no other reason than to access websites that Safari simply cannot display or is incompatible with. These include paying hospital bills online, utilizing job search services or work applications, my uni's student portal, etc, etc, etc..

I am confident Chrome will be more supported.

That's most likely an artificial limitation created by the site developers. When I do my FAFSA every year for school, it recommends Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (shows you how far behind they are). Using another browser might not display pages correctly. I've never had any problems with Safari.

I'd say Safari is one of, if not, the most standards compliant browser. I think only Webkit and Opera have reached 100% on Acid3.

 

[Speedy2]

Nope, they don't. I've had to download Firefox or no other reason than to access websites that Safari simply cannot display or is incompatible with. These include paying hospital bills online, utilizing job search services or work applications, my uni's student portal, etc, etc, etc..

The main reason for pages not being displayed properly is because they DON'T follow the standards! Bad web designers simply wack some bad HTML code together and fiddle around with it until it displays properly on IE and (now most of the time) Firefox. Sadly enough, this creates the impression that Safari, Opera or Chrome are bad browser, when in reality it's the prevalence of the IE and standard-ignoring MS, which are to blame.

And don't expect Chrome to be an improvement in this regard. Its market share is much smaller than Safari's, and while the Apple browser nowadays gets SOME sort of attention when it comes to web development, it is still last on the list. I bet Chrome isn't even ON most of lists. Yes, you will still need a second browser if you use one of the "smaller" browsers. Even when using Firefox on Windows, there are still instances when you go and load IE. The best thing to do is to complain to the company/university/office etc and tell them to conform to standards. The more people are doing it, the more likely it is that they will do something about it!

 

[ChazUK]

Who cares how much memory a browser consumes?

You start caring when it is this high:

the advantage with chrome is that each process is completely killed with each tab closure:
Chrome + 4 tabs:

Close 2 tabs and memory usage drops significantly:

Are we now saying that efficient memory management is a bad thing?

 

[ksgant]

Hey, while you're making screenshots of the task window, take one showing googlesoftwareupdateagent running the background....ALL THE TIME.

I'm sorry, there is no way this needs to be running all the time. Why can't Chrome work like any other application and check for updates when you launch it. Why does it need a daemon running all the time? Oh, and go ahead and try to kill the process. Go ahead....oh, what's that? You mean it starts right back up again? Yes friends, you have to put in a special command in a shell just to get it to stop loading all the time. But wait, Google can remedy it getting removed! That's right, it puts it right back when you launch Chrome again. It's like a fricken virus...you can't delete it because Chrome will put it right back.

I'm sure it's benign. But still, bugs me that it's even there. No need what-so-ever for it to be running as a daemon. None. Google Chrome won't be running on this machine, that's for sure.

 

[ChazUK]

Hey, while you're making screenshots of the task window, take one showing googlesoftwareupdateagent running the background....ALL THE TIME.

I'm sorry, there is no way this needs to be running all the time. Why can't Chrome work like any other application and check for updates when you launch it. Why does it need a daemon running all the time?

The only Google process I have running on my Vista installation is Google Crash Handler at 588Kb:

(This is opposed to iTunes helper @ 3.1MB and Quicklook helper on my mac at 5.8MB - Do these need to run all the time?)

I really can't see the problem here.

 

[Speedy2]

Google Docs today is a toy. Google is claiming a lot of updates by next year:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10397215-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Will it make it a viable Office contender? Who knows. But I do know that enterprise someday will realize that their people don't use 90% of the features in Office and they're paying for tools they don't really need. And that's the day Microsoft is really in trouble.

As for Chrome - it won't be your standard-issue Linux. Android seems to be doing just fine - I assume Google will be able to pull off a respectable desktop OS as well.

Google can promise all they want, they have to deliver first.
Have you ever programmed a web application and seen the limitations you have? Google can do much, but they can't do magic. It will take them ages to create an online office suite that is actually useable and able to replace Office. It's not the fact thar most home users don't really need all those features of Word+Excel, it's the fact that a productive office worker DOES use those features. And it's not just the features, it's also the extensibility. You can customize the hell out of Office thanks to VBA. Custom forms, custom sheets, entire applications are built this way. Plenty of other applications just plug in to it or automate it. Docs is only in a kindergarden stage in this respect. And there's the issue of the file formats, while will always play ion favour of MS, no matter what the competition does.

And about Chrome OS it's basically the same. Tens of thousands of developers have been working on Linux for the past decade, and it's doing great as a server or embedded OS. There are also great desktops like Gnome and KDE, which have improved accessibility quite a bit. Still, it's a hodge-podge of UI principles and a lack of understanding amongst developers about what the end user really wants and needs, that keep Linux from achieving the ultimate goal. People are still forced to jump to the command line for basic tasks, and if something goes wrong you're screwed without a real expert. On Windows and Mac OS, a reboot or reinstallation of an application will usually do the job. Plus, there are still not enough drivers out there for your end user devices and there's even bickering inside the community about whether to approve of commercial drivers that keeps them from getting wider support. Again, Google may be able to do much, but they can't do magic. They can't solve all those huge problems in just two years or so.
Chrome OS will be an OS not for your desktop but for specialised, closed devices similar to what Android is for smartphones. You will have the option to do whatever you want with it at home, but the vast majority of users couldn't care less about that fact. They want something they can use and that works out of the box.

 

[Dillenger]

Re: Google Chrome, well thanks but no thanks. Safari has worked just fine for me so no need to mess with another browser.

 

[Speedy2]

You start caring when it is this high:

My browser task is hitting 500-700 MB rarely, but sometimes. And you know what: I don't care! I still have 1000 MB of RAM just sitting there and waiting for something to do.
My browser may crash now and then (usually because of a plugin running wild), but I've never run out of system memory EVER.

You might argue that you can't use another application at the same time that consumes these 1GB of RAM, but if you go that far, you are obviously a professional user and you'd rather invest those 30 bucks into another bar of RAM instead of wasting time with looking for a browser that maybe consumes 100 or 200 MB less under certain circumstances.

 

[kate-willbury]

The main reason for pages not being displayed properly is because they DON'T follow the standards! Bad web designers simply wack some bad HTML code together and fiddle around with it until it displays properly on IE and (now most of the time) Firefox. Sadly enough, this creates the impression that Safari, Opera or Chrome are bad browser, when in reality it's the prevalence of the IE and standard-ignoring MS, which are to blame.

And don't expect Chrome to be an improvement in this regard. Its market share is much smaller than Safari's, and while the Apple browser nowadays gets SOME sort of attention when it comes to web development, it is still last on the list. I bet Chrome isn't even ON most of lists. Yes, you will still need a second browser if you use one of the "smaller" browsers. Even when using Firefox on Windows, there are still instances when you go and load IE. The best thing to do is to complain to the company/university/office etc and tell them to conform to standards. The more people are doing it, the more likely it is that they will do something about it!

you clearly do not keep up with browser development. chrome is surpassing safaris market share already.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/11/02/chrome-to-pass-safari-in-browser-market-share/

 

[miknos]

I've been using Chrome for a few months and I must say it's nice. I still notice some memory leaks (and my cpu runs hotter comparing to Safari).

Comparing (to Safari), both are extremely fast. Biggest difference is UI (I like both). It is just a matter of taste.
I attached a screenshot. You'll notice less ads because I'm using GlimmerBlocker.


Nice to see a good competition to Safari because (IMO) Firefox, Opera, Camino, Shiira and other browsers for mac are crap. [Firefox is my favorite in Windows].


Here you can download and give it a try:
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/
[Go to the bottom and choose the last day build]

 

[kate-willbury]

My browser task is hitting 500-700 MB rarely, but sometimes. And you know what: I don't care! I still have 1000 MB of RAM just sitting there and waiting for something to do.
My browser may crash now and then (usually because of a plugin running wild), but I've never run out of system memory EVER.

You might argue that you can't use another application at the same time that consumes these 1GB of RAM, but if you go that far, you are obviously a professional user and you'd rather invest those 30 bucks into another bar of RAM instead of wasting time with looking for a browser that maybe consumes 100 or 200 MB less under certain circumstances.

lol at the fact that using more than 1gb of ram to you means someone is a 'professional' user. just because you do absolutely nothing on a computer doesn't mean everyone else who knows how to multi-task is a 'professional'.

 

[ChazUK]

My browser task is hitting 500-700 MB rarely, but sometimes. And you know what: I don't care! I still have 1000 MB of RAM just sitting there and waiting for something to do.
My browser may crash now and then (usually because of a plugin running wild), but I've never run out of system memory EVER.

I can't argue against your preferences Speedy and a lot of what you say makes sense (My iMac has 2GB's of ram and my PC/Hackintosh has 4GB's of ram - Plenty of memory) but I like the ideas that have been put into Chrome.

Both Safari and frefox are great browsers too and I use them both. The only browser I never really use (unless at work ) is Internet Explorer.

 

[Bennieboy©]

bout time it's been confirmed, been waiting for this for ages, hopefully it'll work as it did on windows, ( similar resources ) lol

 

[mafiaman]

Chrome OS beta

It is already available from this website a quick google search brought it up http://sites.google.com/site/chromeoslinux/

 

[mwjd299]

I tried the Windows version at a relatives home a couple of months ago while visiting away from home and tried to conduct some bank business. The bank's site said I needed to disable the popup blocker. I went to the help page and found out there was no way to do that. I don't know what version she was running. I hope that's been fixed and certainly hope the Mac version is different. I don't think I will be trying Chrome anytime soon.