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Google Cofounder On Lack of Mac Chrome Browser: 'It's Embarrassing'
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The source code is open and available. If you would be so kind as to knock it all out in a week then Google would appreciate the help and welcome your contributed code.
Yea, because everyone uses Final Cut.
This is for "basic" computer needs, and it does a fine job of it.
If anything it'll be good for Safari, the more competition the better.
Besides who cares about Safari, the only interesting thing it has is Webkit.
I heard that they have Mac users working on a Mac version, Windows users working on the Windows version, and Linux users working on a Linux version.
Sounds like a Mac team to me.
this is a let down, sure. shame really because of their relationship with Apple. would've been better imo to wait and release all of them together. but oh well.
I've not read the code myself. I doubt I will if it only runs on a platform I don't use but hearing from others who have read the code. Chrome appears to have been written by that kind of developer who lives 100% in the Windows world and knows not of anything else. The code is filled with windows specific junk. For example reforing to a run time loadable library as a "DLL".
Seems to me that any Mac version will be just that, another browser that just also happens to by called "Chrome" and runs on a Mac. The current code base is far from portable. So it's reasonable that it might take months to write another browser.
Note that it did not have to be this way. They could have coded it using cross platform portable techniques.
Seems to me that any Mac version will be just that, another browser that just also happens to by called "Chrome" and runs on a Mac. The current code base is far from portable. So it's reasonable that it might take months to write another browser.
Note that it did not have to be this way. They could have coded it using cross platform portable techniques.
They ported WebKit to Skia, a new graphics framework also used by Android. Along with that they made a number of changes to support running WebKit in a separate headless process and communicating with the GUI via IPC. So, the default Mac port of WebKit is definitely not suitable for Chrome. Right now one of the main priorities is unforking from WebKit as much as possible and bringing things up to date with trunk (it forked from the 3.1 branch).
Then there's figuring out how to do the split-process thing on OSX, which is definitely going to be tricky. There's a lot of assumptions in the OSX APIs that will have to be worked around to have multiple processes behave like one.
Then there's bridging their event model to CFRunLoop (some commits related to this went in this morning).
Then there's writing a CFNetwork backend for their networking system (currently winhttp only).
Then there's actually building the custom UI classes and such.
Probably quite a bit of stuff I haven't even thought of, too. I've only skimmed a bit of the code and hung out on their irc channels for a few days.
So yeah, lots of work to do.
Interesting topic. I use a PC at work (Win XP Pro) and an iMac at home. I love Safari, and I have no intention of switching to anything else on my home 'puter. On my PC at work, I use IE 8 beta, and I love it too - for use on Windows. Both are very good, IMHO.
I can't wait for Safari 4.0
Rich
i was very impressed with IE 8 beta. pretty much what IE should have been from the start.
is that inside news? or just guess?
Neither, it's outside news. I've just been hanging out on irc talking with the people involved...
No need to specifically support Chrome, as it's all open source and uses Webkit for rendering. Special features, like Gears, are already available in other browsers, so if Gears would be useful to you, you're probably using it even without Chrome. The key advantages of Chrome are speed, reliability, and usability -- no proprietary rendering quirks.
And every site I've used it with so far works perfectly. Chrome's awesome, unlike developing for Mac. ("Guess which OS I am NOT supporting for the browser I build.")
hmmm, im so annoyed by this. I mean they used webkit and wasn't that originally started on the mac? so why is windows first instead of macs?
no, webkit's mother is KHTML, which was originally started on Linux. webkit is a fork of it.
windows version first, is every major software companies' decision, its business. and its reality...
3 months?! common, why didn't they just create that in parallel with the windows version? it's not like they don't have unlimited resources . . .
Actually they don't have unlimited resources. Programmers are not interchangeable, and there's a limited supply of people with the particular expertise and interest in browsers. There's (last I checked) 42 people working on Chrome and V8.
http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/09/platforms-and-priorities.html
Might wanna add this link to the articel, has more info than this statement
cheers
Might wanna add this link to the articel, has more info than this statement
cheers
Google Gears vs Sproutcore
I know very little about JS, so I'm interested in hearing from someone who does!
What's the difference between Google Gears and Sproutcore? Is there any chance that Apple would embed either or both in Safari?
Thanks!
I know very little about JS, so I'm interested in hearing from someone who does!
What's the difference between Google Gears and Sproutcore? Is there any chance that Apple would embed either or both in Safari?
Thanks!
I never felt Google to be "Mac friendly", tbh... There are a lot of people still waiting for Picasa for like, 4 years?..
I believe the browser itself wouldn't be sooo hard to re-compile, considering it's Webkit, maybe they're having a bad time to make tabs independent processes or to create "apps" out of their "webapps" (like Gmail, etc).
I believe the browser itself wouldn't be sooo hard to re-compile, considering it's Webkit, maybe they're having a bad time to make tabs independent processes or to create "apps" out of their "webapps" (like Gmail, etc).
Business is business. You would concentrate on the largest market share if you were selling something like this. If you didn't - you'd go out of business.
On the plus side - the Mac version will see some of the bugs ironed out.
As for Picassa - I'd like it - competition is good.
On the plus side - the Mac version will see some of the bugs ironed out.
As for Picassa - I'd like it - competition is good.
And every site I've used it with so far works perfectly. Chrome's awesome, unlike developing for Mac. ("Guess which OS I am NOT supporting for the browser I build.")
i'm already using my browsers in this order. open all the time is Google Chrome, then IE, and finally firefox. So far, Chrome doesn't give full functionality within Facebook, i can't post answers with it on Yahoo Answers, and also Corporate Microsoft Outlook Web Access doesn't fully work properly (nor does it in Firefox). But that's why I have 3 browsers open all the time. Chrome for safe surfing and speed. IE for ordering stuff from trusted sites because seems to never fail. Firefox also for surfing but mostly for plugins and addons.
Safari 4 already does Web Applications
I know Chrome looks cool but the web app feature is the same as Safari4 so maybe it doesn't matter that much. Looks like Windows users will be able to run Web Applications from only 2 browsers (Chrome and Safari 4) until FireFox follows. IE will probably add the web app feature in version 9 (since MS likes jumping to the next major version instead of just doing a 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 instead).
I know Chrome looks cool but the web app feature is the same as Safari4 so maybe it doesn't matter that much. Looks like Windows users will be able to run Web Applications from only 2 browsers (Chrome and Safari 4) until FireFox follows. IE will probably add the web app feature in version 9 (since MS likes jumping to the next major version instead of just doing a 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 instead).
Windows has Safari now, and frankly no one really seems to care. People who don't know better use IE and people who do use FF. People who think they know better use Opera
Fully agreed. Noone that i know uses Safari for Windows. 60% of my friends uses Firefox, about 37% IE, the rest is Opera, etc.
I am the only one, who used a Mac.
Hmmmm
Well it's certainly a disappointment that Mac users weren't able to blog about Chrome first this time around. But seriously now, it's just a browser. No point in getting all discouraged about it working on the MS OS' first.
And come to think of it, it's still on Beta version. You guys might wan't the MS users to discover the bugs on their PC first, so by the time they introduce it on Mac and Linux, it should already be a stable product.
PC users are guinea pigs right now.
Well it's certainly a disappointment that Mac users weren't able to blog about Chrome first this time around. But seriously now, it's just a browser. No point in getting all discouraged about it working on the MS OS' first.
And come to think of it, it's still on Beta version. You guys might wan't the MS users to discover the bugs on their PC first, so by the time they introduce it on Mac and Linux, it should already be a stable product.
PC users are guinea pigs right now.