Submitted by Google has barely released Chrome 1.0, but the company is already hard at work on version 2.0 of its web browser. They released a pre-beta for Chrome 2.0, which comes with a lot of new features, including ones that should’ve already been in Chrome 1.0. In addition, it seems as if the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome are getting closer.
Chrome 2.0 has a whole slew of improvements up its sleeve. It obviously comes with the latest and greatest WebKit relase, adding support for CSS gradients, CSS canvas drawing, and partial implementations of CSS reflections and CSS masks, in addition to a lot of bug reports and speed improvements of course. The latest WebKit release also enables support for full-page zooming (not just text, but all elements) and autoscroll.
Chrome 2.0 will also feature form autocomplete by remembering what you typed into the form before, a feature sorely missing from Chrome 1.0. Several improvements to the spell checker have also been made, such as the ability to turn it on and off per text field, as well as the ability to change language without having to go to the options menu.
Support for browsing profiles has also been added, along with the ability to start each tab or window in a different browser profile. You can now also dock dragged tabs into various positions (for instance, dragging it to the side of your display will make it take up half the screen). Chrome 2.0 will also come with new window frames for XP and Vista, allowing for window cascading and tiling.
Experimental user-scripting support is also coming to Chrome (like Greasemonkey), by launching the pre-beta with the --enable-user-scripts flag. More information on this is available in the documentation.
Interesting are the references to the Mac and Linux versions:
New network code. Google Chrome now has its own implementation of the HTTP network protocol (we were using the WinHTTP library on Windows, but need common code for Mac and Linux). We fixed a few bugs in HTTP authentication and made Google Chrome more compatible with servers that reply with invalid HTTP responses. We need feedback on anything that’s currently broken, particularly with proxy servers, secure (https) sites, and sites that require log in.
Here’s to hoping that Mac and Linux users will soon finally be able to use Chrome natively. Chrome is my browser of choice, and I would love to be able to use it on my Mac and Linux installations as well.
More like 1.1, but welcomed improvements nonetheless, Google Chrome has become my default Windows browser since its first beta. I love its simplicity, but I do miss a few features and I’m glad the new release will be bringing them soon.
Two considerations make this justifiable as 2.0 in my mind. First, what you see here is a dev build leading up to what will eventually be the 2.0 release. Second, feature-wise, I think an add-on capacity is fair justification for a version number bump. Add-ons allow ad-blocking and a world of other good things.
Perhaps they needed to redo a lot of code to make it cross platform. Having it Windows Only for so long seems like Google did something really really stupid with google chrome.
There are already addons that block ads in Chrome, e.g. http://www.adsweep.org, http://www.privoxy.org
A proxy server is not a browser add-on.
“Addon” is a broad term, so anything you can add to your application can be considered an addon (vs. plugins).
Don’t get me wrong, I like Chrome. It’s pretty decent, and certainly zippier than FF3.
And I’m not calling for bloat or anything, but it’s hardly feature packed. I’ve just updated to the latest version 2 alpha, and there’s still no easy way to subscribe to RSS feeds. I’ve heard it’s in the pipeline, but come on, should have been in v1.0.
They really need to improve the situation for extensions. The option to have greasemonkey like scripts is a welcome start, but man, am I missing Adblock.
Updates to CSS engine doesn’t warrant the v2 stamp. Nor does adding auto-complete and spellchecking features that should have been there in v1.0.
I’m not trying to shoot the devs at Chrome down or anything – they’ve done an impressive job. But they have to remember they’ve entered the browser space at a time when users expect a certain level of core functionality, and Chrome still isn’t hitting all the right buttons. They’ll get there, eventually. In the meantime, it seems unjust to be banging on about all the things Chrome users may be getting in the future, when these same features are what FF/IE(>=7)/Opera/Konq/Safari users have been accustomed to for quite some time.
Their strategy is “release early, release often”. I don’t know about other people, but I like it. They can get feedback on new features more quickly and enhance the quality more rapidly. Would you prefer it if they waited a year before releasing a new version that’s packed with new features?
I’d agree with that. As I said, I like Chrome, and yes, it’s great that they update often. In some ways, having small updates is easier for users to deal with versus a large scale change where so many things have changed it’s difficult to get your bearings.
My point is though, compare version 1 (which itself was hardly feature complete) to the forthcoming version 2. Does it warrant a whole version number? Not from what I’ve seen so far. v1.5 at the very least.
I know there’s an etiquette to observe when assigning version numbers to your software. Major internal updates get a number before the point, while minor internal or interface changes get one after it, but really, it’s their software. If they want to call it 2.0, I won’t begrudge them that. It seems like a pretty big internal change to enhance existing CSS support and switch to completely different HTTP code. This is pre-beta, maybe the final release of 2.0 will have enough visible feature changes to justify that number.
(For Windows, anyway)
That’s exactly why I like Chrome so much. Reading the release notes above, I cringed at the thought of having browser profiles. Wtf are they good for? Couldn’t this be left up to the new plug-in framework? Scripts are in the same league – I don’t want it, I don’t need it, why isn’t this a plug-in? Autoscroll? Same thing.
Docking of tabs? Why don’t they just tap into the functionality *built-in* into Windows 7 to do that, and provide a plug-in for this for Vista and XP users?
I choose Chrome because it focuses on what a browser is supposed to do: render webpages. I don’t need it to tell me that websites have updated their RSS feeds (I don’t even use RSS at all), or that my cat needs its dinner.
I’m keeping a very weary eye on Chrome 2.0.
Edited 2009-01-09 11:02 UTC
Why in hell would they want to get dependent on the functionality of Windows 7?
What about Linux and Mac OS X?
It’s much easier to create single universal code than code 7 versions for 7 operating systems.
Use K-meleon. Or K-ninja. It’s much lighter than Chrome.
I’m just going to quote a previous post by myself because I feel the point bears repeating:
no…
a browser needs to render webpages AND allow you to navigate through them easily. hence the word BROWSER.
which is where things like bookmark management, tab management, “search for” in the context menu, the unsung little plugins like linky and diggler, social bookmarking plugins, rss, stumble-upon bars, mouse gestures and all the “fluff” actually matter. In getting people where they want to go efficiently.
Instead of adblock you can try a hosts file. It’s not as good as adblock but it’s better than nothing.
I think they will quick catch up. I don’t think they rushed the product. Rather, I think they’re just not sure about what features they could benefit from and how. For example, popup-blocker is a must in today’s browsers and it’s somewhat ridicolous Chrome must rely on 3rd party add-on for that.
However, I think they will quickly match most of features other browsers have. They need to or the whole Chrome project would jeopardize.
Personally, I installed v1 to be able to check my websites against it.
Huh? Chrome does have a popup blocker. Did you mean an ad-blocker? But then, most other browsers don’t have that built-in either.
Google is your friend
I would remove Safari from your list of ‘expecting more’ – because to be frank Chrome is leaving safari in the dust in terms of functionality. While Chrome is still like a trip in the wayback machine, it’s more like going back to netscape 4.7 than it is going back to the IE 3 experience that Safari delivers in terms of it’s UI. They just cloned the UI from IE 5.2 (which always lagged behind the windows version) and said “Ah, close enough”
Seriously, from a user interface (not a rendering) standpoint, what does Safari actually do that’s any different from IE3? Answer: It has tabs… OOH, I’m impressed.
Compared to Chrome (which is seeing pretty good active development), FF (who steals every feature they can from, you guessed it), Opera (which innovated most of what is touted as features in other browsers today – five to eight years ago) – Let’s face it, Safari is stuck in 1995 – and Apple likes it that way because they cater to people more into form than functionality.
Even if thier idea of form and style has all the grace of a hospital ward.
Edited 2009-01-10 10:45 UTC
Say what you want about Safari’s style, but it’s a sore sight better than the totally randomly-placed, ugly, space-wasting jumble of UI that is IE7/8/Windows Explorer).
Different tastes, I guess. I personally prefer a simple UI kinda like Google Chrome and Apple Safari. The only reason I don’t use Safari is that Chrome is better, though I did use it for a while as my default browser.
Chrome 2.0 passes acid3
http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=26766460ln3.png
but there are some rendering bugs and it fails the “linktest”
You’re missing the point. If it passes with rendering bugs and a failed test, then it didn’t pass.
I hope that it’s possible to disable this feature!
In Opera it’s not possible to disable it and I hate it because when you middle click to open a tab and you miss the link instead of showing that there was an error, it goes into auto-scroll mode which is annoying when you never use the auto-scroll mode!
Where is bloody bookmarks sidebar? Same crap as Safari. Is it fundamental WebKit problem? Or just G/Apple are lazy bast-ds?
You have to tool on the tools icon (that spanner on the right), or ctrl-shift-B. In fact, Safari is a little easier because at least it has the bookmarks icon (looks like an open book).
I’m guessing that Chrome takes Google’s search-for-everything approach. I assume that they expect the majority of users to *search* for a bookmark by typing, rather than browsing. I kind of miss that the address bar isn’t a dropdown like with all other browsers to allow you to see recently typed in URLs. Again, you’re supposed to search your history, etc, etc.
What´s the current situation with the privacy concerns raised when it was launched?
Does it really create a unique id for every installation? Is there a comprehensive guide on how to make it (or check it for that matter) as private as it should be?
Thanks.
PS: JIC, please note that I used the term ‘concerns’, not ‘facts’…
You can try iron: http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Remember when Mozilla said they wanted a light/fast browser? We got that with the first release of FF, but competition kicked in and feature started to be included… And well, today FireFox 3 is not slim and it’s not the fastest.
I think that Google is already loosing their sight on a slim/fast browser by adding built-in features that could have been only plugins.
Chrome is in competition with FF and IE, and it’s only a question of time until it gets all the feature of other browser and get fat and slow.
FF is still pretty damn slim and pretty damn fast–in fact with every release it’s gotten faster and used less memory. It’s just that the competition haven’t been sitting on their laurels, and have come up with something faster…
I don’t know what qualifies for slim and fast anymore but FF ends up gulping over 90MB of my ram at a time. And with each add-on/plugin add more…
I remember when my MicroVAX ran on 16MB (later upgraded to 32MB – smokin’!) of RAM, had x-windows/motif, mail, mosaic, and a variety of development tools all running at the same time, and never gobbled up all the RAM (altho’ VMS was excellent with virtual memory).
Granted everything was different back then… you didn’t need 18 billion lines of webserver code to display a web page like you do these days with JEE, RAILS, etc. Not that I am really complaining, I love rails and grails… O.K. I guess I was whining, wasn’t I.
Remember when the Mozilla guys used to gloatingly distribute single floppy installations of Mozilla browser? Middle age takes its toll on us all. 😉
Edited 2009-01-10 18:28 UTC
Yes, I seem to be more bloated than I used to be, too.
Personally, I won’t move away from Firefox unless they introduce something like Noscript. I like Chrome better, but without a NoScript-like facility, I won’t touch it.
False Sense Of Security.
Noscript will not protect you if you trust a site and that site gets cracked and a malicious JS injected.
Unless of course you don’t trust anyone (your whitelist empty), but then you’re better using links.
Regards
It is not a false sense of security. NoScript protects you 99% of the time, as site hacks are not that common on major sites. Condoms can break too during the sexual act, nothing is fool proof. But not using NoScript — and not using condoms — is stupid, because it is certain to contract something at some point when completely unprotected. So attacking noscript this way is not very clever of you. It’s like saying: I either want 100% security, or I don’t want it at all. Sorry, but I like my 99% one just fine, thank you very much.
I’m guessing the Pope doesn’t use NoScript then
Wow.
That makes perfect sense. And since when major sites use Javascript to crack into your account/computer, etc… If I trust HSBC’s online banking web site, I trust their javascripts as well. I don’t visit web sites that I don’t trust, and I have an antivirus anyway. A good antivirus WILL trigger an alert if you visit a questionable web site with a JS file that has a virus pattern. Try visiting a few keygen/serial web sites to see.
I would rather live without CSS these days than without JS, as most of the web would be pretty much broken if you navigated with JS disabled. I remember disabling JS to debug a web page and I forgot to reactivate it. I started visiting web sites and when I clicked some “Submit” buttons and some links, nothing would happen, as those were calling JS functions (forums, commenting systems, webapps, etc.).
I tried putting a condom over my wireless router. So far no one has broken into my computer, and it is virus free!
Eugenia wrote:
-“Personally, I won’t move away from Firefox unless they introduce something like Noscript. I like Chrome better, but without a NoScript-like facility, I won’t touch it.”
Yep, noscript is a deal-breaker for me aswell. Same goes for Flashblock and Adblock. I seriously doubt that we will see any of this functionality implemented in google’s official ‘Chrome’ browser. However, what people will do with the ‘Chromium’ source code is another matter and I hope we will see some third party extending it with the aforementioned features in the future.
Huh, this is crazy. Do you really browse the Internet without using Javascript, and enable it only on trusted sites? I don’t understand what benefits can come from it, and security benefits… well, I don’t see it either. It’s browser’s role to protect you from javascript while being still able to run it.
Agreed. I used to run NoScript too, but as the web got more and more “Web 2.0” it became more and more of a liability/irritation, till I finally just turned it off.
It reminds me of the people who *still* argue vehemently against using HTML mail. Yes, there’s a little bit more danger to it, but if your mail program is doing its job it shouldn’t be an issue. IMHO the benefits–my being able to view e-mails the way they were intended and compose e-mails the way I want–far outweigh the risks. Likewise for my being able to view the web the way it was intended.
Edited 2009-01-10 14:05 UTC
Agree. I’m not a big fan of HTML mail for other reasons – machine readability for example, and ease of display on different machines, but I do read HTML mail when I receive it in this form.
As a software developer, who specializes in web applications, also JavaScript, I can say that it’s usually not easy to write JavaScript in a way that will harm user’s system. You have multiple bariers to crush – and it always relies on browser’s bugs – that get patched soon after being discovered (at least in FF/Opera).
IMHO, the only reason *to* use HTML-formatted EMail is the inability of many EMail clients to parse URLs as links.
I really hope they won’t install the new version in the User directory where every piece of mallware can do with it as it pleases. What’s the use of having a limited account when your browser can be hijacked.
This is similar to a gripe I have with firefox too – there must be an option that a plugin can be installed only with admin privileges. There’s already mallware that works as a firefox plugin – all it has to do is copy itself to the User’s firefox plugin directory.
Where is Bookmarks sidebar?
Same crap as Safari. Is it fundamental WebKit problem or just G/Apple laziness?
Well since nobody I know uses a bookmarks sidebar, perhaps it’s not a very common request. Maybe they decided the few people that use one wasn’t worth the UI clutter…
You can always stick with Firefox, or patch it in yourself if that bothers you. Konqueror probably has a bookmarks sidebar (it has almost everything else…)
Hehe, what browser do “most of the people you know” use?
I know quite a few people who got used to the bookmarks sidebar using *IE6* and continue to require it to live. Basically they use it just like a bigger bookmarks toolbar, with it always open on the side.
I like Google Chrome as well, but it’s not my default browser since there is not a foxmars-like FF3 extension which is to me an absolute must !!
Indeed, it’s so helpful to have a bookmark synchronization mechanism when dealing with multiples places (business, home, etc.) I couldn’t imagine to live without it.
I hope that they will add such a feature in a coming release.
Edited 2009-01-09 15:17 UTC
‘Pre-beta’ is an interesting term. Immediately I thought they actually meant alpha, but then it strikes me: The release version and usually final version of the Google software is called ‘beta’. So if google beta is final, the google pre-beta is actually a beta release!
The reference note to the new networking code is telling about the road that Chrome is starting to head down.
This happens again and again and again, with every complex piece of software like operating systems and browsers and office suites.
Some programmers decide that the current software is too bloated and slow. This is likely true, but the correct solution is to spend the time to identify and fix the problem, not start from scratch. However starting anew is much more fun than learning an existing codebase and starting to solve complex problems, so most programmers opt to start a new project.
First version, everything is hunky-dory, and the project runs very quickly. However as others have mentioned, it’s also painfully devoid of the features that people have been using for years, and the programmers realize that the scope of the project is actually a hell of a lot bigger than they first anticipated. So features get added and added, slowing down the new product bit by bit.
Then comes the demand for cross-platform support. Of course, to shave a couple hundred milliseconds off the start time and a couple megs off the memory footprint (which is then immediately dwarfed by the several hundred megs of application data that a browser will load), the developers of Chrome decided to shun the existing established, tested, and optimized toolkits that do all that utility boring stuff like HTTP and use the lightest, least cross-platform one they found. When that is no longer feasible, they re-invent the wheel to write their own code, bloating the browser even more since it now shares less code with everything else.
Hooray, in the end we get another not-invented-here blob of code which will suffer from all the same problems as Mozilla does but less mature and fewer features. I’m way more interested in projects like the Arora browser, Epiphany-webkit, and Konqueror+webkit. Platform integrated, code sharing, native, with a nice, high-quality rendering core.
The problem with the platform-integrated projects you mention is exactly the same problem that Firefox, Chrome and Co. try to solve: Namely, platform-integrated means platform-isolated.
There’s something to be said for the fact that I can transition between Windows, Mac and Linux and not notice any difference in my web-browsing experience since I use Firefox on all three.
The “correct” solution? That depends. Sometimes it’s better to start over. A “mature” app, toolkit, whatever can have so many intertwined layers of cruft that fixing it may not be feasible.
In any case, since this is an open source project and the original version of Chromium didn’t have its own networking layer, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult
to take build a version that does use the standard platform libs.
It’s quite sad.. Google designed the browser on Windows for Windows.
Due to many of their design choices, the Chrome experience on Windows/Mac and Linux will undoubtedly be different.
There is a high chance of probability that they’ll make their Linux port very difficult to run under BSD.
For now.. all Mac/Linux related chromium development will be very minimal, just enough to tease people.. i.e: WebKit+V8 and a simplistic shell GUI.
No more Chrome news until they get their act together.
Thanks.
Edited 2009-01-10 18:27 UTC
Chrome is full of big brother attitude. Recording your every keystroke typed in adress bar. STOP using chrome,
Try Iron browser, it is based on same chromium engine but NEVER collects any private information from you.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
At lease open source people on this site should give a try, I am sure you will forget chrome.
No Linux release, no use.