Google Chrome: Brief Impressions
I downloaded and installed Google Chrome, and used it for about an hour. Here are my impressions:
- Youtube videos appeared to load faster on Chrome than on Firefox or Explorer 7, and played smoothly.
- The tab GUI is much clearer and easier to use than Firefox or Explorer. It's very easy to move a tab into a new window, create a new window with a tab, etc.
- The Incognito mode was easy to figure out ... and, for whatever reason, felt creepy. Perhaps they could change that icon to a celebrity chick wearing sunglasses, instead of the flasher wearing a raincoat and shades.
- MLB.com radio would NOT play ... I was able to login and get the screen up, but Silverlight showed "Loading" for several minutes. I then tried it in IE 7 and it loaded right up.
- The Inspect Element function did show how the system resources were being used while trying to run MLB.com, which was interesting and cool. I also like html code display.
- When a pop up is blocked (like MLB.com radio), it appears at the bottom of the browser. If it's something you want to see, you just go down to the message, click and drag. Like magic, the pop up message turns into a new window. That's much smoother than having to change settings, accept, refresh the screen, etc. like Firefox or IE 7.
- Blogger Comments had additional features, like expanding the comment box you're typing in.
- Typing this in Blogger now ... for some reason, the Title appeared in the Compose box. I clicked on Edit HTML, and the Title appeared back in it's customary spot above the Compose box. Also: the Save Now function appears to be working faster.
- Combining the search function with the web address is excellent and intuitive.
- Google ads probably won't be blocked (until someone creates a plug-in), so this will probably help my Obama-inspired ad revenue!
- Overall, I'm pretty much sold on Chrome. I can't wait to see the bugs worked out!
Labels: Chrome, Google, impressions
posted by Skew | Wednesday, September 03, 2008
4 Comments:
Okay, you inspired me to download and install it.
My initial reactions:
- Youtube: I have no sound. Works fine using Mozilla. I wonder if I have to download another plugin.
-I agree that the tabs are better.
- Same thoughts on Incognito. However, I wish Incognito could be defaulted.
- MLB.com, one of the most popular sites in the world, has features that don't work in Opera, too. Very annoying.
-Agree with you on pop up smoothness.
-Nice to expand comment box, I guess.
- Not seeing Title in blogger composition yet.
-Web address bar + google search combination. Ehh...I agree with you to an extent. I'm used to Mozilla sending me straight to the site I type. Seems like a cheap way for people to generate stats via google.com.
-Funny...
- I'll stick to Mozilla for a few reasons:
a) I don't want my history and cookies to be saved or thumbnailed. Had to go into Options and manually clear it out. (I haven't closed the browser yet, so I don't know if it will ask me to do it or not.) Overall, knowing google's "privacy rules", I just don't feel secure using this browser, and will uninstall it right after this message.
b) I like the Mozilla Firefox add-ons.
c) I don't feel like re-downloading plug ins.
d) Frankly, it's yet another browser that needs to be compatible when HTML coding.
e) Why didn't google toolbar get imported into the browser?
f) I'm worried about compatibility issues for commercial websites that use Microfoft plugins, like Silverlight.
g) Too bad my RSS feeds didn't import.
That being said, from the technical end, it is a superior browser. It has more potential than IE or FF, too. If it came out before Firefox, it would now be *the* choice for geeks all around the world.
But it didn't.
Is Google's new browser spying on you?
Germany's Office for Information Security, or BSI, suspects it is. According to Mashable and Google Blogoscoped, a German TV news programme carried this weekend a BSI warning alerting its fellow countrymen to use the recently launched Chrome browser only sparingly -- "at least for anything other than experimental tasks", Mashable writes.
A translated version of the BSI warning, running on Blogoscoped site, reads:
The Federal Office for Information Security warned internet users of the new browser Chrome. The application by the company Google should not be used for surfing the internet, as a spokesperson for the office told the Berliner Zeitung. It was said to be problematic that Chrome was distributed as an unfinished advance version. Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the internet.
BSI is apparently spooked that, with Chrome, Google can hoover up yet more details about a web user's online activities. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Just as Gmail was launching four years ago, privacy advocates worried that Gmail was snooping on users' inbox to deliver targeted adverts. More recently, Electronic Frontier Foundation, published its concerns about Chrome's "Omnibox" feature. Anything that is typed into the box is sent back to Google's data vaults, which will store about 2 per cent of all details, including search terms and IP addresses.
Christian and other religious groups opposed to abortion were allowed to advertise on Google for the first time from today, after the search engine capitulated in the face of a legal challenge.
Google had banned pro-life religious groups from buying adverts against search terms such as “abortion” and “abortion help” but was forced to abandon its policy after it was accused of breaching equalities legislation.
The challenge was brought by the Christian Institute, a cross-denominational pressure group, who said that Google’s change of heart was an acknowledgement of the rights of everybody to hold an opinion on the subject.
Mike Judge from the Christian Institute said: “Google were taking adverts from pro-abortion groups, and our view is that was a free speech issue. What we want to do is set out the acts in a pretty factual and pretty sensible way”.
Internet giants Google and Microsoft have pulled adverts for sex selection products and other services considered illegal in India after being threatened with legal action, activists said Thursday.
India's Supreme Court had last month asked the two companies plus Yahoo to respond to a complaint that they were illegally advertising do-it-yourself kits and expensive genetic techniques to find out an unborn baby's gender.
Activists said the products -- which have not been scientifically proven to be accurate or safe -- damage efforts to stem mass abortions of girls because of a traditional preference for boys in India.
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