http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html

Quote :

""Google announced their very own browser project called Google Chrome — an announcement in the form of a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud, no less. Google says Google Chrome will be open source, include a new JavaScript virtual machine, include the Google Gears add-on by default, and put the tabs above the address bar (not below), among other things. I've also uploaded Google's comic book with all the details http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/ (details given from Google's perspective, anyway... let's see how this holds up). While Google provided the URL http://www.google.com/chrome there's nothing up there yet.""

[Edited on September 1, 2008 at 3:01 PM. Reason : link]

9/1/2008 2:52:11 PM

motherfucker another browser i have to get css working on correctly

9/1/2008 3:05:09 PM

fuck it

9/1/2008 3:09:52 PM

looks like the rendering engine is Webkit, so it should render like Safari does, which is already very close to Gecko/Firefox
I looked through the whole damn comic book, and it looks pretty cool. Big focus on multi-threading and separating out processes. Each tab gets its own process, plugins (like flash) get their own process in each tab, and plugins are sandboxed, so no more whole-browser crashes because you go to a bad page or have a crappy plugin, and no more browser hang-ups when one background tab download stalls

Plus it will use a new JavaScript virtual machine that compiles JS into machine code that can run orders of magnitude faster than interpreted JS. Sounds kind of like Tracemonkey, that does kind of the same thing, that was announced last week that will be in the next version of FireFox -
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080822-firefox-to-get-massive-javascript-performance-boost.html

9/1/2008 3:31:17 PM

Quote :

"it should render like Safari does"

so i can ignore it, yes? safari is a better browser than IE (i make exception to IE8, because i don't have enough experience with it yet to say one way or another), but since less than 3% of people on teh intarweb are using safari (just barely higher than the amount using opera), they can suck my left nut if there is something that i've got that works in IE and firefox but not in safari...they simply aren't worth my time

[Edited on September 1, 2008 at 3:42 PM. Reason : stats, if you're interested: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp]

9/1/2008 3:41:50 PM

FireFox/Gecko and Safari/Webkit render very similarly because they're the most standards compliant. I've never had a Safari-specific problem when making pages - anything that I've fixed or changed for FF has always had the same effect in Safari.

Therefore, my damn point was, since Chrome will be based on Webkit, this should not be a huge hassle and should require any or much additional testing over what you already do for FireFox

9/1/2008 3:46:15 PM

Quote :

"FireFox/Gecko and Safari/Webkit render very similarly because they're the most standards compliant. I've never had a Safari-specific problem when making pages - anything that I've fixed or changed for FF has always had the same effect in Safari."

while this is GENERALLY my experience as well, i have had two separate instances in the past month where something was wonky in safari but not in FF...when i get back to work, if i remember, i'll post the code (because i agree that the VAST majority of the time, safari shows up as well as FF, and generally better than IE7 and lower)

BigMan157's comment, while i think made partly in jest and partly in seriousness, is a good point...web developers don't need yet another browser to have to test for...rather, i'd love to see improvements and new features (like the multi-threading thing) in FF (which makes up nearly half of teh intarweb viewship

[Edited on September 1, 2008 at 3:52 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2008 3:50:59 PM

^^ but Safari users may continue to draw succulently on quagmire02's left testicle.

9/1/2008 3:53:00 PM

Quote :

"web developers don't need yet another browser to have to test for...rather, i'd love to see improvements and new features (like the multi-threading thing) in FF"

i do agree there, and I wonder what kind of partnership there may be between Google and Mozilla in the future. Google has already sniped several of FireFox's original developers (Ben Goodger, one of the "characters" in the comic, was a project lead on FireFox a couple years ago) and has partnered with FF on several initiatives, webpages, search tactics, etc.

In that sense, though, it's maybe surprising that Chrome will use Webkit instead of Gecko, indicating closer ties with Apple. It would be nice to see maybe some kind of agreement between the Webkit and Gecko guys to make sure their engines render identically, or something

9/1/2008 3:58:36 PM

Quote :

"It would be nice to see maybe some kind of agreement between the Webkit and Gecko guys to make sure their engines render identically, or something"

that would be awesome

9/1/2008 4:11:14 PM

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html says they will release a beta tomorrow. Wonder if it is a public or private beta

all-in-all, even if this adds "just another browser to test against", this sounds like a really good project. It's probably the biggest re-thinking of the browser since the beginning. FireFox came out a few years ago and at the time really beat the shit out of IE5 and 6, but mostly because those browsers were so lacking. FF has made great strides in a few years, but nothing really ground-breaking or game-changing. It sounds like Chrome is really tackling the browser problem from a whole new angle. hope it works out

9/1/2008 11:10:23 PM

^ I don't think this will be all that visibly different that current browsers.

Their improvements are mostly backend stuff with memory management (that most users won't see), and faster javascript which is excellent, but not something modern processors have a big problem with (I could see slightly older computers benefitting though).

But, sometimes its the little things that make a big difference.

9/2/2008 1:35:16 AM

Screw WebKit.
Screw Safari.
Screw Google.

Why the hell would you decide to base your browser around the rendering engine that really only used by people who are forced to use it on their iPhones?

This does, however, explain why Google Chat via Gmail started working within Safari in the last month or so.

Quote :

"I've never had a Safari-specific problem when making pages - anything that I've fixed or changed for FF has always had the same effect in Safari."

They have very different JavaScript implementations when it comes to certain things, so the fact that there's going to be another WebKit browser with completely different JavaScript handling shouldn't be a welcome change to anyone.

Quote :

"FF (which makes up nearly half of teh intarweb viewship"

I realize that you're basing this off of the W3Schools link above, and allow me to point out where it clearly states:

Quote :

"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers. These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users."

Out of 700,000 visitors this month, I'm still getting 75%+ IE traffic. About 66% IE7 and 33% IE6.

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 1:56 AM. Reason : .]

9/2/2008 1:55:37 AM

yeah, it really depends on your audience. my little shit website that is only visited by friends and bored twwers is 70% FF, but a fairly decent sized family of real estate websites i manage are (sadly) 85% IE.

9/2/2008 2:11:54 AM

Quote :

"I realize that you're basing this off of the W3Schools link above, and allow me to point out where it clearly states..."

good point, my mistake

9/2/2008 10:56:06 AM

Quote :

"if there is something that i've got that works in IE and firefox but not in safari...they simply aren't worth my time"

i find that hard to believe. In my experience it will work in Safari 100% of the time if it works in either IE or FF and sometimes even if it doesn't work in FF/IE. Safari is by far the easiest browser to work with.

9/2/2008 11:04:59 AM

anyone tried it yet?

9/2/2008 11:09:06 AM

http://limi.net/articles/google-chrome-benchmarks-and-more/

Quote :

"So, it seems our secret leaked a little early. The upside is that I get to talk about one of the projects that I’ve wanted to tell you about ever since I started working here at Google. There are lots of reasons why Chrome is interesting — being a new open source browser using the WebKit rendering engine is one of them — but the main advantage it has over other browsers right now is the V8 Javascript engine. It uses several impressive virtual machine optimizations to make it the fastest Javascript engine out there. So, what all us techies out there want to know is of course: How much faster is it? Here are the results of running the browser-neutral SunSpider 0.9 Javascript benchmark on Windows: * Firefox 3: 3733 ms * Safari 4: 3406 ms (aka. WebKit nightly) * Chrome: 1827 ms As you can see, it’s fast. Amazingly fast. Over twice as fast compared to Firefox 3, and not far from being twice as fast as Safari 4 too — or WebKit nightly, as the case is here. If you use Javascript-heavy apps like Gmail, it makes a world of difference. I do know that for some reason, Safari is much slower running on Windows than on a Mac. The Sunspider benchmark running Firefox 3 against Safari 4 on a Mac shows Safari being much faster than Firefox, which is not the case on Windows. Oh, and I didn't bother running the tests on Internet Explorer — we all know it has the slowest Javascript engine in the business right now. Other reasons why Chrome is interesting Every tab and plugin is its own process This means that a bad web page or a bad plugin (Flash, anyone?) can take down the entire browser. In the age of tabs and web apps, trust me — this is a killer feature. It does really smart things to make browsing faster Let me mention one: One of the things that makes browsing slow is that your computer has to ask the DNS every time you follow a link to a different site. Chrome starts doing these DNS lookups in the background while your page has loaded, making the next link you click on start loading instantly1. 1 Note that this is different from pre-fetching the page, and takes up a very minimal amount of bandwidth (DNS requests are pretty lightweight). Offline Mode built-in Chrome has Gears built-in, which means that several web apps from Google and others are capable of running even without an internet connection. It will bring a new audience to the alternative browsers Google has the ability to reach people that would never have installed Firefox — either because they don’t know that it exists, or because they want a browser that is more mainstream. Google is a name they trust, and thus more people will be running open source browsers. Oh, and stay tuned for the Mac and Linux versions. They’re coming — I can’t wait to run Chrome natively on OS X. It’s all good."

from: http://adamwhiles.com/archives/207

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 11:17 AM. Reason : img]

9/2/2008 11:15:56 AM

Google needs to hurry the fuck up here.

9/2/2008 11:31:59 AM

another link with more screen captures--
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/first-public-screen-captures-of-google-chrome/

9/2/2008 11:36:01 AM

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080902005540&newsLang=en


September 02, 2008 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Webcast Press Event for Launch of Google Chrome

--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Google Inc.:

WHO: Google Inc.

WHAT: Google is hosting a webcast press briefing and demo -- announcing the launch of Google Chrome, a new open source browser intended to create a better web experience for users around the world. Google Chrome is launching in beta version in more than 40 languages. We will be hosting a press briefing today at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), where the team behind Chrome will be introducing the product and leading demos. There will be a Q&A immediately following the event.

For additional information, please see our post on the Google Blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com.

WHEN: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00 p.m. Eastern

Webcast Details:

Please visit one of the following websites:

Windows Media Player:

http://google.client.shareholder.com/Visitors/event/build2/MediaPr esentation.cfm?MediaID=33101&Player=1

Real Player:

http://google.client.shareholder.com/Visitors/event/build2/MediaPr esentation.cfm?MediaID=33101&Player=2

Long URLs in this release may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.

Contacts

Google Inc.
Erin Fors, 650-930-3555
efors@google.com

9/2/2008 12:38:33 PM

haha, they're playing "Another One Bites the Dust"

9/2/2008 2:01:47 PM

lol i chuckled at some of these--
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2008/09/portfolio_0902

Quote :

"Jack Flack is normally quite suspicious when a supposedly accidental leak leads to wide, mostly positive coverage. Particularly about a new product. And particularly on public holiday that ensures little competitive news on the business pages the next day. But the Google leak felt like a genuine miscue, detected only because Kara Swisher's Weber apparently has a 3G card. What makes it seem like a genuine mistake? Well, while the company moved quickly to confirm the reports, it was not prepared to make the new browser downloadable, thus squandering the full benefit of the coverage. The launch confirms that the war for the supremacy in the next tech era is fully on. Just as Microsoft cannot afford to have Google operate virtually uncontested in search, nor can Google afford to have Microsoft operate virtually uncontested in browers. Here's the parse. Google: At Google, we have a saying: "launch early and iterate." Translation: Outside Google, it's sometimes misheard as "launch early and dominate." Google: While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! Translation: Heh, heh, heh. Even our mailroom guys are go-getters. Google: As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. Translation: The propellerheads thought it was far more interesting than Gustav or Bristol. Google: As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here. Translation: We won't try to stop you from reading our promotional material. Google: We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries. Translation: No, we are not simply testing the waters. It's a full-blown launch. Game on. Google: So why are we launching Google Chrome? Translation: So why did it take this many years for the rumor to become true? Google: Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web. Translation: Because we believe we cannot allow Microsoft to operate in any meaningful business segment uncontested. Google: All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Translation: And we hate having to use anything that isn't ours. Google: Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. Translation: It was either that, or start a home-made jewelry business. Google: We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build. Translation: We're still not sure how to clearly differentiate our browser. Google: On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. Translation: It may look like just another rental sedan, but wait till you see under the hood. Google: To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. Translation: Most people are hardly conscious of the default choices they make. Google: It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go. Translation: If you like our other stuff, you'll like this, too. Google: Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. Translation: It's a "foundation." We promise it will do a lot more later. Google: By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers. Translation: Now how much would you pay? Google: This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. Translation: Please don't try it on day-one, be unimpressed, and never reconsider it again. Google: We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust. Translation: There will be problems. We'll work them out. Google: We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. Translation: We're all about choice... at least in businesses where we don't have a presence yet. Google: We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward. Translation: Yes, we're going hurt the smaller browsers more than IE, but we promise to be gentle as we do it. Google: The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better. Translation: We love choice. Have you heard? Google: So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready. Translation: By then we should be done waterboarding the guy who accidentally pushed the button. Google: *Update 3:30 p.m.: We've added a link to our comic book explaining Chrome. Translation: We use comic books. Who says we're menacing?"

9/2/2008 2:02:28 PM

Quote :

"Translation: We use comic books. Who says we're menacing?"

9/2/2008 2:22:17 PM

http://code.google.com/chromium

( http://www.chromium.org/ )

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 2:22 PM. Reason : .]

9/2/2008 2:22:23 PM

Quote :

"The requested URL /chromium was not found on this server. "

9/2/2008 2:23:06 PM

obviously, but if you're watching the webcast, it's coming.

the one problem i know i'll have with Google chrome is no adblock (at least google won't release it)

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 2:24 PM. Reason : .]

9/2/2008 2:23:34 PM

if i hear that chrome is really friendly one more time, im going to punch that guy

9/2/2008 2:25:42 PM

Quote :

"motherfucker another browser i have to get css working on correctly "

i thought the same thing.

life is a lot easier when you relentlessly enforce HTML 3.2 compatibility.

9/2/2008 2:30:18 PM

LOL at their new Incognito (aka PORN) mode.

9/2/2008 2:34:49 PM

it would have been better if it was incognegro

9/2/2008 2:35:28 PM

http://code.google.com/p/v8/

9/2/2008 2:55:28 PM

It's out now.

http://code.google.com/chromium

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 3:04 PM. Reason : OMF THE INTERNET IS 2000% better with this browser!!!111]

9/2/2008 3:02:10 PM

http://www.google.com/chrome

9/2/2008 3:05:11 PM

Call me when it has adblock and mouse gesture support.

9/2/2008 3:07:42 PM

Quote :

"For Windows Vista/XP"

for fuck's sake, i hate my company's IT..... I can't believe we have 300 engineers in Cary working on Windows 2000

9/2/2008 3:09:15 PM

gah, gmail is ridiculously fast. love the application mode.

one thing i notice is that with no statusbar, they just put the URL in the bottom left as you mouseover, one standards thing i miss is no ALT text display w/out a statusbar

9/2/2008 3:10:30 PM

Quote :

"Translation: Yes, we're going hurt the smaller browsers more than IE, but we promise to be gentle as we do it."

Is a fair enough point. If Google Chrome is a better version of Safari, it could very well kill what little non-iPhone usage of Safari there is -- not to mention that it's far more going to affect Firefox's market share than IE's.

9/2/2008 3:12:59 PM

The speed of this browser is simply amazing.

I'll need my plugins before it can be my everyday browser, but so far, so good.

9/2/2008 3:18:31 PM

dangit, the site to actually DL the install file is blocked at work I can get to the google chrome page but its getting blocked beyond there.

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 3:23 PM. Reason : ]

9/2/2008 3:23:11 PM

using it now. pretty fast.

9/2/2008 3:24:20 PM

Quote :

"it could very well kill what little non-iPhone usage of Safari there is "

it was speculated earlier that the main reason Apple made Safari for Windows was not necessarily to gain marketshare, but to get Webkit "out there", so Windows developers could develop and test on a Webkit browser so they would know how their pages work on the iPhone. If you buy that reasoning, then Chrome isn't really a problem for that, and since Chrome is almost certainly destined to be more popular than Safari, the overall goal of getting Webkit into as many hands as possible is still attained.

9/2/2008 3:28:02 PM

The internets at work isn't doing so hot. The browser is pretty sweet though. I haven't been able to get Gmail or Calendar to work, thats probably just me though.

9/2/2008 3:28:18 PM

mouse gestures are the dumbest thing ever.

9/2/2008 3:28:36 PM

...says the guy who actually prefers IE to firefox.

You're right, who would ever want to customize something to make it easier and more convenient to use? what a silly idea.

9/2/2008 3:32:23 PM

thats because its a better browser. Firefox is garbage and so are mouse gestures. Hurr i have a one buttan mouse.

9/2/2008 3:34:09 PM

Quote :

"The speed of this browser is simply amazing. I'll need my plugins before it can be my everyday browser, but so far, so good."

9/2/2008 3:37:15 PM

^^Oh, I get it you're trolling.

Carry on then.

9/2/2008 3:37:54 PM

i got these lame side-buttonless mice here at work

i rely on avant's "hold one button down and click the other" style for internets

but the gesturing is a little ~

[Edited on September 2, 2008 at 3:40 PM. Reason : too hyped about blown tires Ø]

9/2/2008 3:39:10 PM

yay 98% of the css works fine

FUCK YOU 2%

9/2/2008 3:40:23 PM