Am I the only one?
I just asked on Twitter if I'm the only one who doesn't want another Web browser. Yes, it's exciting that Chrome is now available, but what a big fat PITA! For Web designers at least... I mean, it's bad enough that I have to run Windows, Macintosh, sometimes Linux (if I want to support my brother, at least...) with Opera, Firefox, IE, Safari, Flock, et al on as many of the machines as will support them. It's not enough that I need to be able to test my designs in mobile devices like the iPhone and PDAs. No, now Google has to get into the damn act and put out their own browser. At least it's based off the Mozilla engine (oops, I mean..) WebKit (Safari) engine, so maybe it won't be vastly different from Firefox. But still! There aren't enough hours in the day to test all the browser possibilities that a significant number of customers use!
And lamely enough, it doesn't seem to even be available for Mac, so I won't be using Chrome regularly yet. Why would they not release it for the Mac if it's based on WebKit???
P.S. If you use your Web browser to post content to your websites, you might be wary of using the Chrome browser for this feature - check out what the EULA says:
"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."
Granted, this is probably just an unreviewed version of their EULA for all their apps, but personally, I'm not interested in providing them with a royalty-free irrevocable license to anything I use their browser to post!
Comments
Amen and amen.
Actually, it’s based on Webkit, the open-source engine in Safari. That means that designers whose sites work in Safari should find that they work in Chrome.
My first reaction was similar to yours. I’ve been sold on Flock (Based of Firefox) for awhile now but I decided to give chrome a go. It’s pretty quick and doesn’t hog a whole bunch of memory which is all I want in a web browser. Also as Scott said above it should be compatible with Safari. So far I’ve had no problems viewing pages and it hasn’t crashed yet !
Chrome, wow. Does it have add-ons like Adblock Plus to eliminate those pokey Ad-Sense ads that slow down your browsing?
Yes you’re right, we should all use Windows Vista and Internet Explorer, after all, what’s the use of multiple applications doing likely the same things each others.
If Chrome is better than others browsers, what’s the matter, where is the problem?
Users must have the choice to use the browser(s) they want, it’s our work (and browser developer’s work) to have sites rendering the same on several browsers.
Hum, and what do you mean in sometimes Linux (if I want to support my brother, at least…)”? Doesn’t Linux users deserve to see beautiful and functional sites??!
P.-S. : sorry if my English is not perfect, I’m a French guy.
If Chrome is far better than (say) explorer, and it gets its share of the market, it’s not a problem to have another browser to test sites with. if it’s not, it won’t get that share and it will be not a great problem for developers.
My answer is different: I read the “comic” presentation very briefly so I could easily be wrong, but I have the impression that all the attention is always on how fast it is, on how secure it is ecc. ecc. Never a word on how well it renders STANDARDS, CSS above all.
If my impression is right, it’s a sad thing.
Google’s attack on IE about infringement was laughable before I read their EULA; now I see a hypocritical company like all the rest.
One would not expect rendering to be a problem from them. If it is, it will have a short life. Competition is healthy, especially in a market that is dominated by one provider. Organizations like Browsershots make multiple browser reviewing relatively painless.
That’s my 2-cents
Well I’m not thrilled about it either but maybe the extra competition will give all browser makers the incentive to maintain standards compliance as a high priority, according to webware.com Chrome tops the latest stable releases of IE and Firefox in the Acid 3 rendering test, with all that said I’m still not eager to find out what would happen if Chrome became the new IE statistically speaking.
Pish, posh, who cares if there is another browser using the same rendering engine as others? If I recall correctly, Webkit is also standards compliant, that should mean that you don’t have to code “for” any browsers (except good old IE) My 2 cents is that security is so important now that allowing your users to use out-dated browsers is doing them a disservice, and besides if you code for standards and accessability, you win in SEO and your stuff will work in any browser. I personally test to the lowest common factor, if it works on FF/Linux, it works for everyone, because Mozilla cares more about standards than anything else. YEAH!
PS: don’t forget to test with a text browser. because more and more people are going to be using alternative browsers and devices soon.
PPS: besides almost everyone using these ‘alternative’ browsers knows what to expect on sites designed for IE, most people who just expect everything to work perfectly without any thought on their part (like knowing how to use a browser) is still using IE and probably still not wondering why their browser has a new tool-bar every day. (my friend recently had me fix his PC, IE’s toolbars covered over HALF of the screen and he did not know or wonder where they came from)
In summary: Standards All Day!
Emanuel.. well said. “Another browser” isnt a bad thing… if its standards compliant the engine under the hood is still the same as other standards compliant browsers. Its the technology feeding off this engine that is different, but the roots are still the same. So we wont have to change the way we design in order to ensure sites “work” on chrome.. if they are standards compliant, chrome will ensure its technologies work to render the site correctly.
Im glad its got a built in firebug type thing too.. nice.
So far it seems super quick. The other good thing about google releasing this is the amount of research and development that goes on there.
Im not sure this is going to win any browser wars today, but i think google may have some tricks up their sleeves yet… watch this space.
When Chrome comes out on Mac and has a less all-encompassing EULA, I’ll consider using it.
When it comes to testing, I’ll use it regardless – unless, as others have mentioned, it doesn’t get the browser share, then I’ll relegate it to the “hmm, I should check that in there” pile.
As for Linux – yes, they deserve to have decent looking pages, but right now, except for one site that I write, they don’t have even 1% of the browser share. So I don’t have the focus on them. The comment about my brother was a dig at him specifically because he runs Linux as his desktop and is always teasing me about it.
We might not need another browser (we could just get rid off the funky ones and keep this), but we do need an online OS, and I think Google is so close to get it
I agree with Jennifer on this. What a lot of people may not be thinking about is that there is more involved here than simply making sure your HTML and CSS is rendered satisfactorily. Because javascript and AJAX applications are client side programming languages and are rendered by the browser those things need to be tested as well.