Google Chrome, the web chimes in
Yesterday might have been a US holiday, but the Twittering and blogging masses were awakened (by quacking claxons, I'm sure) to the inadvertent leak of Google Chrome, the oft-rumored browser from the search giant. Naturally, everyone wants a piece of the action. Here are a few of the stories we're digesting:
TechCrunch has some juicy first pics of the browser. They snagged a few blurry YouTube screenshots before the demo video was pulled as well. Is "blurry" and YouTube in the same sentence redundant?
Not everyone is enamored with Chrome. Lance Ulanoff at PC Magazine provides tonic to those who think this is a real game-changer. He makes some great points.
At the moment, the Google Chrome comic book page on Blogoscoped is down because the "server is a bit stressed right now." I need 90cc's of Google juice, stat!
If you think Quikboy has something to say about Chrome, you haven't read the thread over on Slashdot. Go ahead, we can wait.
Yes, there's already a Wikipedia page!
Don't forget Mashable's take, our old buddy Marshall Kirkpatrick runs down the top features and Ina Fried (Webware) points out what everyone has been repeating: Redmond, volley off the port bow.
Google News has a little over 1,000 stories on Chrome, all within 24 hours. So who's not interested in this thing?
The read link on this post takes you to our Google Chrome page, and we'll be liveblogging around 2pm to cover the press conference via those who are there. Will September 2 be a watershed day online, or is Google's browser destined to be an also-ran? Leave your thoughts in the comments, as always.
UPDATES:
Chris Messina chimes in, explaining why this is important to Mozilla and the open web at large.
Forgot to include Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, who references her awesome interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly.
VC extraordinaire Fred Wilson pulls up a three-legged stool to explain what this means.
Switched has a post about Chrome as well.
Matt Cutts has a liveblog going of the announcement (thanks Ryan!)
Jack Flack deciphers the Googlespeak.
Ryan at CybernetNews asks if Chrome will eat all other browsers for lunch.
OStatic's Mike Gunderloy has a terrific browser scorecard with his predictions on how other browsers will fare after the Chrome hits the fan.
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The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Greg said 1:45PM on 9-02-2008
Google has posted the comic as well (see link below), in case the Blogoscoped page is still overloaded (but cheers to Blogoscoped for posting such a clean scan before Google!)
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
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Brian said 2:03PM on 9-02-2008
I just want a download link!!
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todd said 2:03PM on 9-02-2008
could care less about Chrome.. FireFox is great and I don't see any
of the "extra" features of Chrome making it worth my while to switch
or even bother with an install. There's only so much a browser should
do and with FireFox, you can add any extra functionality with add-ons.
Works for me.
I think Chrome will be one of Google's biggest flops.
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DivinoAG said 3:04PM on 9-02-2008
Download is up on google.com/chrome. Testing it right now.
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nick said 3:41PM on 9-02-2008
Using it right now... liking it so far... its extremely fast, clean and intuitive (duh, its google :)
It comes default with all the tab settings and extras that I would normally add to firefox (small things) ... except for a restore session feature... (unless I haven't found it yet)
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Mysterius said 7:51PM on 9-02-2008
It's there. Click on the wrench, "options", and view the options for startup.
TurboFool said 3:44PM on 9-02-2008
Been running it for the last hour, roughly, and all but love it. Speed's absurd, really. Fastest browser I've ever used. Interface is clean and uncluttered, and tab management's great.
I'm already missing my Firefox extensions, though, and My touchpad's scroll function only scrolls down in it, not up. Also no session restore functions which I rely heavily on in Firefox.
Still, as soon as they fix the scroll bug I'll try to rely on it as much as possible for a while to see if I can make it work. Until there's functions that sync it between computers in place, though, it'll be mainly experimental. I rely on my Firefox bookmarks syncing between my home and notebook computers.
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Kemwer said 3:56PM on 9-02-2008
You know, the bookmarks are my main complaint so far. I use Google Bookmarks with the GMarks firefox plugin, and it's really annoying that I cannot access those with a browser FROM Google.
They should have used Google Bookmarks instead of a local bookmark archive.
Othen than that... it's just my favorite Firefox addons that I miss here. But the browser is blazingly fast, and so far rock solid. It did crash my Firefox when I clicked to download, but no crashes on itself.
DiRT said 5:05PM on 9-02-2008
I want live RSS bookmarks!
Mastro said 8:16PM on 9-03-2008
I have same complaint about bookmarks. I use FF to sync them between work, home and laptop. With Google Chrome I'll have to use Chrome to browse and FF to store my Bookmarks.
TurboFool said 4:17PM on 9-02-2008
Google made a big fuss about not tying the browser directly to any of their services. Smart from a trust (and anti-trust) perspective, but ironically makes it more limited than Firefox. I don't use Google Bookmarks, but I can see exactly where that would come in handy, and I would have considered switching to them if it did.
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joe said 2:26PM on 9-04-2008
Go here to get the Google Bookmark button added to Chrome:
http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=100215&topic=14680
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