Google Chrome, is it a good thing?

[deanjo]

So with the beta out of Google's Chrome, I was able to take it for a test drive. That being said, it is still very young and crash prone so far. Now from a technical view, I see alot of potential in Chrome, but there are some things that bug me about the idea of Google putting out a browser.

It's with mixed feelings that I accept Chrome, on the plus side, it's open source and it embracing HTML5, and threading and memory management is a needed improvement to todays solutions.

But....

There is something about a company that specializes in data harvesting that really really bugs me. I'm not keen on the idea of the #1 data resource on the net having a browser solution for their services. This does remind me a lot of how Hotmail used to be browser agnostic and over time would up being so tightly hooked into MS's products that using their online services became very dependent on running their software to make the most of it.

Then there is also the fact that this might give too much leverage to google as well for current and presents standards. HTML5 for example still does not have a set codec solution that all supporters can agree on. Now I can really see Googles service such as YouTube becoming the bully on the block and forcing others to use what Google decides should be. for example. the codec standard.

It just feels to me like we could be trading a bunch of monkeys for one 1000kg gorrilla.


What are your guys thoughts?

[Aradreth]

The EULA is just slightly worrying when coming from a company that excels in data mining. Although with the browser being open source you could just remove any pieces of code that report back to google but I'd hope it would never reach that stage.

As for the codec's with HTML5 I hadn't really though about it, but yes you are right I could see google forcing the codec they want if Chrome ends up being a success.

[Vighy]

The EULA is just slightly worrying when coming from a company that excels in data mining. Although with the browser being open source you could just remove any pieces of code that report back to google but I'd hope it would never reach that stage.

As for the codec's with HTML5 I hadn't really though about it, but yes you are right I could see google forcing the codec they want if Chrome ends up being a success.

Ok, I read the eula... firefox will remain my browser.

[_txf_]

The best thing about chrome is javascript. I hope others will take the code from the v8 javascript engine. Apparently it is light years ahead of all the others.

[d2kx]

I'd like to see a V8 vs. SquirrelFish comparison... and is it true that it uses Qt? If WebKit + Qt then = epic win.

[grantek]

There is something about a company that specializes in data harvesting that really really bugs me.

Yeah, I agree - I haven't had a good feeling from Google for a while, but they've consistently proven they're happy to follow standards, and being an open-source browser I'd hope someone has the resources to run a "centos"/"iceweasel"-type fork that removes all the googlisms. Either way, I'd expect there's user options to prevent autodownloading of blacklists/autocompletes, to at least stop the data flow to them if one wishes.

Google really does seem to "get it", in terms of helping open software and open standards, and they seem to understand that that's how they'll thrive. Being as large a corporation as they are, I'm not placing any long-term trust in them, but the fact that they're acknowledging that their browser is "just" chrome on top of WebKit goes a long way to position them as nothing but a Microsoft killer, which to me is a good thing

And wtf are people complaining about the eula for? The code's available under the BSD license fer goodness' sake!

[deanjo]

If WebKit + Qt then = epic win.

Wouldn't that be called Konqueror? You have been able to use webkit as an engine on it for a while now.

[Kano]

Well you can use safari too - even for Win

[Thetargos]

I insist, being it OSS, wouldn't it mean that Mozilla could base Firefox 4 on a design like it? And who knows? Maybe even incorporate V8 on FF 3.5, or further tweak TraceMonkey.

Here is a comparison of V8, TraceMonkey, SquirrelFish (WebKit) and IE8.

I have to wonder if the advantage of V8 on Chrome are due to the modular design of the browser and because it runs under its own process, rather than under the bigger, bulkier process of the browser, add threading there, and that process might even receive a dedicated CPU to it on multi-core systems.

[Zhick]

I'm pretty excited about Chrome, especially if it uses qt. I'll definately give it a try. And since it's FOSS, I'm pretty sure somebodys gonna rip out all the parts you wont want, if there realy are such parts, and call it IceChrome or something .
Also I actually do trust google and their "don't be evil" philosophie quite a bit. And after all they've been veeery good to us (the FOSS/GNU/Linux community).

Wouldn't that be called Konqueror? You have been able to use webkit as an engine on it for a while now.

Konqueror still uses KHTML and afaik there's no way of telling it to use webkit instead.