BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Google Chrome

 
 
Anna de Logardiere
22:12 / 02.09.08
I downloaded Google Chrome about 15 minutes ago and I may have hugged my keyboard in joy about 5 minutes ago. It has a close all tabs to the right function! It doesn't have any menus at the top. You open a new tab by clicking on a plus button. It's really sexy! Does anyone else like it too or am I wondering lonely as a cloud?

Here's a picture of the newest google baby:


Here's someone else talking about it. I think he's wrong though, this feels like a web user's product to me.
 
 
Char Aina
22:37 / 02.09.08
The detachable tabs and the tabs-to-the-right thing sound interesting. Are there any other differences that differentiate it from Firefox 3?
As a user, how Google are you? Do you use a lot of their other products? Of those that you do, how many are being integrated?

I have concerns regarding the rise of all-round-google, and this seems like a large step towards that. Is there anything to counter those fears?
 
 
Anna de Logardiere
23:05 / 02.09.08
Sure, I can counter the fear. Google seems to treat its staff well. It turns out products that are extremely effective and it's only monopolising areas that have already been monopolised by other companies (like Microsoft) so at the moment its work hardly seems to be a sin. Let's say you're worried about the amount of information they have about you. Well tomorrow we could get a draconian government in power and they wouldn't waste time and go to google if they didn't like you, they'd just throw something incriminating in your bin and then arrest you. Nothing is deleted from your hard drive and anyone can make you a communist if the country wants to find some communists. However there is an incognito button that allows you to use the browser without google recording your clicks.

how Google are you? Do you use a lot of their other products? Of those that you do, how many are being integrated?

At the moment this is just a web browser but I am very google, I use Gmail and the Calendar everyday and Analytics to monitor my traffic. I don't use the reader because I prefer Bloglines and like Flickr more than Picasa so I'm not a purist. At the moment this is literally a browser with nothing conjoined, it does play your most visited browsing history back to you when you open the browser or a new tab within it. I think that's cool because I can click on a square and get to where I want to be but it's not working for me completely yet. I'll let you know if it doesn't work properly in a week or so. The usability of this browser is pure joy though and it provides more viewing space which makes sites look better.
 
 
Mr Tricks
23:18 / 02.09.08
I'm posting this via Chrome at the moment. Over all very nice. I noticed it doesn't have all the extras one might have in a customized Firefox browser (I found I couldn't drag & drop my adjustments to my netflix queue.) But I'll continue to play with it more.
 
 
Anna de Logardiere
23:25 / 02.09.08
I'm going to miss my Delicious bookmarklets I think but apart from that it's hott.
 
 
grant
01:34 / 03.09.08
Is the security pushy? I saw a thing where it flagged someone checking gmail because the domain name was "really" google.mail.com, and thus could be potentially phishing. Or so it said.

Oh, screengrab.

That's what I saw.

Is that a problem?
 
 
Anna de Logardiere
08:37 / 03.09.08
I have no idea, I bookmark my gmail rather than typing the URL in every time. I also got that message using Firefox the other day for a different site so no more pushy than Firefox.
 
 
Colonel Kadmon
11:54 / 03.09.08
I'm liking it lots so far. One thing it has over firefox 3 is that it doesn't jam up all the time, at least in my experience. Also, I have delicious bookmarklets on mine - it imported them from firefox, along with all my bookmarks.

And typing this, it apparently has a realtime spellcheck.

I use google reader a great deal, so i wouldn't mind a little integration, as long as it doesn't get pushy. I had enough of that with Explorer.
 
 
Bandini
12:20 / 03.09.08
Reasonably impressed, looks like they've been heavily influenced by Safari and Firefox which is probably a good thing.

I very interested as to how the incognito works.

Unfortunately it's not much use to me at work as I can't seem to find a way to get flash working on it without administrator permission.

Will probably start using it at home though and see how it goes.
 
 
Char Aina
16:52 / 03.09.08
According to the register, Chrome effectively lets Google use any of your copyrighted material posted to the web via Chrome without paying you a cent.

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence 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.


Call me paranoid... but doesn't that sound bad?


11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

And just to make sure any accidental copyright infringement is your fault:

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

It's all over the place. More from Slashdot and CNet
 
 
Char Aina
17:20 / 03.09.08
...And a slightly longer piece from Tap The Hive.

It's being suggested in a few places that Google's early release of Chrome has meant 'shipping' it with a will-do-for-now EULA, and that it may yet be amended. At the Register they point out that the EULA has concepts in it similar to those found in google's friendster, Orkut:

"By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials."

And there's a link to a google accounts EULA that contains very much the same chat:

11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence 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 licence 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.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.



Any lawyers in the building? I have a GMail account.. so have I already lost?

1.1 Your use of Google’s products, software, services and web sites (referred to collectively as the “Services” in this document and excluding any services provided to you by Google under a separate written agreement) is subject to the terms of a legal agreement between you and Google. “Google” means Google Inc., whose principal place of business is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States. This document explains how the agreement is made up, and sets out some of the terms of that agreement.

1.2 Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Google, your agreement with Google will always include, at a minimum, the terms and conditions set out in this document. These are referred to below as the “Universal Terms”.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
19:57 / 03.09.08
On a lighter note, I just realised that Chrome lets me resize the text box I'm writing in ATM. Quite neat, without being something I've ever felt strongly about. It's pretty clean-looking so far, no hitches 5 minutes in.
 
 
grant
19:05 / 04.09.08
Apparently, they fixed the EULA so you own your browsing.
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
22:50 / 04.09.08
I've tried it at work, where I do miss a lot of the regular Firefox extras I use. The real-time spellchecking I already have too.

However, I'm not likely to make much use of Chrome on a full-time basis until there's a Linux version.

And then:

 
 
Essential Dazzler
00:23 / 05.09.08
The only feature I miss from my previous browsers is the ability to activate mouse-scrolling by middle-clicking.
 
 
Quantum
07:35 / 05.09.08
I trialled this all yesterday but decided against it. For some reason it won't allow me to copy images directly, and youtube vids freeze up after 2 seconds- it could just be my work settings, but Firefox doesn't have those issues so meh.

I kinda liked it, but I couldn't get it to sit up and beg like FF, for example one of my favourite functions is opening a new tab and switching to it when you click the wheel button on a link - I can't replicate that (although that might be my general IT ignorance).

All the google-ocracy fears sound very similar to the fears regarding gmail when it was released, and that turned out all right. I can't see them ripping off your creative work for example, even if they're legally protected.
 
 
Anna de Logardiere
13:04 / 05.09.08
There are loads of weird little things that are wrong, no bookmark manager, peculiar terms and conditions. It definitely needs beta testing but I'm kind of enjoying the feeling that the people at google are a bit fallible and have forgotten a few things like lawyers and the need to delete things in chunks.
 
 
Quantum
14:31 / 05.09.08
no bookmark manager? I thought you could just drag them about, and the spanner has some options- I imported all my bookmarks from FFox
 
  
Add Your Reply