Google Chrome for Linux

[JohnT]

Not new but not too well publicized HERE for beta

[loopback48]

I tried it. Used it for about a month. I, like everyone else, gets used to something and pretty much stick to it. I've even given Epiphany a shot. It didn't catch on with me either. Same with Chrome. Chrome and Epiphany are both very nice. Let me use Firefox (Iceweasel) and I'll be a happy man.

Not a damn thing wrong with Chrome or Epiphany. But I'll stick with Firefox. Is the reason most of my Win friends still use IE? Probably.

[blackbelt_jones]

I just installed it last night. I'm using it right now, with Kubuntu Karmic, and I came here with the intention of starting a thread about it.

I'm impressed. I think it's just a little bit faster than firefox on my machine, and Flashplayer seems to be all set up and ready to go. I've had some problems with linking in chrome, i.e., copying links onto webpages. It's too soon to rule out human error on that. I doesn't seem to handle mass downloads as well as firefox or Konqueror.

Like Firefox 3.5, Chrome borrows heavily from Opera's excellent tab design, with a button to the right of the tabs to open a new tab. Chrome takes the thievery further by creating a page of links similar to Opera's Speed Dial, only instead of requiring you to set it up, it automatically creates links to your eight most visited sites. This could turn out to be a really nice feature. I always liked the idea of Speed Dial, but I never wound up using the sites I'd set it up for, so I'd set it up again, and so on. Bottom Line, Speed Dial was one of those features that seemed like a great idea, but i never was really able to fully utilize.

Screenshot

Okay, let me lay some heavy irony on you. If I stick with Firefox as my main browser, one big reason will be because chrome doesn't seem to have that little window in the corner for typing Google searches. I have to type Google searches in the browser window, like with Seamonkey, and I find that to be a little awkward. So IMO, it looks like Chrome still doesn't do Google as well as well as Firefox.

You know, I think that the browser I would most like to use is Opera. I like the widgets, I like the design, I like the Opera community, and I'm interested in some of the new hosting/filesharing features I've heard about. The main reason why I don't is because I can't get good support for Flashplayer. That could be because I don't know how. Maybe it's time to take another look.

[furrycat]

> chrome doesn't seem to have that little window in the corner for typing Google searches

I hate that little window. In fact the Firefox devs' refusal to implement the search-from-address bar functionality of Seamonkey was the reason I stuck to Seamonkey for so long. It was only when I discovered Vimperator that I had a reason to move to Firefox at last.

I always found the combo functionality to be much nicer. Imagine I want to visited justlinux.com and I type justlinux in the address bar. Then I realise I can't remember if it's justlinux.COM or justlinux.NET. If I were on Firefox (without Vimperator) I would have to stop what I was doing and tab into the search window to type justlinux again. On Seamonkey I would just press tab to do a search and lo and behold Google will tell me it was .com. Of course with Vimperator it's even easier.

Oh yeah, Chrome...

Yes it's fast. Yes the tab sandboxing is nice. But it still doesn't have any decent extensions, still doesn't support GSSAPI and still hates proxy auth. So I'm not interested.

[blackbelt_jones]

> chrome doesn't seem to have that little window in the corner for typing Google searches

I hate that little window. In fact the Firefox devs' refusal to implement the search-from-address bar functionality of Seamonkey was the reason I stuck to Seamonkey for so long. It was only when I discovered Vimperator that I had a reason to move to Firefox at last.

I always found the combo functionality to be much nicer. Imagine I want to visited justlinux.com and I type justlinux in the address bar. Then I realise I can't remember if it's justlinux.COM or justlinux.NET. If I were on Firefox (without Vimperator) I would have to stop what I was doing and tab into the search window to type justlinux again. On Seamonkey I would just press tab to do a search and lo and behold Google will tell me it was .com. Of course with Vimperator it's even easier.

Oh yeah, Chrome...

Yes it's fast. Yes the tab sandboxing is nice. But it still doesn't have any decent extensions, still doesn't support GSSAPI and still hates proxy auth. So I'm not interested.

Interesting, I just mentioned that in another forum and I got this response.

You can configure firefox to do the same thing, if you're into it.

You may want to look into that.

Also I read that extensions are now available for chrome. I still don't know anything about extensions for chrome, so I don't know quite what that means, and i can't tell if what you wrote takes this into account.

Since I installed chrome, I seem to be using mostly chrome, with Kubuntu (still not available as anything but source code for Slackware). It's faster. I don't think it's saving me any real time, it's just a pleasure to use. I'm not too psyched about chrome OS however. I don't want to be tied down to any one browser including this one.

[furrycat]

> Interesting, I just mentioned that in another forum and I got this response.

You can configure firefox to do the same thing, if you're into it.

Ask exactly how one goes about it. You might not get so many responses. Because you can't do it without extensions.

You can do it with the Peers extension, which is designed to allow you to see results from various search engines in the address bar; or to initiate searches. Configured a certain way it very closely approximates Seamonkey behaviour. Close enough that I used it for a while. I had trouble with it though. Sometimes the address bar would become locked and I had to restart the browser.

There was another extension whose name I forget which claimed to be able to do it but it was never updated for Firefox 3.

Otherwise you will hear people claiming that configuring shortcuts so that you type, for example, "g blah" to search for blah will do what I want. That isn't how Seamonkey works. Seamonkey works by you typing your search string then pressing tab. Not by typing it then prefixing g.

Don't mind me; I'm just stubborn about not fixing what ain't broke. My motto is that you shouldn't be afraid of change but that change for change's sake is a bad idea. It's not enough to offer me something different; you have to offer me something better.

I used Mozilla when it was a bunch of binaries in a zip file that you downloaded and tried to figure out which one was the actual browser. I liked the address bar how it was and I used it for years and years. Firefox took that away and I didn't like it. Only when I found the Peers extension did I finally switch. Then I found Vimperator and stopped using the address bar altogether. Want to go to justlinux.com? Type o justlinux.com. Can't remember if it's .COM or .NET? Type o justlinux and let Google figure it out.

Anyhow I'm way off topic. Chrome is a nice browser. It doesn't offer me what I want though. And nor does it offer me something better than what I want.

[JohnT]

Okay, let me lay some heavy irony on you. If I stick with Firefox as my main browser, one big reason will be because chrome doesn't seem to have that little window in the corner for typing Google searches. I have to type Google searches in the browser window, like with Seamonkey, and I find that to be a little awkward. So IMO, it looks like Chrome still doesn't do Google as well as well as Firefox.

A Google browser without an intuitive search feature. LOL Try here.

Plugins/Extensions