Google Chrome

[Till]

Hurray, more spyware from google I can't believe you otherwise cynical bunch are actually downloading this thing.

I don't mind them monitoring what websites I go on through AdSense or Google search, because I can avoid both of those things by blocking google's cookies. But downloading a browser and having no ability to prevent my browsing habits being recorded and sold is nothing short of insanity. I don't understand why any reasonable individual would knowingly consent to this.

A new browser entering the market is an event that is likely to draw the curiosity of geeks. I don't think many of them will actually switch to it, though, given how it doesn't seem to offer anythig revolutionary that couldn't be added to the other browsers. Safari for Windows received similar attention and it didn't make a big impact on FF/Opera's market share.

The real target group are the casual users, who often have trouble differentiating between the WWW and Internet Explorer, but for whom Google is a household brand. Firefox/Opera can reach these users only by word of the mouth; Google has them visiting its sites on their own account.

That, and Google's image, gives it a good shot at drawing these casual users away from IE. Once they've made the switch, Google will have an easy time promoting its other services to them - just like MS has with Windows.

I think this is the real goal: Provide a platform that will cemet Google's near monopoly on internet services. For that to work, the platform itself must be sparkling clean. Hence the BSD licence.

 

[Mise]

A new browser entering the market is an event that is likely to draw the curiosity of geeks. I don't think many of them will actually switch to it, though, given how it doesn't seem to offer anythig revolutionary that couldn't be added to the other browsers. Safari for Windows received similar attention and it didn't make a big impact on FF/Opera's market share.

The real target group are the casual users, who often have trouble differentiating between the WWW and Internet Explorer, but for whom Google is a household brand. Firefox/Opera can reach these users only by word of the mouth; Google has them visiting its sites on their own account.

That, and Google's image, gives it a good shot at drawing these casual users away from IE. Once they've made the switch, Google will have an easy time promoting its other services to them - just like MS has with Windows.

I think this is the real goal: Provide a platform that will cemet Google's near monopoly on internet services. For that to work, the platform itself must be sparkling clean. Hence the BSD licence.

(bolding mine)

The bolded seems logically disconnected. On the one hand, you're sayingthat the target users are not tech-savvy enough to ditch IE for FF/Opera. But such people aren't going to understand -- or care about -- the significance of the BSD license.

I agree, though, that the BSD licence is necessary to align to Google's brand and core values, and maintain their clean image. I disagree with your other premise, that Google wants to create webbrowsers in order to mimic IE/MS's business model of selling products and services via defaulting to Google.

 

[Till]

(bolding mine)

The bolded seems logically disconnected. On the one hand, you're sayingthat the target users are not tech-savvy enough to ditch IE for FF/Opera. But such people aren't going to understand -- or care about -- the significance of the BSD license.

I agree, though, that the BSD licence is necessary to align to Google's brand and core values, and maintain their clean image. I disagree with your other premise, that Google wants to create webbrowsers in order to mimic IE/MS's business model of selling products and services via defaulting to Google.

The users don't understand, but the people whose judgement will give the browser it's reputation wrt security do. And users do care about security and privacy in principle. One of FF's best selling arguments is that it is more secure. It helped get the browser a significant market share, even though all the cards were stacked against it (less credentials, money, and promotion opportunities than MS).

I don't think Google wishes to sell it's products/services to end users. Sorry if that was unclear. What i meant was that Google wants it's products to become the standard applications for their intended tasks.
You click on the "email" icon in the browser and gmail opens instead of Outlook Express. You click on the "Word" icon and Google Office opens instead of MS Office. ...
For that to work, you need a common platform from which all these applications can be easily launched. That is Windows for MS and will be Chrome for Google.
The money would still come from adds.

 

[Mise]

The users don't understand, but the people whose judgement will give the browser it's reputation wrt security do. And users do care about security and privacy in principle. One of FF's best selling arguments is that it is more secure. It helped get the browser a significant market share, even though all the cards were stacked against it (less credentials, money, and promotion opportunities than MS).

Ahh, this makes more sense. I agree with this

I don't think Google wishes to sell it's products/services to end users. Sorry if that was unclear. What i meant was that Google wants it's products to become the standard applications for their intended tasks.
You click on the "email" icon in the browser and gmail opens instead of Outlook Express. You click on the "Word" icon and Google Office opens instead of MS Office. ...
For that to work, you need a common platform from which all these applications can be easily launched. That is Windows for MS and will be Chrome for Google.
The money would still come from adds.

That's possible... But I would say, a bit contradictory... It seems odd that they would attempt to increase their market share of Email and Web Documents by using a product that has no market share, and has proved bloody difficult for other companies to penetrate in the past!

The other problem is that, as you say, Microsoft have already integrated Outlook (or Hotmail), Office products, etc into IE. People who use IE, therefore, are also likely to use other Microsoft products. In order to get IE users to switch to Chrome & related products, Google would have to convince IE users not only to ditch IE, but also Hotmail, Office, MSN social networks, etc etc. That is going to be very difficult.

Personally, I think that all of this points to Google using Chrome to gather information, rather than channel users into other Google products by default.

 

[Till]

That's possible... But I would say, a bit contradictory... It seems odd that they would attempt to increase their market share of Email and Web Documents by using a product that has no market share, and has proved bloody difficult for other companies to penetrate in the past!

That's true, but what choice did Google have in this matter? The obvious move would have been to buy IE's largest competitor, but that's impossible in this case due to the nature of the Firefox project. A mere cooperation wouldn't have done for such an important matter, and the next largest competitors all have tiny marketshares.
So Google had to do it the hard way.

The other problem is that, as you say, Microsoft have already integrated Outlook (or Hotmail), Office products, etc into IE. People who use IE, therefore, are also likely to use other Microsoft products. In order to get IE users to switch to Chrome & related products, Google would have to convince IE users not only to ditch IE, but also Hotmail, Office, MSN social networks, etc etc. That is going to be very difficult.

I agree that it is going to be very difficult, and i am not convinced that Google can pull it off, but i think this is the goal. Many of their products and services would never reach the majority of the users otherwise (Google Talk, Google Calendar, Gmail).

Personally, I think that all of this points to Google using Chrome to gather information, rather than channel users into other Google products by default.

If Google were found out to by spying on personal data, it'd be a PR disaster which i don't think Google could get away with. People were suspicious when Google Desktop came out, but it turned out to be as well behaved as Google claimed.
That and the fact that is is very easy to monitor what kind of data gets send by certain applications leads me to think that Google would shy away from such a balant intrusion.
But i'm ready to agree to disagree - time will tell what Google is up to!

 

[Mise]

Well, Google already pay FireFox to use Google as the default search engine and homepage. It's FireFox's primary source of revenue.

Also, Chrome already logs user's browsing habits, in order to provide the funky homepage thingy, and suggestions in the address bar. You might say that all browsers "record where you've been" on the internet - but no other browser makes this data as integral to the experience as Chrome, and no other browser flaunts this as a feature, in the way Chrome does. I hate to use "slippery slope" arguments, but IMO, Google intend to get users used to the idea of software logging your habits, and provide a better experience as a result. When users get used to this idea, it will be easier for Google to use the same data for other purposes.

But yes, lets agree to disagree about Google's ultimate intentions with Chrome

 

[warpus]

One thing I really like about Chrome is that each tab is its own process - speeding up my pron viewing.

One thing I don't like is that it hasn't been rendering my pages properly.

 

[El Koeno]

I agree with Till here. I think Chrome is an attempt by google to streamline the access to their web-based services.

A large part of their strategy now seems to be to offer web-based alternatives to Microsoft products such as Outlook and Word. Not many people actually use Google Docs now, but what if Google were to integrate it seamlessly into Google Chrome? Sort of a "My documents" folder in your browser, where you simply click a document and it launches a new tab (and process!) for the editor. It's like a browser operating system. And it's free too, all paid for by ads (made possible by dodgy privacy intrusions of course).

 

[Padma]

What does it offer that I'm not already getting from Firefox?

Each tab is run as a separate process, and you can see how much resources each tab is hogging.

THAT right there is the most important thing I see. The rest is just ... er ... chrome.

 

[Miles Teg]

@Mise. I was simply talking in terms of the 'We own everything you produce with Chrome' line. There doesn't seem to be a keylogger in Chrome, and even if there was, sifting through the terrabytes of data Chrome would send back for something even vaguely useful enough to copyright is ridiculously inefficient. Mostly because you can have a computer analyze what sites you visit, the commercial value of what your typing is a bit harder.

 

[Abaddon]

I like FF too much, I may move later.

How can it actually make the websites load faster tho?

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Just downloaded Chrome and am trying it out now. But for some reason on forums all the text is italicized. Anyone know how to fix that? I can't find anything in the Options menu.

 

[Ace of Gold]

Just downloaded Chrome and am trying it out now. But for some reason on forums all the text is italicized. Anyone know how to fix that? I can't find anything in the Options menu.

thats weird, I have Chrome and that did not happen to me.

 

[Genv [FP]]

The problem with chrome is that it has no addons. So I'm sticking with firefox.

 

[mdwh]

Re: tabs as separate processes, I remember that IE used to have this as an option for new windows at least, but for some reason they removed it (IE6 at least has new windows running in the same process).

I'm not sure why you're telling me this. That it's marginally easier to do it via a website than via a webbrowser doesn't strike me as significant. That the information gained from a webbrowser is massively more valuable than the information gained via a website strikes me as monumentally significant.

...

As I said, I won't be downloading Chrome. I'm just fascinated that so many people are downloading it, not in spite of Google's past products, but because of Google's past products, brand, and reputation. I just find it fascinating how Google is seen by the general public as squeaky clean, when companies far less invasive (Microsoft, for example) are seen as corporate monsters.

I'm equally fascinated at claims made without evidence, based in their past behaviour.

Moreover, just about all companies collect information from their websites like this. The evils to do with Microsoft are more to do with their anti-competitive practices, which Google haven't seemed to do so far, and which isn't relevant here anyway.

Just because a company collects information via visitors to their website doesn't mean that any software they produce is spyware.

Are you suggesting that Google is indeed releasing Chrome out of the goodness of its heart?

No - why should they? My point is that there is nothing wrong if a company gives things away to make it look better - is that you're complaint? If you don't like freebies, don't use it.

And this argument could be used against any company that gives things away: "Oh, look how evil that company is for releasing all its products for free and giving money to charity, they're only doing that to make themselves look better, how dare they!"

This isn't the first Open Source project Google are involved in. IIRC, Android was/is open source; and it's well known that Google fund Mozilla's open source projects.

Exactly, so why complain?

In your opinion, why would Google release a software application, when the rest of their business -- their entire business model, core values, and beliefs -- is vested in online applications? And why would Google release, specifically, a Web-browser -- an application for which there is very little room for Google's legendary innovation?

What's your answer for this? And if you read the Google comic, you will see that in their opinion, there is plenty of room for their innovation.

Also, Chrome already logs user's browsing habits, in order to provide the funky homepage thingy, and suggestions in the address bar. You might say that all browsers "record where you've been" on the internet - but no other browser makes this data as integral to the experience as Chrome, and no other browser flaunts this as a feature, in the way Chrome does.

Can you explain how this is different? The worry would be if they are sending this information back to Google.

I believe Chrome also has a privacy option where no record is kept of viewing in that tab - I don't know any other browser that has this?

 

[Mise]

I'm equally fascinated at claims made without evidence, based in their past behaviour.

Do you believe that Google's recent behaviour, existing products and future business model are irrelevant in discussions about Google's new releases?

Moreover, just about all companies collect information from their websites like this. The evils to do with Microsoft are more to do with their anti-competitive practices, which Google haven't seemed to do so far, and which isn't relevant here anyway.

Google collect information from other websites via AdSense. That's how AdSense works, and how Google are killing Microsoft and Yahoo in the online advertising industry right now.

Just because a company collects information via visitors to their website doesn't mean that any software they produce is spyware.

Did I use the word "any"? I'm talking specifically about Chrome, which is a web-browsing software. Do you believe that a web-browsing software would be incapable of recording what websites you view using that web-browser?

No - why should they? My point is that there is nothing wrong if a company gives things away to make it look better - is that you're complaint?

Did I complain that Google are giving away products to make them look better? No. I complained that Google are giving away products to gather information about what websites you visit. Do you deny that Google give away products to gather information on what websites you visit?

If you don't like freebies, don't use it.

As I said, twice, I have no intention of using it.

And this argument could be used against any company that gives things away: "Oh, look how evil that company is for releasing all its products for free and giving money to charity, they're only doing that to make themselves look better, how dare they!"

It's a good thing I never used this argument, then

Exactly, so why complain?

I'm not complaining that it's open source. I have no idea where you got that idea from. I was explaining why they released an open source project upon which Google Chrome is based. Where did I say that releasing open source products was evil?

What's your answer for this?

You know my answer...

Google developed a web-browser in order to gather information on what websites you are using, and what products you are buying, in order to provide more targeted adverts.

You can replace the word "web-browser" with all of their existing products, and the sentence would be true and uncontroversial. Why do you expect that "web-browser" is an exception -- the sole product that Google has made that does not fit in with their business model?

And if you read the Google comic, you will see that in their opinion, there is plenty of room for their innovation.

They've released exactly one innovative feature (each tab in a new thread). All other features are already present in other browsers. Every single review, blog, and post in this thread have said the same thing. Do you still deny that Chrome is unoriginal and lacks Google's legendary innovation?

Can you explain how this is different? The worry would be if they are sending this information back to Google.

I believe Chrome also has a privacy option where no record is kept of viewing in that tab - I don't know any other browser that has this?

IE has Porn Mode, and I think Safari does too.

Firefox, Opera and Safari have no-one to send the information back to. Microsoft could easily make use of the data IE records, but it doesn't fit with their business model. Their advertising product works in a rather different way to AdSense. That's why Google are killing MS, and why MS made such a desperate bid for Yahoo last year. The Google/AdSense is simply better.

Then there's the fact that people trust Google implicitly, but innately distrust Microsoft. I don't care if you think that's rational, as long as you agree that it's true.