Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-10/mf_chrome

by bootload • 18 years ago

60 24 18 years ago

litewulf3• 18 years ago

Its kind of interesting to hear about how long-running the talks about Chrome have been. I think its easy to take a micro-scale view of browser development and see the weekly press releases that come one after another and declare that this feature is an answer to that feature and ignore the long development ramp-up time that each improvement required.

vaksel• 18 years ago

I think the main reason by Google with Chrome is to take Adblock Plus out of the equation. If they control the browser, they can disable the ability to turn off ads.

But who knows, maybe they'll the people have that feature

pxlpshr• 18 years ago

that's an interesting theory... but in the greater realm of the internets, how many people really use adblock, and is it really making a dent in advertising (compared to the likes of click fraud & link farms)?

briansmith2• 18 years ago

More and more people are turning to plugins that restrict and/or disable scripts and third-party content like AdBlock Plus and NoScript--not to block ads, but for security reasons. I think Google wants to fix the security problems in a different way so that their Javascript- and third-party-domain- based utilities can function.

catch23• 18 years ago

It's unlikely that adblock will make a dent in google's advertising revenues. A good chunk of their revenues comes from ppc (search advertising). As long as people use google as their search engine, google will always have their main source of revenue.

"Banner Ads" will die, but that's probably a good thing. There have been other forms of advertising that have taken ground already. If you use facebook and you look at the "feed" you'll know what I mean. Good advertisers will know how to promote their products without users even realizing they are being subject to 3rd party goods/brand promotion.

wvenable• 18 years ago

It's completely open source. It wouldn't be hard to fork it and add in ad blocking. Google controls their own specific branded instance of Chrome but that's all. Hardly the stuff conspiracy theories are made of, though.

technoguyrob• 18 years ago

Woah! I had no idea about the "application" feature of Chrome! That is so simple, yet so ingenious!

Try this:

Go to Gmail, then when it's loaded, in the top right in Chrome go to Page -> Create App Shortcut and choose a location (say the Desktop). Then go to the location, and "open" the application. It's like an actual Windows app!

13ren• 18 years ago

the tabs, buttons, and address bars fall away and the Web app looks pretty much like a desktop app. Welcome to the cloud era.

and also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=292159

tjmc• 18 years ago

Great feature. Unfortunately, Adobe have a patent (http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/5546528.html) on dragging tabs to create new windows. They filed suit against Macromedia over it in 2000 (http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2000...).

Hopefully Adobe will be good sports this time...

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Safari has had the "drag tab for a new window" feature for a few years, and Apple hasn't had any problems... yet. Of course I doubt Adobe would want to mess with Apple, or Google for that matter.

bouncingsoul• 18 years ago

Woah! I had no idea about the "application" feature of Chrome! That is so simple, yet so ingenious!

It's a feature in the next version of Safari as well: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wyctim/2568406483/

It's sorta funny because in the past people complained about sites hiding browser chrome and rejoiced when browsers let you disable that Javascript feature; now it's reversed and we're excited to be able to view sites without browser chrome.

derefr• 18 years ago

When sites hide chrome, it's bad. When apps do it, it's good. The obvious difference is that (most) webapps don't use the browser chrome e for anything anyway, so removing it just makes the design less confusing and cluttered. Not to say that apps shouldn't make the chrome work for them....

litewulf3• 18 years ago

You know that Prism does this pretty well as well ;)

josefresco• 18 years ago

Sorry, not impressed. A desktop shortcut to Gmail with no address bar or buttons doesn't exactly 'wow' me. I still have to login, and I have enough screen real estate that I would prefer to have those buttons/toolbars available.

Why is this great? The lack of toolbars?

michaelneale• 18 years ago

I fear that in practice it won't dent IE at all and only hurt Mozilla.

dotcoma2• 18 years ago

totally disagree. the day will come very soon when you will be able to run heavy apps like Google Earth in Chrome - and we all know that you will NEVER be able to do that in Explorer.

Now, maybe Google Earth is not enough to make people switch, but 1 Internet user in 5 is already using Firefox with no marketing budget and no branding (vs Google being the #1brand in the world)

And if Google Earth is not enough, what about porn with no buffering? :)

jo• 18 years ago

google earth has worked in internet explorer since May. http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-earth-meet...

drubio• 18 years ago

In practice, they have the Google home page to promote it...which is perhaps the only thing that can make a dent against something like IE which comes with the OS.

It will likely affect Mozilla, though for the moment it doesn't look like it, since they have extended their partnership for 3 more years. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10028096-93.html .Though it will be interesting what will happen in that time.

alexfarran• 18 years ago

Sorry I've just listened to a clip of the voiceover artist Don LaFontaine (RIP) and couldn't help but read this in his voice -

"And it's an aggressive move destined to put the company even more squarely in the crosshairs of its rival Microsoft, which long ago crushed the most fabled browser of all, Netscape Navigator."

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

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