Just fired up Google Chrome, Google’s new web browser. I haven’t had a chance to really dig into it yet, but I’ve noticed that it feels really, really fast. Almost like I’m loading up cached pages offline. Google Reader, especially, feels super quick.
I’ve noticed a couple of little CSS oddities here and there (YouTube videos are centered in our posts when using Firefox but left-aligned in Chrome, for instance) but other than that, it’s been humming along pretty nicely.
But enough about me. How are those of you who have already downloaded and installed Chrome liking it so far? Good? Bad? Think you’ll keep using it?
Update from Devin: It lacks a home button, which isn’t such a big deal until you think about how useful they’re trying to make their “speed dial” thing. I have a personalized, extremely useful home page that I go back to in already-open tabs all the time. I also am addicted to gestures and there are none in Chrome, so while it’s clearly super fast, it’s not very productive for me in this form. What do you guys think?
Update 2: Found the home button, I was just being stupid. I would like gestures, though. And the bookmark bar buttons should close if you click them twice or otherwise act like menus. Scrolling doesn’t seem to obey my universal settings of three text lines per “notch” or equivalent. Fast as hell though.
Hell yes it’s fast, but I wish it would let me scroll up a page, as well as down.
Agreed.
I know … SAME THING HERE :(
U using Vista as well?
Yup. I’m using Vista. It’s a Synaptics driver (10.1.2.0).
It was a long shot, but I also tried loading an Alps driver, that’s known to work with the XPS m1530. No dice.
My machine is an Inspiron 13 with Vista and, like I said, a Synaptics trackpad. I’d suggest everyone send in their error reports through Chrome, so we can get this thing working. I like the speed, but no scrolling = no Chrome, for me.
Thanks for the info, I’ve sent a bug report.
This scrolling issue, not being able to middle click on a link to open in a new tab, and it covering up the taskbar are the only things I have to complain about, other than that it’s really nice and super fast.
I submitted a bug report also. I’m using Synaptics PS/2 Trackpad on my Asus w7J 13″ notebook. I can scroll down but not up, so annoying.
Um, great browser but one or two of those most visited web sites I probably don’t want anyone seeing when you launch the program. :)
That’s what the Icognito mode is for, my friend. Just click the little new icon over on the right and choose “New incognito window” ;-)
I’ve been using it for all of 20 minutes and have become a fan already. I love, love, love the way it runs separate tabs as separate processes instead of say firefox or IE where it runs as one app using a huge chunk of memory. I’m going to keep using it to see how it goes.
I like it, I noticed the speed difference immediately.
Can’t yet say if I am fully decided, but its very close to becoming my browser of choice.
Anyone else having problems with their trackpad scrollbar only allowing you to scroll down?
I KNOW ……
Yeah. I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro and the touch pad will only scroll down, not up. I absolutely love this browser. It is very clean, very fast, and doesn’t hang at all…so far.
And on another note, it appears to conform to W3C standards, unlike Internet Explorer. Conforming to the standards makes it a lot easier for web developers because we do not have to code for multiple browsers. Unfortunately, since IE still exists, we still do.
Ok, ok..it doesn’t conform to ALL W3C standards. As someone pointed out, it fails the Acid3 test. But, it does seem to handle CSS well, or at least the same as FireFox and Opera. IE handles CSS differently which causes me to have to work around the differences.
Irck. Same here. It looks like it’s our mouse driver that isn’t compatible with Chrome just yet. I’m sure they’ll fix it.
@Nate I’ve noticed the scrolling thing also. I’m so used to clicking my scroll button to fly to the top of the page and can’t do that with Chrome. Which is a pretty big downer for me.
I’d love to try it. Unfortunately, I keep getting an application error, even after uninstalling and reinstalling. Sent a notice of this to Google through the report a bug feature.
I am in LOVE! I was really skeptical at first, being a total Firefox fanboy. This puppy is fast. And Google software, of course, runs extremely smoothly. I’m excited about it, and I think it might be my new browser of choice.
I’m having the scrolling issue as well… I installed it on my desktop and my laptop – my desktop is the only one having the issue – not the laptop…
Yes, it’s fast, but is it perhaps too fast? I’m not used to the internet being at my fingertips, I’m used to having to push and prod at the internet through a metaphorical wall of blubber. All this speed is making me dizzy.
Very fast … love the tabs along the time. Love the separate process idea. Really like the Recent history when you open a new tab. Killer. Wish I could import my firefox bookmarks though.
It grabbed my Firefox bookmarks without issue.
It did it all on it’s own for me, it even imported my history!!!!!
wouldn’t import my firefox bookmarks either. Seems not to detect it as the only option for browser selection in the import dialog is IE.
If you have multiple FireFox profiles, Chrome will import the last one that you used. What I did was: close all FF windows, open FF using my main profile, hit Import in Chrome.
Definitely suffering from the scroll up problem…this is a deal breaker. Love the looks so far, let me know when I can scroll up.
Well, fortunately it’s obviously a bug. They’ll fix it.
I’m done with it, at least until this scrolling issue gets fixed. Surfing the internet without good scrolling is way too annoying.
Pure Love. Fast, Webkit, Gears — all I need.
I am really enjoying it so far, the transfer from Firefox to this was painless and I like the increased security feature that IE 8 just came out with. Frankly I hate IE so being able to use this “incognito” mode works for me
I’m having the scrolling up problem on my trackpad – but apart from that it’s freaking awesome.
Goodbye Firefox – I never thought I’d say that!
Haven’t had the scrolling issue here.
First impression – wow, the speed is really, really impressive.
Bookmarks: It imports your default browsers bookmarks. If you have more than one (ie like me on my work lappy I also run firefox – go to the settings and import bookmarks again, select your other browser.)
yea, so It is really really fast, but my bug list is growing quickly….
Right now I realized it will not let me print FedEx labels from fedex.com and I do a lot of that in a day, so right now I cannot replace Firefox yet.
Speed is comparable to that of Firefox, maybe slightly faster…. but… I CAN’T SCROLL UP!!!!! This is a definite failure in my opinion, but I bet it will be awesome once they patch it and come out with Chrome 2, or just chrome without being a beta.
A nice, clean browser, but it’s almost “to” simple for me, and is it just me, or am I seeing many more google adds…
Definitely just you. Google doesn’t put any ads onto the pages you’re viewing. Maybe it’s because you’re not using AdBlock now?
Definitely faster than Firefox but it wont import my Firefox settings, it only offers me IE. A few people are reporting this now. Firefox is the default browser.
Cannot import Firefox bookmarks (only IE bookmarks) though my default browser is Firefox.
Yes, it’s fast. Issues, however:
No third party plug-ins as of yet (no gestures, no toolbars etc)
I can’t even use my google bookmarks with it? Huh?
I can’t even figure out how to manage my bookmarks.
I now have a weird, short hanging issue at random times while Chrome is running.
Home button is an option, you’ll find it in the ‘basics’ tab. Hope it’ll do the same for ‘favourites’ in the future, as well have as a proper full-screen option akin to ie.
Also having the option to go straight to incognito, or have mixed tabs (incognito/normal) in the same window, would be good.
I like it so far
I must have missed that, I looked around in there for it but must have skimmed right over it.
Google Chrome Bug
try finalize a chrome.exe process.
i navigate to a url in youtube.com and enable console javascript option and click in many links(with javascript) and he CRASH.
so I’m NOT the only one who cannot scroll UP? SRY, but what error is this ^^? its just a little bit, i don’t know, SAD ^^
Can’t scroll up,
lack of plugins,
other than that, not too many problems i’ve seen…
Beta for FF3.1 looks pretty sweet too, i just hope they get my plugins up and running soon :D
-Peter
simply amazing
i love google apps but yes i too have the scrolling issue on my laptop’s scroll pad it honestly frustrates me because everything else seems pretty much flawless. on top of that, it seems like it would be a very obvious bug to notice and fix before they released the beta
but oh well
cant wait for the next one where they fix this issue
Application Error here on three computers. I’ll stick to the stable browsers, thanks.
Faster and simpler, I like that. At first I was like hmmm nice but I will stick with firefox. Until I realized the address bar doubles as a search bar thingy. Now that is something I really like rather than having to use the google search thing on the top right, it just feels a little more seamless because of that feature.
-My Firefox bookmarks and other settings imported just fine, it took a few minutes, where I thought it had frozen on me. But eventually it finished importing and worked fine.
This has potential.
Hey, not sure if someone has already pointed this out. But if you go to your options, there is a check box for setting your Home button on.
Thanks.
Much faster. No scrolling issues here at all for me. Imported all my FF3 settings, passwords, etc.
Its a lot like Opera, but I like it better so far.
The “most visited” pages on my new tab screen is a little weird. It lists Gmail as three separate sites and shows several sites I visited for like half a second to see how they rendered, but it does not show the online bugtrack system that I’ve had open in multiple tabs all day long. I already wish I could right click and clear the junk off that page or lock a true most-visited into place. Not bad for day 1, though.
Generally lovinig it – but the scrolling up thing is driving me insane – already reported it, but i really wanna get it sorted asap!! (It’s not happening with my roommate’s laptop, either…)
I figure it must be a specific software or driver they overlooked in the code – perhaps could people having this issue say the touchpad type and driver version they’re on?? – I’m on a dell inspiron 6400 with a symantec touchpad – had software 9.something, which didn’t scroll up so updated to 10.something – no joy either :/
sorry – synaptics, not symantec – my bad!! :P
What about google bookmarks? I have not been able to import them from firefox.
Count me in as one of those whose FireFox bookmarks didn’t get imported. Tried everything. The only option that shows up in the “import bookmarks and settings” box is Internet Explorer….grrrrr
No stop button
No home button
Cannot import IE bookmarks, give some problems, have to do again and again.
Cannot customize easily
Not good favourite bar
very simple
but fast.
If IE and mozilla make there browsers fast, then its not very easy for chrome to beat them.
It’s Google! it’s good! i never ever imagined the day i’ll be this much of a loyal fan to a brand name or a company product, but seriously, Chrome proves how solid Google products are! amazingly fast, clean code, looks so clean, straight to the point surfing without eating up the memory, did i mention it’s blazing? …
one thing though, i saw a couple of posts about scrolling up the page! may you please explain this problem? i see no problem yet! half an hour using it, and i feel it’ll be my browser to come! usually i get sick of new products if they are bad after the first 5 minutes :D
Stop button is the same as the go button (watch a page while loading… need to be quick =D), or you can probably just press Esc
Also reopen closed tabs is Ctrl-Shift-T like in FF
I’m scrolling fine on my usb mouse but cannot scroll up on my driver with a synaptic trackpad. Maybe it is synaptic they’re having problems with…
I just miss adblock and search as you type.
SUCKS crashed my network
GC crashed down twice till i installed it.
on top of that, i have the scrolling issue as well.
but its really fast, and i like the style.
looks like much more of my screen is used than before at firefox.
think i wait till it is updated right.
I need ADBLOCK PLUS otherwise I will never switch from FF.. than you God for adblock plus
Gah I can’t scroll up either ><
And little popup bubbles when you hover over things (example: hovering over a thread in vBulletin forum software) comes up way too fast compared to other browsers.
Other than that….yeah…pretty damn solid.
NETFLIX
I hate that the only browser that works with NetFlix is IE. What is being done about that if anything?
LINUX
Will there be a Google Chrome for Linux?
Netflix works just fine on FF…?
I cannot get it working in any browser but IE. I am not talking about the site itself. Yes the site works, but their player does not. I read somewhere that it is their digital rights management software. I also heard from 3rd party sources that they are working on support for other browsers.
Netflix works fine on FF for everything except viewing movies instantly ON their website. For this, you need IE.
If this is true then you should hate Netflix for not being compatible with other browsers, not because other browsers don’t support it.
I am having the same problem with scrolling. I also use a touch pad with Synaptics Driver on Vista.
People need to remember it is in beta. They’re not allowing plugins yet because they haven’t finished it.
To solve the scrolling you should disable external software like there is the dell mouse monitor or microsoft intellimouse etc….
Bookmarks stink, even harder to organise than Firefox and thats saying something. Will uninstall and maybe try again in a few months time.
like joe said, disable the mouse program in your taskbar/taskmanager and you can scroll up. VOILA!
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