Walt Mossberg: Chrome 'Innovative, Bold,' But Some Adjustments Required

Walt's review is pretty rough around the edges. That video crash was a plugin failure, not a failure of Chrome. I would like to hear from someone who is a little better informed to tell us about Chrome.

There need to be some additions, however for the most part I really like it. It is 3 times faster than IE7 and does not freeze.

FREEBIRD!!!!!!!!!!

I was wondering does Walt have Yahoo or Microsoft stock? His interview is on the negative side, and he is trying hard to present it differently so people will think that he is objective. Maybe they did not have anything better......but that video interview....tc

Here's a good take that goes beyond the rather superficial Mossburg article - Paul Thurrott's coverage of the Google Chrome leak/announcement ends with the remark that "what we've really got here is an example of Google pulling a Microsoft: Creating an unnecessary me-too product that they can use for product tie-ins. All of the features here are present in existing browsers, all of them. So what does Google really bring to the table?" The idea of opening tabs in separate processes has been part of Internet Explorer 8 since March, at least. Web-apps in windows that don't have an address bar or toolbar are not just a decade old in Internet Explorer, they've been a pain in the backside for a decade. Malware writers love them. I used to use Proxomitron to force them to have obvious controls. The thumbnail home-page is basically Opera's Speed Dial, and IE7 has had a thumbnail view for a couple of years (albeit it only shows current tabs). Putting tabs over the address bar is the standard Opera view, and utterly pointless for most people. Chrome's InCognito is already in IE8 as InPrivate Browsing, and was in Safari 3 before that. Omnibar is Firefox's Awesome bar. Auto-completion, anti-phishing and sandboxing features are all pretty old hat by now. IS there ANYTHING new in Google's browser? Not so far... Google can't even think up a new name: Microsoft Chrome was an old tool that allowed "Web developers to add multimedia features to HTML using Microsoft's DirectX technology".

While Walt speaks favorably about IE 8, no comment was made re its' present lack of compatibility with the McAfee Security system.

Make sure you read the EULA/TOS - you give Google a free and perpetual license to ANYTHING you post through this. The old "if it is too good to be true..." applies to some degree.

sakzilla - where are you getting this? From the EULA: 11. Content license 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.

Excuse me.... but everyone is missing the key change here... By merging the URL and Search entry window, you now can ONLY get to the URL through GOOGLE's search engine.... There is now no way to just use DNS and go directly to a web site. I have met big brother... and his name is Google.

The primary advantage of Chrome from a Google perspective is better integration with Google Gears via a more robust javascript engine. I.e. it's not the visible stuff about which Google cares, but the javascript engine and the separate process for each tab. The only reason they include as many user visible features as they do is that they were easy to implement. Long term, Google would probably be perfectly happy if everyone used Safari, Firefox, or Konqueror if they included the backend changes from Chrome.

Watch your privacy with Google....As for Mossberg, can you say dullsville? He is a cheerleader not an analyst.

Wow where are the Goog Fanboys ?? Or least least the Apple wannabes? It is almost as if GOOG is losing the halo, are people finally waking up? There are more and more people starting to notice that GOOG has forgotten its creed in the quest for cash.