Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

chrome.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 82 posts

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#21

Post by abstractbill »

_delirium wrote: post #16
hasanove wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I use Chrome as default, I too miss Firefox autocompletion. In Firefox, I would just start typing "Hacker News" and HN would popup as a first suggestion after first letter, probably based on usage frequency. The only way to get the same result in Chrome, is to start typing "news.ycombinator.com", which means you have to remember url, not the name. Chrome, will surely find by "Hacker News" too, but I will need t…

That might be why I prefer Chrome's. I usually type URLs, only fall back to typing titles if I don't remember the URL, and it really annoys me how often Firefox will take me to the wrong site unless I type a fairly large prefix of the URL. In Chrome I can just type ne..., while in Firefox I have to go all the way to news.y... before it'll give me the right completion.

As far as I can tell, both browsers have basic learning algorithms that are supposed to predict better over time what site you want (in both Chrome and Firefox I can now just type 'n' to get to Hacker News).

However, even though I currently use Chrome as my primary browser, I think Firefox still gets this slightly better - I think it learned more quickly and accurately for me at least.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#23

Post by avdempsey »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #5

Probably the single thing that keeps me using Firefox is its address bar. It's a much nicer experience than Chrome's, with its user-friendly auto complete mechanisms. The speed of the browsers is rarely the bottleneck for me anymore. I'll switch to Chrome for intense javascript experiences, but that's about it. I feel like chrome needs to start focusing more time on the experience - these speed improvements aren't pa…

I think we can all agree that Safari is the furthest behind in this regard. For a company that takes pride in stripping things down to the bare essentials, having an address bar and a search bar is becoming obnoxious.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#24

Post by ube »

tvon wrote: post #19

Things keeping me from using Chrome: * Lack of built-in RSS support. This one kind of blows my mind. * Worst progress indicator I've ever seen. * Can't open external links in new windows, have to open in "tab of whatever my last used browser window was". * Flash crashes more than it does in Safari/Firefox, but I don't blame Chrome for that. Not exactly constructive to the conversation I guess, but at least the first…

My list of things keeping from Chrome is same as yours though I'd also add lack of google gears support. I don't understand how they have that for firefox but they don't have it from Chrome. In addition to this Chrome (on the mac) crashes quite frequently for me.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#25

Post by boredguy8 »

tvon wrote: post #19

Things keeping me from using Chrome: * Lack of built-in RSS support. This one kind of blows my mind. * Worst progress indicator I've ever seen. * Can't open external links in new windows, have to open in "tab of whatever my last used browser window was". * Flash crashes more than it does in Safari/Firefox, but I don't blame Chrome for that. Not exactly constructive to the conversation I guess, but at least the first…

Does it have Adblock+ yet? Until that's in Chrome, I'll be using Firefox.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#26

Post by ErrantX »

lftl wrote: post #20
rottencupcakes wrote: post #5

Probably the single thing that keeps me using Firefox is its address bar. It's a much nicer experience than Chrome's, with its user-friendly auto complete mechanisms. The speed of the browsers is rarely the bottleneck for me anymore. I'll switch to Chrome for intense javascript experiences, but that's about it. I feel like chrome needs to start focusing more time on the experience - these speed improvements aren't pa…

For everyone asking what's wrong with Chrome's URL bar, here's one specific example I run into. I go visit Google Analytics relative often. In Firefox, I can start typing analytics.. and it pulls up GA as an option very quickly. With chrome it never shows up at all, instead I have to start typing google, and it'll show up as the 3rd or 4th option. It's hard to remember all the specific annoyances, but this is one of…

I suspect this is either a product of what is familiar to individuals or of different browsers suiting different surfing styles.

For me FF never seems to pull up Google analytics for "analytics" but I only have to get to "anal"[1] before it appears as #1 in Chrome.

The algorithms probably train better for different people

1. There is probably some ironic joke in there somewhere :)

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#27

Post by jdminhbg »

lftl wrote: post #20
rottencupcakes wrote: post #5

Probably the single thing that keeps me using Firefox is its address bar. It's a much nicer experience than Chrome's, with its user-friendly auto complete mechanisms. The speed of the browsers is rarely the bottleneck for me anymore. I'll switch to Chrome for intense javascript experiences, but that's about it. I feel like chrome needs to start focusing more time on the experience - these speed improvements aren't pa…

For everyone asking what's wrong with Chrome's URL bar, here's one specific example I run into. I go visit Google Analytics relative often. In Firefox, I can start typing analytics.. and it pulls up GA as an option very quickly. With chrome it never shows up at all, instead I have to start typing google, and it'll show up as the 3rd or 4th option. It's hard to remember all the specific annoyances, but this is one of…

I use Chrome instead of FF despite the address bar. Other annoyances:

- Address you enter disappears when you hit enter, doesn't reappear until the page loads. This is a problem if the page spins for a long time; it can be indistinguishable from a total failure.

- Type-ahead will occasionally find matches like "ha" -> "Hacker News" despite the address being "news.ycombinator.com" which is good, but... When you type the "c", that result will disappear! It's really unpredictable and that makes it hard to use.

- The status bar's "..." replacement can be good, but it occasionally elides the important part of an address, like "...blogspot.com/..." Not useful.

That said, Chrome is vastly more usable (on OS X) than FF just because of its speed and stability. I only use FF for Firebug now.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#28

Post by eelinow »

Just upgraded and almost immediately had to file a bug report. Flash video will not play in anything but full screen, and getting to said fullscreen requires about mouse clicks in quick succession.

I'm running OS X 10.6.3 on dual quad-core xeon (Nehalem 8 Core) Mac Pro with 6gb ram. Chrome is my default browser, and while I am part of the Youtube Html5 Beta, the inconvenience is rather large. Flash apps are a no-go entirely as they will not render.

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#29

Post by buster »

boredguy8 wrote: post #25
tvon wrote: post #19

Things keeping me from using Chrome: * Lack of built-in RSS support. This one kind of blows my mind. * Worst progress indicator I've ever seen. * Can't open external links in new windows, have to open in "tab of whatever my last used browser window was". * Flash crashes more than it does in Safari/Firefox, but I don't blame Chrome for that. Not exactly constructive to the conversation I guess, but at least the first…

Does it have Adblock+ yet? Until that's in Chrome, I'll be using Firefox.

Adblock: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepj...

Re: Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

#30

Post by buster »

tvon wrote: post #19

Things keeping me from using Chrome: * Lack of built-in RSS support. This one kind of blows my mind. * Worst progress indicator I've ever seen. * Can't open external links in new windows, have to open in "tab of whatever my last used browser window was". * Flash crashes more than it does in Safari/Firefox, but I don't blame Chrome for that. Not exactly constructive to the conversation I guess, but at least the first…

RSS reader: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/search?itemlang=&q=... (yes, not built in, but quite easy to install ;) )
Post reply on HN