Good luck. There was a company in Redmond trying to do the same with IE.
Difference: IE was ugly and IE experience was ugly.
IE was amazing at the time, far better than Netscape 4.
How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
51–60 of 100 posts
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m using Opera, so Firefox and IE are not exactly gold standards of nonugliness to me. The biggest contributor to me finding Chrome ugly is certainly that the tab bar is placed on the top rather than the left (and me being too lazy to search for an appropriate extension to change that).
I see, yeah this is probably nice, I know many people who abuse the tab-feature, because they don't like the bookmarks. (Never had a problem with it, but most people seem to think the bookmarks are "broken") I like Chrome over FFox and IE BECAUSE of the top-tabs. Firefox needs more vertical space and Internet Explorer just cripples them beneath the address bar :\
Oh, don’t get me wrong, of course tabs belong above the address bar (I think recent browsers get this right).
Even better though is putting the tab bar on the right where it doesn’t eat precious vertical space.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google are very much standing on Microsoft shoulders here, like it or not. That's a fine point of view, but I think that it's more accurate to say that Google and Microsoft are standing on the same shoulders.
Really? I'd suggest that Microsoft development of XMLHTTP and by extension XMLHttpRequest were pretty big developments for the web as we know it today. They certainly enabled Google to produce many of their services that are taken for granted today.
As I said, there's nothing wrong with your point of view. There's no denying that in the history of the web, those were important moments.
I'd say the creation of the web browser, HTML, HTTP, were even larger moments. And in that regard, Microsoft and Google are standing side-by-side on the shoulders of giants.
And I'd go further and say that when Google decided to make JavaScript performance a top-priority, and started pushing HTML5 standards, Microsoft has been the one playing catch-up. I'd say that those efforts enabled Microsoft to produce Metro, which is core to their new push.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m using Opera, so Firefox and IE are not exactly gold standards of nonugliness to me. The biggest contributor to me finding Chrome ugly is certainly that the tab bar is placed on the top rather than the left (and me being too lazy to search for an appropriate extension to change that).
I see, yeah this is probably nice, I know many people who abuse the tab-feature, because they don't like the bookmarks. (Never had a problem with it, but most people seem to think the bookmarks are "broken") I like Chrome over FFox and IE BECAUSE of the top-tabs. Firefox needs more vertical space and Internet Explorer just cripples them beneath the address bar :\
For me, bookmarks are a hole where content goes to die.
Beyond about 5 of them which will get used more or less daily, I'm more likely to just search for content again than to think to check my bookmarks. Unfortunately this usually leads to 100-200 open tabs at any given time of things that are either "in-queue" for reading or research/reference for what I'm currently working on.
I'm not going to claim it's the best system (or even a good one), but you really do get used to it and it works pretty well.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're confusing me, honestly. If you have a Windows box, and want to view photos, would you settle for Paint? No, you'd be nuts to. So when you want to browse pictures from your phone on your Chromebox, upload them to flickr, and the experience is awesome. When you want to watch some videos on your Chromebox, you watch Netflix Instant Watch, or YouTube, or Google Play Movies, and the experience is awesome. It's like…
But you wouldn't use Paint. The Windows Photo View and Explorer actually do a more than adequate job. Windows Media Player too does a reasonable job of playing video. Netflix, YouTube and Google Play Movies don't solve the problem of plying my videos. The Mac, modern desktop Linux distos and Windows support the functionality that the OP and you crave out of the box - as do most tables, including the iPad. I just don'…
Yes, YouTube does solve the problem of playing your videos. And sharing them with your friends. And archiving them, in case of disaster. If you're willing to use YouTube, of course. If not, you can use Smugmug or Flickr or Vimeo or...
ChromeOS is inherently an operating system that uses the internet to solve users' problems.
Expecting ChromeOS to have BUILT-IN ways to do what you want to, is kind of silly, in my mind. I validate that you may reject the design idea, but you're forcing it into solving problems in a way it was inherently and intentionally NOT designed to solve them.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're confusing me, honestly. If you have a Windows box, and want to view photos, would you settle for Paint? No, you'd be nuts to. So when you want to browse pictures from your phone on your Chromebox, upload them to flickr, and the experience is awesome. When you want to watch some videos on your Chromebox, you watch Netflix Instant Watch, or YouTube, or Google Play Movies, and the experience is awesome. It's like…
You wouldn't use Paint to view pictures on vanilla Windows. You'd use apps far better suited (and already set as default). I think you still have a point in your comment though.
In Windows 3.1 days, I absolutely would have used Paint, if I were lucky enough to have it open my file type.
If you unplug both devices from the internet, there's absolutely no question at all which is superior - Windows, hands down, no argument from me.
But if you let a Chromebook get on the internet, and you're comfortable using the best tools on the internet to solve your problems... there's a lot going for a Chromebook.
Someone who says, "Well, sure, but what if you don't have internet???" Yes, that's totally true and valid. But I think it's almost equally valid to ask how well a Windows box does without power. In a lot of ways, a college ruled notebook and a No. 2 pencil has them both beat.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chrome (okay, I only looked at Chromium) is ugly, has basically no way to adapt it to one’s needs, runs out of RAM quickly, is slow and needs updating all the time. Not really a difference to IE.
I find it interesting that there are still people out there who think Chrome is ugly. Firefox and Internet Explorer have all bad tab and/or adressbar placement. Or do you just find any browser ugly by definition?
My second biggest gripe with the Chrome UI it the tabs shrink the size of the window title bar which makes it harder (read slower) to move windows around. (first biggest gripe is the single search/url field, but that is getter hard to get away from)
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#58This stuff seems like an excellent reason to go back to Firefox.
I tend to agree. Google is looking more and more like the MS of the new century. Chrome's performance advantage has all but been erased by FF (and in some cases FF is better in my anecdotal experience), and I find FF's add-on ecosystem still better than Chrome's for development.
FF is OSS (as far as that goes) and certainly not sitting still. Seems like the obvious dev choice to me these days.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#59Or rather, how Google plans to rule the consumer computing world. It's been a while since the average Facebook addict really needed a computer anyway, they can all throw their laptops away and switch full-time to phones and tablets and I won't care. But businesses and professionals have different needs. I don't see web apps and NaCl apps replacing Office suites, IDEs, or 3D graphic design tools anytime in the next de…
Chromebooks are amazing for business, in my experience. - Collaborating on shared documents in Google Docs is awesome. - Walk up to a Chromebook that's plugged in to the projector, sign in, and show my Presentation. - Hangouts for video conferences. - Chrome Remote Desktop to log in to my desktop when I want to do heavy lifting. - Two-factor Authentication to protect everything.
Yes, those are awesome features, and they might be able to cover 90% of a typical business's use cases. Similarly, lots of open-source alternatives to MS Office, Photoshop, etc. can cover 90% of a typical business's use cases. But the missing 10% is enough to prevent their use in mission-critical tasks, because one unsupported Excel macro is enough to turn an entire spreadsheet into garbage, and you're losing money while someone tries to fix a stupid incompatibility.
Which option would you prefer?
1) Chrome OS, which allows you to use all the Chrome apps but absolutely no other software, ever.
2) A regular OS (Windows, OSX, Linux, whatever) with Chrome installed on it, which allows you to use both Chrome apps and any other software that you might need from time to time.
Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome
#60Google is missing a key thing in its personality or repertoire. The ability to create god solid concepts that everyone understands. A nice tight category of thing that can have a name and a meaning.
Apple is the example of a company that did/does. iOS apps were a clear concept of day one. What are they? Where are they? How do you get them? How do you get rid of them? The average user is much less likely to be confused by that question on iOS than any other platform. They're one indivisible thing with one icon and no hair.
Google's exploratory Failure is OK, Let The Users Figure It Out mentality is good too. It produces some really good stuff. But, for a lot of the things that google is trying to do, the ability to create really strong concepts is important. "Packaged web app" or "chrome app" or even "web app" are not clear concepts. Users don't understand them. Is it a website? Is it a Link? Is it on my computer?
It's not just here that this ability would make a difference. Hangouts. Plus. Wave (rip). They all had definition problems.