Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
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Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
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Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#2It's not like Google advertises the Chrome version number, though. In fact, they seem to try to hide which version you're on, so I don't think that this is a marketing gimmick at all. Chrome's release schedule has a lot more to do with the changing nature of user software and the Internet - version numbers shouldn't matter, all users should aim to run the latest version, and updates should come quickly.
These are all admirable goals and Chrome's versioning is just a side effect of newer software development methods. Chrome is perhaps on track to win the browser wars because it's the best browser and gets new features the fastest; IE's release cycle is still humiliatingly slow.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#3Umm.. anti-trust ? shouldn't we be glad that things are moving faster now...
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#4"This smells to me like an anti-trust move"
People really need to learn what anti-trust is and what it isn't. My goodness, the label gets applied to everything.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#5It's not like Google advertises the Chrome version number, though. In fact, they seem to try to hide which version you're on, so I don't think that this is a marketing gimmick at all. Chrome's release schedule has a lot more to do with the changing nature of user software and the Internet - version numbers shouldn't matter, all users should aim to run the latest version, and updates should come quickly. These are all…
I, personally, consider myself more "tech" person - and I don't have the slightest clue which Chrome version I am using. If you said the newest Chrome is Chrome 7, I would have to agree.
One part is, I guess, the seamless upgrading (when I use Firefox, I usually click on "upgrade next time", because I am always doing something TOTALLY important that can't wait). Other part is that the extensions don't break every new version and the UI looks completely the same (unlike for, let's say, Opera, which changes UI all the time). I don't know what browser version am I using, and I don't care.
Really, I hope this will become standard in OS, too.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#6Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#7Yeah, because Linus deciding to name 2.6.43 3.0 is clearly inspired by Google Chrome.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#8The author is missing the point. Chrome does not market its version number, and transparently updates itself in the background. I'd imagine the vast majority of Chrome users have no idea what major version their browser is on - I sure didn't until I took a look.
Unlike previous number races, Chrome's rapidly increasing version numbers do not indicate a will to impress consumers with high values. Instead, Chrome takes a page from web applications, and makes the version number irrelevant to the vast majority of its users.
Firefox seems to be trying to do the same, but IMO it's putting the cart before the horse. It should improve its update mechanism until version numbers do not matter, and then update the major version as often as it wants to.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#9This was actually the entire purpose of Chrome - to push forward the state of the art in browsers. When Chrome was released, Google made it clear that they didn't care per se whether people used Chrome. What they cared about was getting more people using better browsers by forcing the browser market to move at a faster pace. And it appears they have done exactly that. I'm very impressed with the execution - they articulated this precise strategy in 2008 and we're now really seeing it work.
Re: Chrome: Playing the browser game for keeps
#10The author is missing the point. Chrome does not market its version number, and transparently updates itself in the background. I'd imagine the vast majority of Chrome users have no idea what major version their browser is on - I sure didn't until I took a look. Unlike previous number races, Chrome's rapidly increasing version numbers do not indicate a will to impress consumers with high values. Instead, Chrome takes…
> "users have no idea what major version their browser is on"
To be fair, I'm pretty sure this is true of every browser. And most software in general.
Marketing people like having a number. Developers like having a number. They like it for different reasons and have different goals for it. But users have never really known or cared.