I was asked for some advice recently about starting a company. And some of the basics of how to go about doing it (incorporation, finding people, networking, etc). So I referred them back to my early blog postings when I detailed going through that stuff myself. Now that I'm at the point where I don't have any sage business advice about Vyoo (for the time being - release, marketing, and fundraising will ultimately follow), I'll continue to highlight mistakes and even the rare promising moves that I notice in other companies.
I've written glowingly in the past about Google. I love almost everything they do. Maybe to a fault. Well, I finally found a flaw in one of their products. I hope it's not a result of their growth that I wrote about several weeks ago (here). Maybe they're too big for themselves...
Google released Chrome yesterday. Their foray into the browser space. I was pretty excited, because I knew it would be great. Low on resource use, clean, simple, better! I mean, when has Google ever f'ed up a product release? Ok. Maybe they have for some products I haven't used. But a big release like a browser?
I downloaded it right away (here). It's pretty slick (from a UI perspective). And you can read a host of reviews and comments about it elsewhere, so I won't go into too much detail. It's very clean though. And it spawns separate processes for each tab you open so a problem with one browser window shouldn't shut you down like Firefox or IE.
Let's just say that Chrome didn't work as advertised. I installed it on an XP box and a Vista box. And it sucked. On both. It froze. It crashed. It hogged resources. I'd click tabs and it would close windows. It wouldn't respond. It would reload windows as I scrolled down the page. I understand that it's a beta. But damn, they shouldn't be releasing a piece of crap. Which is basically what this is.
Ironically, I'm at Google today. I have to teach a GMAT class down here and I ran into a b school buddy. He works at Mozilla, but he's on the Google campus every few days because they work fairly closely on things. While Google publicly stated that they were moving towards more collaboration with Mozilla on the browser side, my friend told me specifically that they've been moving away in terms of collaboration for the last two years. And that the release is viewed as quite a competitive move. I agree.
The second ironic event was that through reading about other people's issues with Chrome, it has come to my attention that the winner in all of this is IE. Their new beta apparently uses far fewer resources and has far fewer problems than resource hog Firefox and bug riddled Chrome. I'm apprehensive about trying it. But I think I have to.
35 comments:
Not to mention the EULA...
You liked the UI?? OMG! I hated it! Why do they think they can dictate how my apps look like? Sorry, but it fails in terms of L&F consistency (i.e, not consistent with my OS look).
I need my buttons! Google's interface is far too empty. Also, my website didn't work on it. It failed to load a simple header image, which has been tested and works with Firefox, IE, and Opera. What the hell?
I didn't even get to the EULA... hadn't realized it was a problem until you mentioned it... but yea, lots of issues with this.
I thought the UI was fine. It's clean and simple... I'm not asking the UI of a browser to be anything special. Show me the page and that's it.
As for the buttons - time will tell. I used to think that folders was a problem in GMail. Now I hate folders for email programs, so maybe they've figured something out.
It seems that Google have taken all of the other features off all of the other browsers, and put them all together - pointless! Opera already do a home page with links to favorite pages - this sucks, since I was expecting something really innovative, esp from a company that is meant to be on the forefront of technology and stuff like that. "Google MagPie" would be a goog google service.
Plus Google's privacy is driven by its need to make profit - it sucks!
Not to mention the basics, no right click - properties. No Home page icon. No FTP support. And not to mention the EULA! Never Google, NEVER!
Resource hog Firefox? You must be mistaken... Sure, it starts high, but it doesn't go much high, unlike every other browser out there. Safari is an incredibly heavy resource eater, Opera is light as a feater. On the first ten minutes. After a few pages it goes way above firefox 3. Internet Explorer, well, let's not talk about that one. Maxtor is very bad too, when it comes to RAM usage. Firefox is probably the lightest browser on the long run.
It just freezes and crashes : It loads gmail slower than Mozilla or even IE. I have it still installed but prefer Mozilla anyday. I was hoping chrome would support dynamic IP update when switching networks ... Alas like Mozilla it doesn't. I haven't even tried complex forms yet ... So much for the awaited "Chrome".
are u on microsoft payroll?
All true. Chrome does suck. And it also crashes with a retarded "Aw, snap" message if you have Symantec AV too. I wouldn't even bother with IE8 though. I have been using it for a week and have already discovered so many sites that are broken with it. It may be faster but it seems a case of one step forward, 2 steps back.
I thought Chrome was a breath of fresh air. As we all know, it's BETA and yea, it can be a POS if it's beta. It worked flawlessly on my notebook and notebooks of a few other coworkers. Chrome loaded pages quickly. I like the UI because it's simple. I remove all the bells and whistles that IE and FF come with because I was looking for a browser with a simple interface because surfing the net is my focus, not using a browser. In fact, I usually use IE and F.fox in kiosk mode, I don't want to look at the tool [browser], I want to surf the net. Keep downloading the beta updates, this can only get better.
@morbus - I'm not mistaken. Firefox has some serious memory leaks. Maybe it's not supposed to use a ton of memory, but guess what? It does. I have to shut it down constantly to free up memory.
@anonymous - yea, I'm on Miscrosoft's payroll even though I haven't praised them. I just pointed out who was the winner from things I read. I haven't yet commented on their beta.
@Alex - beta or not - not working on two of my machines is more than a coincidence and not the way Google should release anything.
omg google crome does indeed suck.
It was uninstalled 2 minutes after I installed it. and there uninstaller Failed to remove their autostartup googleUpdate.exe. I hate autostart software! If I want it running when I boot, I'll make it start up myself. If I need an update, I can click an update button myself. Also their browser surely makes alot of OutBound connects..to google I assume,letting them now everything that your doing on their browser crappy browser. I'd rather use Internet Explorer with no protection than this crome junk.
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JUST USE FIREFOX 2, it has thousands of plugins to do what ever you think the google browser is doing for you. Firefox has thumbnails plugins,noScript plugins,adblock, and FlashBlock plugins... and it works with all websites,not just a couple.
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Yes chrome sends thousands of request to google. they even have there IFrame on every tab for monitoring. they might say that these tracking are kept untouched but who knows what they can turn into
@ Lefty
Firefox 2 had a lot of memory leaks. Firefox 3 doesn't. At least not in my computer...
@ Anonymous
Firefox 3 is more secure, faster, lighter and has more features. DON'T USE FIREFOX 2!!! Upgrade to 3!
Hi Marc, Thanks for the comment on our blog about the reasons why we like Chrome. I've been using it for over a week now on XP and it hasn't crashed on me once. In fact, the more I use it the more I prefer it over Firefox and IE. For anyone who's interested, a link to our original post follows:
http://blog.snagsta.com/2008/09/05/8-reasons-why-google-chrome-is-better-than-ie-and-firefox/
Third time is the charm...After hearing about Chrome on NPR, I was eager to try it. I was impressed with it's speed, right off the bat. Days later, I was looking back on the good old days of Firefox, who I thought I had sworn off. Long story short, I found your blog by simply Googling "Chrome sucks." Biggest problem? IT CRASHES. Only solution ? I HAVE TO REBOOT! Bah and phooey. I am no longer saving time but wasting it. Can always hear my hard drive grinding away, too. Distracting. Also dislike back space message of "Confirm Form Submission" nonsense. Typed forms don't auto save ala Firefox, although this may be a setting as the poster "natjen" above who complained about not having a home page icon. You have to go to tools and add it. Spell checker is faulty at times. Biggest issue is the crashing though. I remember Firefox being equally buggy in the early days and it was worked out. I will keep the faith that it will improve.
My PC was running fine until I installed Chrome. I had great expectations from their browser, especially after reading about it's task manager, but it hangs 50% of the time running sites with Flash. Also, running XP, my f-ing computer gives shit on start-up randomly. I forgave f-ing Google (let's not forget it's owned by A O L ?????????? / Time Warner ^) for their sh*tty sidebar that makes PC's useless as it catalogues.But it is unforgivable for a company with greedy a**holes to produce a lightweight browser that (given it's supposed lo-pro) causes so many ffffffffff-ing problems and cannot handled pay attention to ffffffffffff-ing standards because it is in a rush to make a few f***ers (A O Hell, Time Warner) rich without paying attention to the fact that the f-----ing product is so alpha stage yet cranking out their f------------ing media machine all for mega $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Most disappointing app in a decade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure Spore is less than expected, but they had the b*lls to promote it for 7 effing years. F Google for shooting themselves (rich a-holes, lest us forget that the owner is AOL???) in the ass for releasing a sh*tty ALPHA piece of crap
@steve - love the fire. keep that up! AOL doesn't own Google though - so not sure what you were talking about there. Maybe the fact that AOL uses Google to handle it's ad network? Anyway, yea, it's embarrassing for them to deliver a product like that...
spore sucks, chrome sucks, very much agreed. Keep up the good work.
I'm on a search for "spore sucks" pages and havent found many... what should I try? Spore is a POS? Spore fails?
Chrome is unmentionnable... spy software, big brother company (turning worse than microsoft), bugged, hyped...
Another browser to worry about when working on a project, oh yeah!!!!
Seriously, I installed it, used it and personally I don't like it, everything is slow, loads very slow, pages with animated gifs are very slow and flash... oh boy, let's not mention it.
Might be my machines but had no problem with other browsers, even IE8 is working great!
1: There is a website for Google Chrome -www.google.com/chrome.
2: Google Chrome automatically updates itself but you can use "About Google Chrome" to manually check and install an update when it becomes available.
3: The latest version of Google Chrome (0.2.149.30) fixes most of the issues you all are having. Also, the next few releases of Google Chrome are going to be major with lots of functionality and performance fixes along with a few new features.
4: Google has fixed a mistake in Google Chrome's EULA which some people think means Google owns everything you type in the browser etc.
5: The people who are using versions later than 0.2.149.30 are getting it from Google's DEV channel (Google uses it for testers, developers etc to find and fix issues in those versions before they are implemented and released to the public as a beta, so they are more unstable than beta versions).
6: The Mac and Linux versions will be here soon..have some patience.
7: Add-ons and other features will take some time because Google wants to make sure it doesn't slow down or negatively affect the browser in any way.
8: Please publish this on other sites and share it with people etc. Thanks.
9: Google Chrome uses much much much less memory than IE 7 and IE 8 (beta) by far and also less than Firefox.
I got google chrome the day after release, and haven't looked back, i'm using XP pro on a sony Vaio laptop and develop websites, so the browser gets some abuse, and can never fault it. Flash loads quickly sites render fine.
I'm definatly a fan of google chrom
I totally agree with you, I JUST INSTALLED IT TODAY with my new reformated computer and guess what? IT got this gawdd damm virus and now i cant open up internet explorer singley instead i have to open folder then type the website how crappy
Well, some people really don't know jack about computers...
You have no virus. You just have your default browser set as google chrome, because you didn't care enough to read through your installation process.
Serves you right.
Seriously lame. It sucks the chrome off a bumper. Dog humper. Yes I mean YOU
to all of this you may add no add-on support, lack of easy search engine switching, there's not even a HOME button, for crying out loud! I really thing they effed up big time with Chrome.
However, I don't agree on Mozilla being a resource hog. My Mozilla runs perfectly on an XP system with 256 MB RAM, and it's stuck full of add-ons. The only thing that slows it down are excessive disc reads by my torrent client.
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