Google Chrome celebrates version 2 release with autofill, fast-paced video
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted May 22nd 2009 10:51AM
posted May 22nd 2009 10:51AM
We know you've been avoiding Chrome because it puts your most visited sites on a display the size of the JumboTron in Times Square, and we don't blame you. You don't need the folks in Accounts Receivable knowing every detail of your life (including all the time you spend in the Cat Fancy online forums). Well, you're in luck! Google's infamous browser is now officially out of beta, and has been designated version two -- and among the improvements is a feature that allows you to remove those pesky thumbnails from the browser home screen. Also in store for faithful users are such key features as Form Autofill and Full Screen Mode. Sadly, neither Linux or Mac users get to join the party just yet -- but we'll let you know as soon as that changes. Check out the video after the break.
And most important to me, CLICK WHEEL SCROLLING! Time to flip the finger to Firefox.
Still doesn't work with my Synaptics touchpad scrolling... :-(
It works for me, didn't to begin with but it does now.
I love chrome. Only use firefox when i want to stumble now
I have a synaptics touchpad and the scrolling works fine what's up with that? I want to be able to right click and set a pic as desktop background. Right now I save the file then go to its file location and set it as background, dumb.
mouse gestures or GTFO
your laptop doesn't have 2 finger scrolling? sorry bout that.. ;)
zomfg I love Chrome
looks good but no support for firefox extensions yet. some of those are manditory on some of my work. good alternative to FF though.
No adblock, no download.
@ Juachine (or something)
Amen to that. Even if they just install something like it (write own filter) and block javascripts by default except if u approve...--> I'm a happy user.
for now it's still the somewhat loggy firefox. But i love it so much :D
www.adsweep.org
google makes its money selling ads, what would possibly drive them to block them?
I'm not saying Google should build its own adblock. I'm saying they should support extensions, at which point people can choose to make an adblock extension.
r3loaded:
Thank you so much! I could cry... No more ads in Opera and Chrome!
Adsweep has a couple of problems. It only hides the ads, but they are still downloaded which means you are still being tracked and still wasting bandwidth. The other, is that it is not trivial to add new filters to it. It takes a lot of work.
Adblock actually keeps the offending cruft from downloading.
That hair is bothering me.
I hate the way he smirks at his 'joke' when he talks about autofill.
He has killed..... And he will kill again.
Sweet! I just upgraded to version 2. Love Chrome.
Chrome v2. So easy, even a caveman can upgrade.
Chrome v2. So easy, even a caveman and a amish pirate can talk about upgrading.
Chrome v2. So easy, even a caveman, a amish pirate AND a 404 error page can talk about upgrading.
c-c-c-combo breaker!!!!!!!
cat fancy? more like engade.... something ... shhhh
Engadget, slickdeals, and gmail are the top three at my office...
I'm glad I can get rid of the evidence, now.
The most visited feature is probably not good for people like me who's number one site would not be allowed to those under 18.
those are just basic things, they should have waited and had version 2 as the first release, instead of rushing it as half finished.
Hindsight is 20/20.
The way they did it allowed for user feedback, which they then implemented. That is the point of beta testing.
They did. Thus the word: beta.
hum dudes most software starts with version 1 and not 2. Plus I fail to see how this is a complete release when the plugins are still missing and we were promised to have them by the final release. Just so we are on the same page webkit ( upon which chrome is based ) has all the *new* features and they have been there since pretty much day one. So yeah it's nice that google has finally came out with a non beta release BUT there is hardly anything newsworthy here.
IIRC, the drama surrounding release of Chrome v1 beta was that their chrome tech talk document got leaked online and then they just thought that cat's out of the bag already and just went ahead and released it. I think they wanted to wait a little longer to release it, but were forced to release it because of the leak.
@Mark
Yeah what a smart move, never release an official version of anything until 10 years later and you know the bugs are all taken care of. What a great concept. Isn't gmail still in beta?
A buddy at work was telling me about this. He says he can't beleive how fast it is now.
Chrome has been out of beta for months now.
But then it was put back into beta.
Chrome 1 has been out of beta for months. Chrome 2 has been in beta, and is now out of it.
Updated this morning and its been a real pain in the arse since. Everytime i go to organise the tabs they end up detaching themselves from the main window and its now near impossible to reattach them unless i slow down significantly the speed of my mouse.
The snap to up/down/left/right feature doesnt appear to be working either throwing the tabs out of the viewable area of the screen and having to move them back with the keyboard. Pain.
Hope this fixes instability issues when I try to download multiple files at once ( tabs stick to the mouse, causing tearing )..
I have been a faithful user since day 0001. I love to see the developments in such a complex area. Internet Navigation. Congrats Google!
I really like chrome but I wish they would have added an aero peek feature for windows 7..... both firefox and chrome still dont support aero peek.
You want them to implement features for an OS which isn't even released yet?
Yes, just like nVidia release drivers for a OS that isn't released yet. Don't tell me Google hasn't downloaded Win 7 RC
@Ryan: Why not? The Windows 7 SDK has been out for at least as long as the RC. What company doesn't want to be the first to say "Fully Supported in Windows 7"?
Well, sure, it makes sense to do it, but it also makes sense to not do it. I guess I just don't understand complaining that they "still" don't have it, when W7 isn't even complete yet.
Then maybe youll understand the complaining when Windows 7 *is* released and they *still* dont have a properly working browser for it.
The main reason for releasing pre-release versions is so that there is driver and software support when it finally gets released, do you think Apple releases beta versions of the next OSX at a developer's conference for bug testing? They want them to get their shit working and ready BEFORE the new OS comes out. The developers that wait until after the final product comes out to start getting their asses in gear are idiots, or enjoy the hate mail from pissed off users who just bought a new OS.
It so weird how I didnt even know I had Chrome since I made all of the web pages I view application shortcuts on my desktop.
btw, does the browser still update on its own?
For me, I had to go to the little wrench in the top right corner and click "about Chrome" and then it checked and found the update. They really need to make an easier/more obvious way of doing that.
Heheh, my Chromium daily build on Ubuntu has been doing form autofill and full screen mode for a while now :P
And it has little icons to show when stuff appearing below the address bar is a search, a bookmark or a history item.
(It also has this exciting feature where it crashes every five minutes, but they're removing that).
A2DP!!!
oops...1Password has failed me. What I meant to say was that I like how the guy's mouth moves but other than that, nothing else does. I don't think he blinks for during the entire segment!
I've been using Chrome for months and I love it. I haven't had any problems with it at all. It is faster than all the other browsers and I love the user interface.
There is a ChromeMonkey extension for it that allows you to use some Firefox extensions. There are also a lot of user scripts out there. I have added a couple of them and they work great.
I have tried Safari, Opera, IE7 and IE8, and Firefox and love Chrome the best. I really couldn't find any Firefox extensions that would do me any good anyway.
I still wish they would do something about the favorite option....
By far the best browser!!!
Great. Now all it needs is an AdBlock-equivalent to strip every site out there of giant flash advertisements. Nothing would piss me off more than wasting more than half of a cellular broadband card's limited download speed for an "I'm a Mac" advertisement, not to mention the toll on battery life from having flash video playing in multiple places on one page... and this is why I still use Firefox.
http://www.adsweep.org/ works great, it uses exactly the same filters as the firefox adblock. The only problem is the somewhat complex manual installation but once you get it going it just works.
WTF goggle how hard is it for a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds of developers to make a linux & mac version of chrome?
The Google goggles are all fogged up.
They're busy on the linux version. Applets told them to %$#%#^ off because nothing could beat safari. Nothing. Ever. So there.
Isn't it ironic that a company who HATES Microsoft and has created their own linux based OS (Android), which some people think is the next OS competitor to Windows and Mac OS, has made a browser that only works in Windows and not Linux (of which they have built their "own" OS) or Mac (the OS of their partner in crime, Apple)?
It's even worse when you know their browser is based on WebKit which of course is the foundation for Mac's browser Safari and countless Linux browsers.
I love Chrome on Windows, been running the beta 2 for ages.
I also run Chrome Alpha on Mac OS X, and it's looking good too.
You guys know that they are trying to reach people, right? They don't build browsers on a certain OS because they like that OS. They spend limited time and resources on things that give them return on investment. What is the ratio of people using Windows to linux, again?
Have people forgot how to google search?
http://www.labnol.org/software/download-google-chrome-for-mac-linux/4555/
"Google Chrome - Official Builds
Update 2: The official builds of Google Chromium are now available for Linux and Mac here. The interface and features of Chromium for Mac OS X are similar to that of Chrome for Windows but it’s not stable yet."
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/
iTS ABOUT TIME TO RELEASE A MAC VERSION UH GOOGLE ???
WTF is taking soooooo fucking long to release a MACINTOSH VERSION ???
Well given that your platform of choice has like a 5-8% market share and they're just entering the browser race, they want to make a solid browswer on the platform that can capture them the most users instead of devoting their time and resources to making a version for a platform not used by very many people
Seconded
So now it lacks only about 80% of the features that would make it useable.
At least it's fast, right...
Chrome is great, but it won't replace Firefox because:
1) The address bar is not universal. i.e. If you type Engadget, it won't take you to Engadget.com, instead it will take you to a Google Search of Engadget. On Firefox, if you type for instance "diane kruger wiki" it will take you to her wikipedia page. On Chrome, it will take you to a Google search of "diane kruger wiki".
2) Also, searching Google on Firefox, you always have your keywords on display on the bar, so you can jump to them instantly. On Chrome, you need to look for your searches keywords yourself, which could take long time in long "blog" pages.
3) Downloading is smoother on Firefox.
When you type E... it should already know where you are trying to go and immediately give you a URL. If you enter a search term in the URL, you go to Google results. My DL's are seriously quick here. I don't know if this comment was made after reviewing a Browser in BETA stage, but heck, for speed, reliability, price and form...Gotta unfortunately disagree with this comment. Newbies are encouraged to try this browser out since it is relatively simple to understand. Get them used to Chrome instead of FF (or dare I say, MS-Internet Explorer?! shhhh)
Dude, i hope you know what Ctrl + Enter does.. it works in IE too...
i think Firefox is getting bloated.. what means the most to me is speed and screen real estate and no one can touch chrome on those 2, i also love the sandbox where if one tab gets something go wrong, it does kill the other tabs... For me downloading is a non issue with chrome, i download tons of stuff fast and effcient with zero probs...
if I type in "diane kruger" on the search/address bar I get the following lines below it:
Search Google for diane kruger
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Kruger
Search Google for diane kruger photos
Search Google for diane kruger imdb
http://www.engadget.com/2009/5/22/google-chrome-celebrates-versio...
So I got a google search, a directly wikipedia link a google images search for diane, and a imdb link along with this thread which contains a reference to the word Diane Kruger.
What more could you want? I think that your comments are pretty off :)
Great guys, but how about jumping to your googled words in a long web page? Nobody seemed to reply to that point. It's a major inconvenience not knowing where the words you searched for are.
Ctrl + F may not be as quick as Firefox's search term highlighting, but it certainly doesn't take a "long time".
if you really wanted to use chrome that badly, use windows. It's simple.
The thumbnails are actually a huge reason why I do use Chrome. They're not "pesky."
You use Chrome because of the thumbnails on the home page? That's Great, I use FF because of the icon on my desktop.
I love how with google chrome too you can make any page a direct link and basicaly turn it into an application, which works awesome for gmail... I have turned so many people onto google chrome that its rediculous.. One of the biggest sells is the "one bar" that funcions as a search engine (which u can switch to other search engines if u like) or its a web address bar...
I think Opera had this first, Opera's a great browser too but Chrome ftw.
I wonder what will loyal FF user's criticize next after Chrome gets extensions.
I used it for a while, then moved to FF3 ... there are just too many great plug-ins in FF3 I like too much. But I have to admit I'm using Chrome Skin in FF3
The adblock addon in Google Chrome is not nearly as powerful as Adblock Plus, so I can't use Chrome. Does it support RSS feed bookmarks yet?
too me adblock is stupid, adds are how most of these sites that i LOVE to read make there money and afford to keeep making articles i Love to read, so im ok with a couple adds on my page and maybe accidentally clicking them sometimes to support a site that i think is awesome and adds are the sole reason that everything google is Free..
Needs 3 things:
Ad-block
Mac Version
Linux Version
And THEN Chrome will cease to suck.
chrome "sucks" because it's not on mac? Does Final Cut Pro suck because it's not on windows? Love your logic.
if I can add .... online bookmarks is a must for me
I'd add 'mouse gestures' to that list. Can't browse without them anymore.
Oh god that was painful to watch. Someone please keep the nerds offscreen and only feature pretty people (who can act) in the upcoming videos. Thx.
So I guess you are out of the question...
I like chrome and I use it when I'm just browsing around. It's fast and clean. But I just can't give up my hand-picked FF extensions. So I use FF most of the time ... and always look forward to every revision of chrome. Competition is a good thing for the consumer.
especially when the product is free
Is it faster than safari 4 now?
Nothing is faster or better than safari 4. That's what they told me.
No OS X version yet? I'll stick with Safari.
Plus Safari 4 is still the fastest.
:)
If Safari is the best, why do you care?
I use the Safari 4 beta all the time, but I would love to give Chrome a spin, especially seeing as Safari doesn't have that nifty separate-processes-for-each-tab thing. Sure Safari may be a little faster than the other browsers (although my old G4 chip mitigates that), and (at the moment) has the best standards support, but I'd like to stretch my legs a little, you know?
It still freaks me out that it is in uber-tracking mode all the time unless I manually switch to incognito. I wish it had a auto-clear function like Firefox does, but I guess that would defeat the purpose of Google wanting to keep tabs on data.
This is the main thing stopping me from using Chrome. I also like turning my history off in Firefox, so that only my bookmarks come up when typing in the address bar and not random websites. Again, you have to go incognito in Chrome to turn off the history.
Great, so can you hurry up and finish the Mac version now Google? :P
Main and perhaps only reason I don't use Chrome... it doesn't work in Ubuntu. :-( Bummer!
Google could improve speed tremendously with an add-in like Ad-Blocker. I refuse to use this program because I absolutely HATE flash ads and Firefox lets me fly through the sites with out them with the ADB ad-on. But because Google is revenue driven by ads... I doubt they will allow us to strip them away. Until then, I'll keep skipping this browser and stick with Firefox!