Chrome - Google's new browser

[gasteropod]

Can anyone help me please, you know when there's a mailto link which you click and it then brings up your e-mail account? When I click on one in Chrome, it then brings my hotmail account up with IE but I just want Chrome to do it! Thanks.

[gasteropod]

Chrome has upgraded to version 6 now, as well as the usual speed upgrades etc. it also looks a bit different now.

[bradavon]

It's not a final release build though. I'm sure I recently read it's now in it's Beta stage. The bigger two features look to be Extensions Sync (to go alongside the existing boomarks sync), which is great if you've got multiple machines and a built-in PDF reader, to go alongside the Chrome 5 built-in Flash support.

One of the big "behind the scenes" changes in Chrome 6 is "Native Client":

One of Google's most ambitious efforts to make the Web a more powerful foundation for applications is a project called Native Client that lets programs downloaded from the Web run securely and fast on a computer. Key to Native Client, or NaCl for short, is a process called sandboxing that restricts executing programs to a walled-off region of memory.

This is all being put there to pave the way for Chrome OS. The ability to run Desktop "like" apps in a web browser. It won't be enabled by default in Chrome 6 though due to issues in the older MAC OS X 10.5 (i.e - Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard) being the latest release. Sandboxing isn't a new concept in itself. Internet Explorer on Vista/Win7 runs itself in a Protected Mode, which is basically a sandbox.

Source - Chrome 6: What made the cut and what missed out (i.e - pushed back to Chrome 7): http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20011234-264.html

I wish Google would slow down with the fucking version numbers. We're already at version 6 for a product only released in September 2008. The difference between version 4 and 5 is small, as is the difference between version 5 and 6.

Version 4 brought Google Sync and Extensions. Fair enough, those are big but version 5 is frankly 4.5 at best. Firefox is only just at version 4 (as is Safari). We'll be at version 20 in to time at all, at this rate. Opera is at version 10 but that's been around since 1995, the same as Internet Explorer.

Google recently made some Gmail changes that only work in Chrome. Microsoft rightly so got in lots of hot water for creating IE only features and now Google are doing the same. Right now they're only very minor new features but what's next? The new features allow you do drag n drop an attachment from an e-mail to the desktop and visa versa.

Speaking of Firefox, they got in trouble recently with the Firefox community for copying Google and releasing updates silently. Which is something only Google do (as far as I'm aware). Firefox normally just notifies you about interim updates and version number changes it oddly doesn't even notify you about at all, e.g. if you're on Firefox 3, you have to manually download the EXE to get 3.5 or 3.6. Which is dumb.

Instead they've rolled back their initial intentions and Firefox 4 will now only silently install interims upgrades. Which sounds like a good idea to me. If I want to run an older version of software, I should be able to. Plenty of people are happening running Office 2000 still and don't want Office 2010.

Microsoft of course do it all via Windows Updates and those are all optional too. I'm not sure about Safari or Opera. I think interim updates should be silently installed but version changes you should be given the choice. I'm unsure about Chrome but in Firefox, there's a chance a big upgrade will stop extensions from working and people don't want that.

No one has complained about Google doing this of course because it's always been this way.

Can anyone help me please, you know when there's a mailto link which you click and it then brings up your e-mail account? When I click on one in Chrome, it then brings my hotmail account up with IE but I just want Chrome to do it! Thanks.

XP I presume? That is controlled in two places:

1. Internet Options and the Programs tab
2. Add/Remove Programs and the Default Programs button

Set it all to Chrome and that should fix the problem. Make sure Chrome/IE are all fully closed before and make sure "Check if IE is default" is unticked in Internet Options too.

In Vista/Windows 7 its basically the same but it's all done from the "Default Programs" option in Control Panel. It's essentially the same though with two different options to check ("Set Default Programs" and "Set Program access and Computer defaults").

[bradavon]

Check this out, for users of Android and Chrome (the short video explains it best):

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... -up-709650

That looks super handy. Pity it doesn't support Firefox, yet. I've got an HTC Desire too.

[gasteropod]

Hey, does anyone else's Chrome here keep crashing all the time (mainly its inbuilt Flash) lately? They've released several minor updates since this started happening, but it hasn't been fixed From Googling it I see it's happening to plenty of other people, but just wondering if it's happening to everyone?

[bradavon]

I've read Google have fucked up Flash in Chrome 10. I also read you can disable it's built-in Flash engine (you'll have to Google how) and it will then default to the regular external flash plugin (the one found at www.adobe.com).

I use Firefox, so cannot confirm if this works though.

[gasteropod]

Oh right, it's weird how they haven't sorted it out though, especially since they've rolled out minor program updates since all this has been going on, I'd expect more from Google

[bradavon]

I imagine a fix will come. Wasn't it only a few days ago it was first noticed?

[gasteropod]

Well yeah of course a fix will come because it's a massive problem, but I'm sure this has been going on for more than a few days.

[gasteropod]

Well I've installed the latest version of Flash now (uninstalled it when Chrome got it built in), and disabled Chrome's inbuilt version, so hopefully it should be fine now then. Google = Derp!

[bradavon]

Is it easy to disable? Has it crashed since? I presume Chrome is defaulting to the external one? Thanks. I guess you'll have to monitor it, so you know when to re-enable it and uninstall the external one again.

[gasteropod]

Hmm turns out it hasn't defaulted to the standalone Flash Yeah it's easy, you just go in the Options and manage the individual plugins.

[bradavon]

So you've now got no Flash period? I definitely it's possible to do this.

[bradavon]

I waited very loyally running Firefox 3.6 for Firefox 4, to see if Firefox could finally compete with Chrome and I'm sad to say it cannot.

Both Firefox 4 and IE9 are heavily optimised upgrades of previous versions but the engines in both are clearly showing their age. Webkit is simply so much more efficient. Tonight I'm switching to Chrome permanently. Chrome for the win!

[gasteropod]

Let me know if you have the Flash crashes.

[bradavon]

Sure. I've been using it all day at work but YouTube (the best test) is blocked. I'll re-post in a few hours.

[bradavon]

I'm testing it with this now (speakers off if you're not a Lady GaGa fan):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw

I picked it because there's a 720p/1080p stream and being recent it should tax my system the most. So far it's not stopped once in 360p or 720p. My PC's not really powerful enough for 1080p. It's running better than it did in Firefox 3.6 in fact, which regularly paused to buffered.

Remember I've only just upgraded to Chrome, so cannot say how good/bad Flash worked in Chrome 9.

Should I be looking out for anything?

[gasteropod]

Mine just crashes constantly when browsing the web, you'll soon find out if it does it

[bradavon]

What the web in general? That doesn't sound flash related. Are you using the Adblock Plus extension? I don't see Flash Ads, so if those were to crash Chrome, I wouldn't know.

I've just noticed Chrome lets me resize the Bullets comment boxes. Is that normal for Chrome? If so, cool. God damn Chrome is so slick. That's some damn impressive coding. I miss the odd thing about Firefox but the slickness is just so good.

In Firefox example you can adhoc choose to save your tabs when exit or not (it asks if you'd like to save them when exiting). Whereas in Chrome you have to choose to load either the Home Page or Previous Tabs. Sometimes I want to start a fresh, other times my previous tabs.

[gasteropod]

Are you on the beta? I don't think I can resize comment boxes, I'm on the normal version because I initially thought it was the beta that had the Flash problem.

[bradavon]

Nope. The latest stable release: 10.0.648.151. Chrome gets updated so regularly, I don't see the point running the beta/dev builds. So to clarify, it crashes browsing generally or sites with lots flash? Any example links I can try?

There's an orange border around any comment field (not just Bullets) and I can resize it. I've not installed an extension to do this.

[gasteropod]

Oh right I see, yeah I can resize them then, not that I need to because it's already massive!

Just most sites get the Flash crash, it looks like you don't have this problem because you'd have experienced it by now.

[gasteropod]

I've gone back to the Beta now, it's got a cool new logo I'll see if this version manages to avoid crashing.

[gasteropod]

No problems

[bradavon]

Oh right I see, yeah I can resize them then, not that I need to because it's already massive!

It works on any field, not just bullets.

Just most sites get the Flash crash, it looks like you don't have this problem because you'd have experienced it by now.

The one that says a plugin has crashed? Nope, I've not seen it but know what you mean. Chrome 10.0.648.204 has recently been released. I've no idea what it addresses, maybe Flash?

Agreed, it is a cool new logo.