Browser of the Week: Google Chrome
September 8, 2008 – 10:54 amAs I mentioned last week, Google Chrome is a no-brainer for Browser of the Week, and I’ve gone ahead and installed it, configuring it as my default browser. The one hitch is that it only runs on Windows, and I am a Mac-only shop. I do have Parallels running on my Mac Pro, so I’m accessing Chrome in a VM on a remote machine via Remote Desktop Connection from my Air. This isn’t likely to reflect very well on the software’s performance, but that’s just Google’s bad. Most tech opinion leaders use Mac (a statistic I just extracted from my behind). You should support us first.
Since I’m griping, I had a minor hissy fit when Chrome decided during installation that I wanted the user interface to be in Czech (located, as I am, in the eponymous Republic). I enjoy speaking Czech but with people, not software. Now to be fair, I might have missed some language option in the install wizard as I clicked through absent-mindedly, but I don’t actually think so. I then spent a good five minutes trying to change the language back to English, muttering obscenities under my breath the whole time. It didn’t help that the online help claims that the language preferences are in the “Under the Hood” section of the options, while in reality they are in “Minor Tweaks”. (It doesn’t help, come to think of it, that the options have vague, meaningless section headings.) Listen Google, stop trying to guess what language I speak. English should be the default for all software, and foreign types should have to suffer, not me, if they want to use some “non-standard” language. (Kidding, foreigners, just kidding!)
More to the point (a low bar, admittedly), I am so far underwhelmed by the whole concept of using a new browser. So what? It’s hard for me to get too excited about having the tabs over, rather than under, the location bar. Obviously I am even more grumpy and cynical than usual this morning, but I still think Google has its work cut out for it getting people to switch. I’m not saying they won’t succeed, just that I’ll be very impressed if they do. Personally I think this will hinge on their marketing efforts, not on technology, something I’ll discuss more later in the week.
Update: I had to edit this post in Firefox to add back the paragraph breaks that Chrome apparently stripped from it (using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor). Anyone know what’s up with that?
15 Responses to “Browser of the Week: Google Chrome”
Shouldn’t it be possible for Chrome to detect the system language instead of the system’s country? That’d be far more appropriate…
Also, IIRC Opera also had the tab bar on top.
By Vincent on Sep 8, 2008
I had the same problem. I live in Germany and it automatically installed the German language package. Happy I was not in China at the time.
By Jeria on Sep 8, 2008
I’ve only tried Chrome with Wine under Linux and was very surprised that its UI was in German. That was really strange.
Interestingly there don’t seem to be any performance penalties running Firefox under Wine (did it to run the sunspider test: FF nightly w.o. JIT > Chrome > FF nightly w. JIT (> meaning slower)). Can’t say for Chrome yet as I don’t have anything to compare it against, but it did feel very responsive.
By Arthur on Sep 8, 2008
Actually it occurs to me that Chrome could be a great opportunity for Google to use the OS language settings for its online apps, at least when you are using their browser. It’s always annoyed me that the search engine, feed reader, etc. always pop up in Czech when I don’t have the right cookies. Hopefully they’ll fix this.
By Matthew Gertner on Sep 8, 2008
Chrome automatically uses the *system* language. It does not decide based on your country (at least in my case it didn’t). So it is entirely your fault if you got it in Czech.
Also with this kind of “if it doesn’t run on a mac then it’s crap” attitude you better don’t write a review at all.
Good for you that you can afford a Mac even though you live in Eastern Europe. Not everyone is so well off, and software should first support the platform that is accessible to the most people.
By Ole on Sep 8, 2008
I don’t think it chooses the system language. It chooses whatever “Google language” you have (stored in a cookie). Since I was installing in a VM where I didn’t have this cookie, it defaulted to the language of my web locale. Presumably you have the cookie set to English which is why you didn’t have this problem.
By Matthew Gertner on Sep 8, 2008
You can override the language from Options. I don’t really know how it determines the default (I always assumed it used the system language).
“Update: I had to edit this post in Firefox to add back the paragraph breaks that Chrome apparently stripped from it (using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor). Anyone know what’s up with that?”
No, but you should file a bug report.
By Dan on Sep 8, 2008
Actually wait, I’ve used the WordPress WYSIWYG editor just fine. I never noticed any problems.
You using the latest version of WordPress?
By Dan on Sep 8, 2008
I’m not using the absolute latest version. I’ve been putting off upgrading but I’ll bite the bullet and see if that helps.
By Matthew Gertner on Sep 8, 2008
@ole
It’s a fair comment, one which I suspect it was tongue-in-cheek. The fact remains that the people most likely to be early adopters/testers are the least likely to be running Win32.
I’ve no idea why anybody would take offense or adopt a posture of inverse-snobbery over something as innocuous as this.
By nobody on Sep 8, 2008
Tongue-in-cheek!? Me? Never! :-p
By Matthew Gertner on Sep 8, 2008
I too noticed the switch to Czech while going through the system installer. I was running an English XP on Mac Parallels with English language settings, but I half expected it to do this (how many times over the years have I had to change my homepage to ‘www.google.com/ncr’, to avoid losing all those nice extra features/menus missing in the default Czech version?)
The reason for this: Google’s language definition for search (and, I suspect, for the Chrome installer) is via browser IP address (as is also demonstrated by the irrelevant Czech Adwords adverts I get on UK/US sites - I don’t get this when using the computer in the UK).
Needless to say, I discovered quickly that the Chrome installer does allow you to specify a different language, so my wrath was subdued…
By Alan on Sep 8, 2008
Browser of the Year IMHO. It fell over badly importing a large favorites database during the install in XP, but that’s been it - everything else is sweet.
Can’t say the same for FF3.01 which won’t stay upright for me at the moment - keeps crashing on form entries.
By Chris on Sep 10, 2008
there are so many advantages and features with Chrome, such as it’s speed, for example; now if only they would take care it’s flighty cookie management…
By film fan on Sep 16, 2008