Comments on: Dumped Chrome, Opera Now
REBOL Technologies

Comments on: Dumped Chrome, Opera Now

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies
6-May-2010 14:45 GMT

Article #0474
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I finally gave up on Google Chrome... for a variety of reasons.

For a company whose motto is "do no evil" I'm not sure how they justify the... well, let's just call them "mysterious network connections" back to their servers. I'm not really one to be paranoid, but just do a netstat when Chrome is running. They're watching everything. Sure you can tone it down in the options, but even with all the "spy modes" turned off, it's still connecting back to 1e100.

Of course, that issue alone wasn't enough to drop it. Chrome isn't that great for wiki's, which I use constantly... mainly because a back-page loses track of your current edit position (resets all text-area offsets.) It also had quite a few printing problems. I sent them various feedbacks, but you know how that goes.

I've switched to Opera this time. I tried it several years ago, but it had a few issues. Opera's come a long way since then! So far (it's only been a couple days) I'm impressed. It's a clean design with useful features, and a very nice inspector (Dragonfly.) Google could learn a few things from these guys.

Now, if it only did client-size text-area resizing... it would be perfect.

I guess I'm picky.

13 Comments

Comments:

Gonz
6-May-2010 12:19:54
This isn't the predictive text stuff that happens in the url bar, is it? You'd think something like this would be more widely noticed.
Edoc
6-May-2010 13:49:25
I've liked Opera for a long time. It doesn't do well with large textareas, when there's a lot of text in them.
Endo
7-May-2010 0:51:59
I use Opera constantly, latest version is good enough for general use. The only problem is some web pages don't support Opera (not much) I like mail client of Opera (which is built-in in the browser) I use it for RSS reading also.
Luis.
7-May-2010 1:45:13
A lot of the Chrome 'back chat' is the updater that runs as a service (read the licence agreement). Last I recall it also monitors for updates to any other Google apps.

Cheers,

Luis.

-pekr-
7-May-2010 3:38:29
Carl, what is your position towards FF? I am using Mozilla's products since 0.94 :-)
RobertS
7-May-2010 8:15:46
I moved from Chrome to Opera some weeks ago.

They have an option to run an embedded web server "in the browser" called "unite" or some such (?)

Chrome on Win XP had become a nightmare ... I have flushed the registry to the point where only Google Earth runs (updates turned off)

Beware of Chrome updates piling Gigabytes of trash into a tmp folder.

The Daily Show runs smooth in Opera but F11 Full-screen can misbehave (a mere nuisance)

Carl Sassenrath
7-May-2010 11:51:56
Gonz: if you search for "Google Chrome spyware" you will see that this problem is widely noticed. In fact, there's a clone of Chrome that removes the spyware. I've not tried that one yet.

Edoc: I can't believe it! I just hit that bug while typing a new blog in Opera. Wow, they need to fix that! (And... people point the finger at REBOL/View's poor text scrolling.)

Luis: I normally terminate the google update proc when I boot. But, it is persistent. (Why do programmers think they need a full time proc to do a simple cron job? That poor design decision is common in many apps.)

Pekr: I used FF for a long time, but then stopped when 3.0 proved to be horrible and backed up to 2.n. I've heard FF3 has improved a lot, but have not returned to try it again. Maybe it's next. A big loop.

RobertS: I've yet to try unite option... but eventually.

croquemitaine
13-May-2010 2:40:57
The difficulty is that the perfect tool doesn't exist.Basically Opera desktop is a design tool but Opera mini is a browser.Such duality is the strength and weakness of Opera.Millions of users for one,quantity of bugs for latest Desktop and poor performances for mobile.Mozilla offers a reference platform nothing else,if you want more :add ons like firebug equal of integrated dragonfly.Chrome is a copy,a xerox.The question seems to me where is the perfect strategy? But Opera widgets work now directly on computer Os without the browser and Unite allows to run "apps" at home in a local network making of each user a "webmaster".So.....
croquemitaine
13-May-2010 2:47:07
I'm back.....about pages not supported by Opera it's a fact.The fact of servers which don't recognize opera.It's easy to fix.A menu allows to be masked as FF or IE in the websites preferences menu.That easy.Works but not always like securised websites for fees payment,bank accounts,....
shadwolf
13-May-2010 19:15:41
I'm not hiding myself .... and at least someone will notice rebol language spying on my web browsing habit...

HUUUUM

Google Chrome is linked to g mail account and igoogle etc... for example you can synchronise you bookmarks in a second with that way...

I WANT THE WHOLE WORD KNOWS I'M A REBOLER !!!

thank you :)

shadwolf
13-May-2010 19:19:57
ok here are my serrious thoughts one the matter it's short...

Google Chrome -> Good memory management, fast display lot of CPU used for the same result most browser does..

Opera 10.51 -> Good Memory management, low cpu use, POOR HTML RENDERING, POOR SUPPORT OF SHOCKWAVE AND FLASH PLUGINS

appart that i like them all ... BUT THE BEST ONE WOULD BE A FULL REBOL/VID/AGG WEB BROWSER WAITHING 10K...

once again thank you for reading me :)

Leaf
15-May-2010 0:44:39
I use Opera but be prepared for: 1. rendering issues, cuz Opera's strict on rendering so IE-suited webpages don't do that well on it 2. it can hog up memory 3. the UI isn't that polished That said, the mouse-chords and "fast forward + password manager" button are extremely useful and what make me stick to the browser
Greg Schofield
27-May-2010 1:06:31
I think things should be seen in broader terms than just a browser to browser comparison. I like what Chrome OS is about and the chrome browser as the GUI port is no bad idea, especially for small devices.

I like the Andriod design principle being from small to big devices, rather tnan the other way round. I like minimalism. I especially like the potential of Native Client and for the life of me, between Chyenne and Rebol proper, I see lots of niches to fill.

Might not happen, and I don't likie everything about it, but I like enough about it to suggest that Chrome might have some future to it that is worth the shift and staying the course.

Not perfect by a long shot, but shows some real promise, especially in multi-threaded browser and the potential of sandboxing tabs (don't know how much has been actually implemented -- there are some not inconsequential bug issues).

Getting Rebol in on the act especially with the Andriod market taking off, might be worth a little privacy sacrafice -- using windows I assume everthing leaks like a sieve anyhow. That Chrome is opensource means that there is some real hope to plug holes -- how would anyone fixup a version of Opera?

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