Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
This is gonna be pretty much a rant about my terrible experience with the so acclaimed Chrome, released yesterday.
As soon as I heard the “buzz” about the new browser, I was excited to have it installed as soon as possible. Yes, this kind of thing sounds like a great treat for us geeks IT Professionals.
Before I start to name things, it’s important to mention that Chrome can just be installed on Windows platform at this very moment. I’d say it’s not the most wise decision, but they should know what they’re doing at this moment!
Now back to my story:
The Deal:
I have three different operational systems at home. My living room’s computer is a Mac, so it runs MAC OSX, and I didn’t feel like installing Windows on it (why should I?), hence no Chrome .
The Flop:
Then I have my laptop, which happily runs Ubuntu on it, and I also didn’t feel like dual-booting any windows on that, also no Chrome then.
Well I then remembered that I have VMWare installed there, so I could benefit of my old Win XP Virtual box to get a taste of the latest technology in browsers.
Right, downloaded “the beast” and when trying to install:
“Error: Your system does not support Chrome’s installation”
Son of a b***h!
The Turn:
Time to go to the last resource. “The computer in the guest room”. Blow off the dust, find an UK to EU adaptor (think the other one I have is on the George Foreman) and fire up!
Got a whole bunch of %^&$£$^*&^%£$ and an annoying “dee” sound.
Ok, time to unscrew the side cover and check the ram memories, there must be something wrong with the memories. Last time I installed the wireless card and had problems on initialization. “Yes, it’s definitely the ram, I’ll… ahh screw it! I’m gonna go to sleep”
The River:
Right, nothing could go wrong, I arrive at the office, and before I even check my emails, I run to Google and finally download “the beast”. So far so good, looks like I ain’t even opening Firefox today, as people all over the world say they are doing “the switch”.
Double click on “ChromeSetup.exe”, nothing can go wrong now:
5 minutes past:
Yeah, it’s taking a little bit too long… Ops…. a new IE window tried to open. Weird, it’s not even my default browser.
Looks like I have a problem
I really thought it was strange when I downloaded the .exe in a blink of an eye, but didn’t really check the file size.
Right, so my fears have just come to reality, the file is just an executable (474 KB) downloading all the contents from Google’s website. The guys working for Google didn’t really think that in some companies (specially government ones), people need to access the internet (open world) via proxy. The smart developers write the program in such way that it will ask the user for login and password, or give ‘em the option to download a “standalone” version. Java updates also have two kinds of installation, “online” and “standalone”.
I’m not really sure, but I think Firefox also does that.While Chrome:
Error 0×80042197.
Something to do with my firewall, as their brilliant browser assumes that your proxy settings are related to your login on the network
The Verdict
Yes people, it’s been a real pain to install Chrome, and I think I’ll stick to Firefox for a while. It’s been very loyal to me along the past few years with all it’s plugins, dodgy updates and security flaws, but still, it’s the best browser I could ever find / live with.
Let’s hope for a better future, where software developers think about at least two or three options “outside of the box” and Tesco or Maynards sell winegums sorted by colours (I hate the yellows)
I really want to try it, but it seems such a shame to turn my back on firefox, it seems unfair that google wants to corner the browser market as well. Thankfully your attempts at installing chrome sound such a headache I might not bother… but if chrome is really as good as they say it is, loyalty will go out the window!
I think it’s rather unfair for you to criticize the Chrome browser itself when you’re having issues with the installer, not the actual program. Did you report you issues? They can’t fix something they don’t know is broken:
http://www.google.com/support/.....type=issue
Dude, you *do* realize that this is actually a *beta* release right?
So I believe the ‘Think before you release’ criticism doesn’t really hold up, see this a a version 0.2, a first introduction, this isn’t the full fledged release. And they are working on both Mac and Linux version, so for now, please bear with Google and save your rants for the actual 1.0 release…
Cheers
@Katie Some people say it’s better than Firefox, and if you look at the comic book, you’ll sure have a great impression. Or, will at least be very excited with what’s coming. seems to be a revolutionary thing, but unfortunately still on early beta.
@Nathan L I’m criticizing the software I downloaded, not as a piece of software, but the executable I received. The Chrome browser maybe be a great piece of software, but they did sin on the installer, which makes the software crap in my opinion.
@Roland I do realize that, and understand that early stages are always difficult and painful, but being a software developer myself, I know that there’s some standards that need to be taken into consideration before you actually release something. I guess I wouldn’t complain at all if it was an Alpha version, but being on beta, things change, and some of the minor "bugs" must have been sorted at this stage. I’ve been using Google and it’s tools for a long time now, and think Google tends to keep things on Beta for a rather long time. See GMAIL for example, it’s in Beta version since 2004, and I have my doubts that it’ll be changed in a near future. It’s so easy to keep something in beta and have the excuse "No complains, it’s beta".
On the other hand, it’s free and open source, and I do realize that if I’m not happy with it, I should just move to something else. Ditto
Well, the first two problems are just ‘why didn’t they do a synchronized release on all major platforms?’ – I’d say a significant reason is that Linux and Mac users already use ‘standards supportive’ browsers. Also the feature gap is far smaller (it’s going to be a hard-sell to get me to use Chrome over Safari 4).
Anyway, on the install problems – my understanding is that it is pretty much crucial to the concept of Chrome as a product that it can update itself without user intervention – for rolling our security updates, and of course, changes that make Google Apps work better with Chrome (no version fragmentation).
I also remember that the Safari Beta on Windows had problems with specific proxy servers (I couldn’t get out of our Intranet until the third release) – and indeed auto-update doesn’t work as our IT department won’t open itself to any update servers (MS, Apple, or Sun). We do everything the standalone install way. And like the majority of places that use proxy servers we also prevent users downloading any executable files through the server.
It’s so fast, makes our website searching super fast. still on firefox for now (fireftp is too integral for the moment), but i reckon this is the future !
@Katie glad to hear your feedback on that. I guess I’ll need to try it again today when i get back home!
Yup. And don’t forget installing latest updates from MS on your old, dusted XP machine.
BTW: it works great on Vista but I’m impressed with IE8b2 more at the moment. I’m using safair, opera, firefox and ie for testing my projects. I don’t really see the point of having 5th browser installed even if it is hell fast.
"I don’t really see the point of having 5th browser installed even if it is hell fast. "
Same here up to know. Almost 48 hours without even having had a look at Chrome