Google Releases Chrome 4 Beta

Google Releases Chrome 4 Beta

on Nov 3rd 2009 with 69 comments

It’s amazing to see version four of a browser which has only been available for a little over a year. Compare that to Firefox, which took over six years to reach 3.6. Perhaps it’s just super smart marketing, or perhaps Chrome is putting an enormous amount of energy into the browser wars.

We’ve improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, as measured by Mozilla’s Dromeao DOM Core Tests, and by 400% since our first stable release.” – Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin

Scores

Windows Only

Expectedly, Google Chome 4 is currently only available for the Windows platform. Reports have come in that it works just fine with the latest release of Windows, despite the fact that it only specifies XP/Vista as being currently supported.

Download Google Chrome 4 Beta

But I’m a Mac!

In that case, you can still download and install the developer preview of Google Chrome for Mac.


 
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  • http://www.philohermans.com Philo

    Ill stick with FireFox and Safari :)

    • http://www.lewiverdatama.com Lewi Verdatama

      So do I.. FF and Safari.. the best :D

  • http://www.wdonline.com Jeremy McPeak

    I love Chrome. Minimal interface, quick response, and V-8 floats my boat. I’m glad Chrome hasn’t been thrown to the side like GTalk.

    • Michael

      Doesn’t it say Beta 4? Why is he saying it’s taken FF 6 years to get to 3.6? Chrome isn’t even at 1.0. Have you ever been to the internets before?

      • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
        Author

        Actually, you’re wrong Michael. Review the wiki.

      • Michael

        Even as – that still doesn’t mean Chrome has progressed quicker than Firefox, it just means they jump versions quite quickly. It’s google, things are in beta for years after they are released.

  • http://twitter.com/kevinquillen Kevin Quillen

    Chrome > Safari & Firefox.

    • Hoboe Doe

      Elaborate.

    • http://andrewdavid.nfshost.com Andrew-David

      Agreed.

    • Nori Silverrage

      I disagree, I would say Opera and Firefox > everything else.
      Why? Opera is fast (to start and load pages) and has pretty much everything you could want built in. Firefox is a little slower but it is very customizable and for a web dev you can’t beat Firebug (well Opera’s Dragonfly is nice too).
      Safari is just blah in my opinion. I could never see using as it has nothing on Opera or Firefox (might be slightly faster according to benchmarks, but the difference between 500ms and 400ms is hardly noticeable). Everyone know IE sucks… And chrome, well it isn’t too bad, but in the same vein as Safari is just doesn’t have much to offer, especially compared to Opera or Firefox. If it was between Safari or Chrome vs IE7/IE8 then I’d pick Safari or Chrome of course… But its not so I don’t.

  • http://www.seanpalladino.com Sean Palladino

    Google Chrome is improving very fast… but where’s the add-ons, like Adblock?

  • http://ackernaut.com Terry

    Wow. The guy in the video is totally boring. But the feature is great! May mean some competition for Yahoo!/Delicious.

  • http://vasili.duove.com/ Vasili

    The dog in the video is the best part. :P

    Just downloaded Chrome for my mac, going to play around with it later. :)

    • http://www.collinbrady.com Collin

      Yeah haha why the heck does he have the dog. I’m guessing that’s his shot at humor?

      Awesome product regardless

  • http://twitter.com/domicius domicius

    But I’m a Linux!
    GNU/Linux that is. What? Nobody sees me? How is that? :( (even though I know for a fact Google not only sees me but heavily uses me… oh well…)

    • http://fwebde.com/ Eric B.

      Same here. You have to search around a bit to get the developer preview for Linux. http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel

      • http://fwebde.com/ Eric B.

        Forgot to metion: It’s only for ubuntu and other Debian-based distros. I use Arch Linux, so it seems that I will have to wait :(

    • http://Gravitymad.com Travis

      My friend runs ubuntu and has chrome running perfectly on it. Search around. I’d be doing that if I wasn’t on osx :)

  • Kyle

    Nice dog…

  • Dan

    Chrome is cool for sure. But the most climactic point in the video was the sudden change to holding a dog, for no reason. hahaha – awesome and magical. lol

  • http://www.robindrost.nl Robin Drost

    Nice feature, but ill stick to firefox, like it way better then chrome because of all my addons installed ^^.

  • http://www.craniumdesigns.com Steve Davis

    Bookmark syncing has been a feature of Opera for over a year. Once again Opera comes up with a cool idea, and all the other browsers follow suit. Even if Opera doesn’t have much marketshare, they sure come out with all the cool ideas (tabs, speed dial, etc)

    • http://www.travellinglost.com/ Travel Photography

      But still, they don’t sell it properly. How did Firefox made so muh marketshare, even with Opera in the field?

      What about Opera Unite? A great idea which I didn’t hear about since it was launched. And seems to not been copied even.

      • Nori Silverrage

        Thats what I wonder. Opera has all the features of Firefox and many features you can only get with FF addons and yet it is behind even Safari as far as rankings. Doesn’t make sense considering it is such a nice browser.

  • http://www.myunv.com/ Sunny Singh

    Hmm, another feature that Firefox has had for years through add-ons. Google is so innovative, lol.

    Seriously though, it’s great having a feature like that built in but Chrome is simply not a Firefox killer and technically they shouldn’t be in “version 4″ yet. If Mozilla did the same thing, I’d be on “Firefox 12″ right now.

    • Matt

      Glad you make such a big deal over version numbering. In reality, version numbers mean jack. Different developers classify different periods to increment build numbers.

      Also, as for me, Chrome is doing everything better than Firefox can do. Pages render the way the standards say they should, it has better Javascript animation support, Javascript is faster, it places all tabs into their own processes, I mean, what’s not to love? Chrome is innovating ahead of Firefox, and it’s only been around for nearly a year.

      • http://www.myunv.com/ Sunny Singh

        Well this article mentioned how fast Chrome is already up to version 4, which kinda got me pissed so that’s what my deal was about.

        Chrome is becoming very innovative very fast, but it’s not anywhere near what Firefox can do, and most importantly what is being planned for future releases. I think what Chrome does best is help other browsers, which is what open-source is about. Firefox is implementing some Chrome-like features, which will make it a better browser.

        Different processes means it will run hell slow if you have like 10 tabs open or more. By animation support, I think you mean CSS3 which I agree, webkit is doing more than gecko so far but I’m not too worried about that, at least I can use border radius, shadow, font face, et

        I like Chrome, but I wouldn’t say that I love it. No addons means there’s no way I’ll be using it anytime soon. There are many built in features so simple as the right click menu that I prefer Firefox for. Also I have this thing about Google, but even so Chrome doesn’t feel right, especially developers and customization options.

        You should know that Chrome was very much based on Firefox, and had others to look up to to create their browser. Meaning, they weren’t exactly starting from scratch but the ideas and resources were already there.

  • Ben Carroll

    You want to know the best feature of Chrome 4? @font-face….

    YAPOOLAZA! All browsers now support @font-face!

    • http://soaringbirdenterprises.com Shawn Bird

      That truly is wonderful news, I have been eagerly awaiting the day I could use what I have been reading about all over the place without alienating 4% of the internet population.

  • Matthew

    Chrome needs firebug then maybe I’ll convert

    • Marcelo Kanzaki

      Thats the only reason every developer today is still using Firefox.

      • Mosselman

        Dumbest comment ever.

        Is it ‘the ONLY’ reason? Who are you to speak for me?

    • http://www.wdonline.com Jeremy McPeak

      Chrome uses Webkit’s Web Inspector, which I find to be better in some cases. It’s certainly not as easy to use as Firebug, but it gets the job done for the most part.

      • Pieter

        And the latest blog post on the webkit blog is about improvements to the webkit inspector which brings it even closer to or to some maybe better than firebug. I’m not sure whether Chrome includes these updates yet though.

  • Michael Khalilian

    Chrome just feels faster IMO. I switched from Firefox a couple of months ago.

  • grimdeath

    Been using Chrome since day one it released, I have found the occasional ache when a really cool extension comes out for Firefox but really all I need to do to quelch that is start up Chrome…in like half a second instead of the 10+ it sometimes seems to take Firefox (at work and home…not sure what the deal is with that).

    Obviously any good developer should have ALL browser to at least check their work in and there’s not a huge amount of difference from Chrome/Safari in terms of rendering if you want to lessen your work a bit.

    They DO have extensions and this beta adds in Googles bookmark sync. The extensions do not have as pretty of an interface YET but it’s there and the biggest request, ad block plus, is coming together. The sync is a bit different then Opera in that it is more of a push system, it’s nice you can also view your bookmarks in Google Docs (which I hope becomes a separate system). Why complain if they are not the first to use a feature…Opera also invented tabs and now all browser use it as well. Being a previous user of Opera I can tell you my reasons for both loving and hating it and why I dont use it anymore. They have great ideas but it just doesnt click like firefox/chrome did for me.

    Just take a step back and you can see the pieces of Google Chrome OS coming together heh.

  • http://cargocollective.com/scottlowe Scott

    Better add-on support is needed for sure!

    I’ve been using chrome for a while now and the only thing I miss about Fire Fox is a few add-ons. I do really miss them but the much faster chrome outweighs that just enough for me to keep using.

  • http://www.webcoursesbangkok.com Carl – Web Courses Bangkok

    Downloading now ) BUT PLEASE give us some addons

  • alan

    Weird post!
    If you are developer you will use FireFox ,WTF ,like I care about bookmarks!?
    also I don’t like the fact that google is taking over the internet!

    %hit on google!

    • http://listoric.deviantart.com Listoric

      If you care about bookmarks in FF, just use Foxmarks (or Xmarks how its called now). Love it :)

  • DVR

    I prefer chrome because of it’s light weight feel, it takes the focus of the browser interface and rather acts like a window for viewing websites, and it’s much much much much faster than firefox.

    But firefox and chrome is actualy able to render css properly, unlike that over-used over-weight under-performing IE6, 7, 8…. Just hope either firefox or chrome is able to become the standard preferred browser in EVERY household.

  • Mali

    hey…,it’s sad that chrome is working really well and therefore finds its users but you don’t have to be a believer in conspiracy theories to feel completely controlled by a billion dollar company that is leading the internet ad market. I refrain from chrome as well from IE.

    • Matt

      You are aware that the Mozilla corporation pulls around 80 million per year?

  • johnhydejr

    Who uses bookmarks now anyway? All i do is type in the first couple of letters of the subject of my site in the address bar and scroll down the pop down to it. Much easier than clicking on bookmark arrows and finding it. Tho i do have my 8 most used sites on the bookmark bar.

  • Ido Perlmuter

    So they call it Chrome 4, so what? The version number tells you nothing. Every project uses its own versioning system. Firefox can also raise the version number by one every release, it doesn’t mean anything.

  • http://martincohen.info/ Martin Cohen

    Now how amateur is it to compare version numbers? Or I’m missing a table which says that any browser of version 4 must contain prescribed set of features?

  • http://www.igraphika.com KevinPardo

    This feature already exists in the MobileMe account for the Mac users, with Safari’s bookmarks ;)

  • Daquan Wright

    Chrome seems to have some conflicts with Adobe Flash Player at times…other than that I love it.

  • David Ferguson

    I agree with wanting more addons for Chrome. I know its still in early phases and isn’t a fully matured product yet.. hasn’t been on the block for years like Firefox and such. That’s ok.. I’m not bashing Chrome at all, I’m just saying that until it gets a few more features I really want, I think I’m gonna stick to Firefox.

    And could they not have found someone else to do this video? I mean seriously… this guy was pitiful.

  • John Prince

    Erm, I don’t know if anybody noticed this… BUT opera has had the sync feature since version 9.5(2008), its called opera link and its even available on Opera mini…

    This is just my humble opinion but Chrome still has a long way to go in terms of extensibility and functionality… And it doesn’t hold a candle to Firefox or Opera in terms of user-centric interface design.

    Use a real Browser… not just the flavor of the week.

  • http://www.peewee1002.co.uk Peter Sawyer

    Am I the only person who uses Opera?

    Its fast and reliable.

    • Marcio Toledo

      Sometimes I feel the same way…
      opera rendering engine is so much fast (you press F5 and the screen doesn’t even flick) and dragonfly is much better than firebug.

      I like Google Chr, but for working and testing Opera is the best IMMO

  • Peter

    It’s obviously all about collection user-data -.-
    I stick to Firefox!

  • Marcelo Kanzaki

    @Mosselman loose the attitute man. I like Firefox too. I was just pointing at how slow it got.

  • Max

    the bookmark syncing is nicely handled in Firefox with Xmarks http://www.xmarks.com/

    • Max

      … and between PC/Mac, IE/Firefox/Chrome/Safari

  • http://Gravitymad.com Travis

    Here is something we can all agree on. It’s better than ie by a long shot! Chrome didn’t come out for developers attention. They released it to compete with an kill off ie6 :) go google!

  • http://www.aimonkey.com Waasys

    FF3 is enough for me, and everyone I now, nobody really needs a new browser

  • http://twitter.com/johandesilva Johan

    Chrome is not about adons. I use Chrome at home. I use Firefox at work.

  • Matt

    I love reading comments about “I won’t use browsers created by big corporations like Micro$oft/Apple/Opera/Google” (Dollar sign added to make me look more childish)

    FYI, the Mozilla corporation pulls about $80,000,000 per year in revenue/turnover. I don’t want to hear about Mozilla being the little guy.

  • http://turtleblog.co.uk Edd Turtle

    It works on Ubuntu Linux too – check out: http://www.turtleblog.co.uk/2009/09/google-chrome-on-ubuntu/

    It said it’s “unstable” but works great for me and has been for ages :) :)

  • http://twitter.com/phillysoul11 Phil D.

    chrome is much faster than any other browser I’ve used. Love it to death!
    one pet peeve. No “Set As Background” feature for my wallpapers :(
    I would love it if google got on that ;)

  • http://cowanlawfirm.com/ Seattle DUI lawyer/attorney

    I prefer Chrome over everything, though I’ve noticed a few times it has shut down on me randomly. Could very well be my computer or other factors, but I’ve got it on two different computers and it happens on both.

    Other than that one con, I like the skins (themes) better than the skins on firefox. It’s easier to use. Aesthetically pleasing as well.

  • http://www.webdesigners-hub.com Vijendra Mishra

    I’m currently using this browser but interface is not too appealing and websites faces a lots of problems on this particular browser…

  • oconn96

    Chrome also runs each tab as separate process so if one goes down it doesn’t kill the entire browser, just that tab. Also the ability to drag it to the side and split screen two windows.

  • TJ

    Screw Chrome… Netscape rulez!

  • Ted

    Wow. Chrome reaches Version 4 and still has less features than Firefox or Opera. No APNG support and no proper SVG support. Brilliant, Google, brilliant. You’re obviously following Microsoft’s lead and giving the middle finger to web developers! Bravo! // sarcasm