Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Desktops (Apple) Google Upgrades Windows Linux

Google Releases Chrome 5.0 For Win/Mac/Linux 347

ddfall writes "Four months after the release of version 4.0 for Windows, Google has announced the availability of Chrome 5.0 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux — the first stable release to be available on all three major platforms. Chrome 5.0.375.55 is available to download from google.com/chrome. Users who currently have Chrome installed can use the built-in update function."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Google Releases Chrome 5.0 For Win/Mac/Linux

Comments Filter:
  • by microbee ( 682094 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:16PM (#32340740)

    Just look at the version numbers. It's already 5! On the contrary Firefox is still lagging behind with 3.6.

  • Sweet... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ak_hepcat ( 468765 ) <slashdot@akhepc[ ]com ['at.' in gap]> on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:18PM (#32340752) Homepage Journal

    Maybe now they'll "officially" release Android 2.2 with chrome built-in...

  • yay? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:19PM (#32340770)

    I used to be looking forward to this day; I used Chrome until the day my http:// disappeared. Due to that, I'm sticking with Firefox.

    • by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

      Explanation please?

    • Re:yay? (Score:4, Informative)

      by yelvington ( 8169 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:24PM (#32340874) Homepage

      In 5.0.375.55 the protocol appears to be back in the location bar, at least on Linux.

      • by ElKry ( 1544795 )
        It's not there on 6.0.408.1 on Mac, so I wouldn't expect it to be around in the future.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          your looking a beta/dev versions. They are still trying things out there. They make it to beta or not based on feedback.

    • Re:yay? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:40PM (#32341064) Homepage Journal

      Parent is not a troll. It's a valid complaint. Displaying the entire URL, including the protocol, is absolutely the standard and should remain that way.

      • by Nimey ( 114278 )

        Why? Should you need to copy-paste a URL or part of one from the address bar it'll Do The Right Thing and pre-pend http:/// [http] to it.

        I can't see much use for showing the protocol for most people otherwise.

        • Re:yay? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MichaelJ ( 140077 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:50PM (#32341212)
          So if I copy all but the first character, I get exactly what I copied, but if I copy the first character it prepends the protocol to the front on the clipboard? That's incredibly inconsistent. I should have control over whether or not I get the protocol when I copy, and that control should be the extent of my selection.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by jensen404 ( 717086 )
            You have to copy at least apple.slashdot.org for the 'http://' to appear. Copying just the first character will not add the 'http://'
        • Re:yay? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:53PM (#32341262) Homepage Journal

          Because users who want to know what their browser is doing want to see it, that's why. No other justification is needed.

          One of the commenters on the CNET story on the issue compared it to the Windows practice of hiding file extensions, which is a good analogy. We know how well that worked out (click here on mysterious_attachment.doc{.exe} and see what happens!) Sure, the protocol name may be gabble to most users, but at least the information's there, right out front. And occasionally it even leads them to educate themselves, asking a more technically knowledgeable friend, "What is that http thing, anyway?"

          • by Nimey ( 114278 )

            I just don't see that it's a big deal, and I'm a rather technical user who's been known to copy-paste urls on a regular basis.

            Your extension-hiding analogy is flawed. To be closer to the security-threat that is hidden extensions, you'd need a browser that hides .com and other TLDs in URLs. That would be seriously sub-optimal - "hey, does slashdot/user.pl go to the real site, or slashdot.ru?"

            http is the only hidden protocol that I've noticed, which is fine because it's the most common, so you'll know thing

            • by unix1 ( 1667411 )

              It's inconsistent UI on 2 counts:

              1. Copying to clipboard:
              - selecting the whole URL prepends http:/// [http] in front in the clipboard (expected behavior would be to only copy what is being selected)
              - it is impossible to copy the full URL without the protocol
              - selecting part of the URL only copies the selected part (which is expected), unless you select just the domain part, in which case it prepends http:/// [http] again

              2. Protocol display: Chrome will display https, file, ftp, and whatever protocols it does/will support

          • Re:yay? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by shish ( 588640 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @05:37PM (#32342500) Homepage

            Because users who want to know what their browser is doing want to see it, that's why.

            That's a pretty small minority -- I've actually seen more people at the other end of the scale, where they don't know what the URL display is at all. If they want to eg check their yahoo mail, they don't go to the URL box and type "mail.yahoo.com", they go to the search box, type "google", search (using google) to find google, click on the first result to get to the google home page, then type "yahoo mail" into that box, search, and click the first result there...

            (This is what happens when we train people to follow patterns with no understanding of how it actually works :( )

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Even if you use X's built in auto-copy (and middle mouse button to paste)?

      • this is legit why, exactly?

        you can enter any link with or without http and it will still open just fine, since we have that good ole dns thing.

        Meanwhile, people don't even understand "slash slash" because they're computer retarded. this just makes it a little easier. You say "go to google", they type in google and hit enter.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by agent_vee ( 1801664 )
        When you type in a URL directly to the address bar do you input "http://www.slashdot.org" or "www.slashdot.org"? Personally I think it's fine to leave out http and only display the protocol if it is different like https, ftp, etc... Of course I have updated to the latest version of Chrome and STILL see the http in the address bar so I don't even know what the fuss is all about.
    • Re:yay? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:52PM (#32341254) Journal

      Heh. I didn't even realize that. The funny thing is, I have no idea how to upgrade anyway. They don't have the usual File/Edit/View menus. There's just a wrench icon, and it doesn't appear to have any updater under its menu hierarchy.

      Googling around (heheh) I found out they left out the F/E/V on purpose. That might make sense for mobile, but I'm using a nice wide LCD with more screen real estate than you can shake a stick at. Without F/E/V I feel like I'm subject to somebody's vision of "clean minimalist design" where they thought they knew what was best for the user. For cryin' out loud, if I wanted to use a Mac I'd already be using one. Hey... maybe it'll automaticly upgrade to 6.0 if I throw it in the recycling bin... no, wait... AHA! The updater is in the "About Chrome" thingy.

      Oh sure, bury the updater in the widget that usually just shows copyright info. That's, just... wonderful. To be fair though, interfaces to updaters aren't quite as standard as F/E/V.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by vitaflo ( 20507 )

        "Without F/E/V I feel like I'm subject to somebody's vision of "clean minimalist design" where they thought they knew what was best for the user. For cryin' out loud, if I wanted to use a Mac I'd already be using one."

        FWIW, the Mac version of Chrome *does* have File/Edit/View still in the menubar (working as expected), and does not hide http:/// [http] or in any other way mangle your copying of urls.

  • Chome 6 (Score:5, Funny)

    by jbeaupre ( 752124 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:21PM (#32340806)
    I'm waiting for Chrome 6 ... only because I like the sound of hexavalent chromium.
  • by jaavaaguru ( 261551 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:23PM (#32340848) Homepage

    Why would I download Chrome when I already have Chromium which gets updated automatically by Update Manager, remaining consistent with everything else on my laptop?

    • by jimicus ( 737525 )

      That's very nice for you, but neither Windows nor OS X allow third-party applications to be updated via the built-in updater.

      (Actually, that's not strictly true, I believe there was talk of Microsoft allowing it in Windows but I don't know of many applications taking advantage of that).

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @04:56PM (#32342108)

      Installing Chrome .deb will neatly add "http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable main" to the list of software sources. This will give you automatic updates.

  • stable? (Score:3, Informative)

    by nnet ( 20306 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:28PM (#32340910) Journal
    Stable? Still says beta.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:28PM (#32340912)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:32PM (#32340960) Homepage

      Why not go with Chromium?

    • I can appreciate this concern and would suggest that there's a middle ground: It is possible to monitor your network traffic and setup firewall rules to stop this sort of thing if you're that concerned. I do this myself from time to time and am always surprised at what I see going back to the mother ship at <INSERT VENDOR X HERE>. It's not just Google you should worry about.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      which saps my bandwidth on the backend to report my surfing habits back to google.

      The whole german wifi debacle is making this company just as hot to handle as facebook.

      Several points...
      1) If you want to eliminate the "phone home", you can do so very easily under options-->under the hood. Uncheck the top 5 boxes; now your data is secure. This is what I did on a live-boot cd where CPU and bandwidth are at a premium.

      2) If you do not feel you can trust that it isnt communicating, you can actually VERIFY that, either through about:net-internals, or wireshark, or netstat, or router logs. Not to mention most of the source is actually AVAILABLE....

      3) Google as a whole

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        Not to mention most of the source is actually AVAILABLE....

        It's the pieces for which source isn't available that worries me.
        I mean, would you eat at a place that said "90% of our food is bought from trusted sources"?

  • Sidebars? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by simp ( 25997 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:34PM (#32340982)

    Does Chrome now support a bookmark sidebar? With the wide-screen TFTs everywhere these days a bookmark sidebar has become a must-have for me. I cannot stand bookmark pull-down menus. And to make things worse Chrome has put the default Bookmark menu in the upper- right hand corner of the screen, which for some reason is a place of the screen where my cursor never is.

  • If I can't load NoScript, AdBlock, etc (or at least disable scripts on a per-site level) then no thanks.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by The MAZZTer ( 911996 )

      Extensions have been in place since 4.0 or 4.1 or something. Unfortunately there are no APIs for PROPER blocking of resources (ie stopping Chrome from fetching them) but there are already extensions that can at least remove them from the DOM while the page is loading. My favorite is AdBlock [google.com].

      As for NoScript, Chrome has "lite" functionality built in. You can use Options > Under the Hood > Content Settings to turn off JavaScript and Plugins and then whitelist individual sites when the icons pop up on

    • Chrome has many extensions and yes Adblock. However Adblock only removes the display of ads. It does not prevent downloading of the ad. So you may not see the ad, but it is still downloading, eating bandwidth and making money for whoever has ads on their site.

      Firefox adblock is far better.

      But I do like Chrome. Its fast, and the ui is nice.

      I make good use of the sync bookmark feature. I like it.

      Just wish it wasnt so nosey, and spywareish.

  • Why is this under the Apple topic? There is a Google topic!

  • Hopefully this version will allow development of a potent ad blocker like the famous Firefox addon. Apparently the only thing limiting it from happening is the implementation of content policies in Chrome.
  • Did you just do that to taunt Google? Or slashdot turning into Gizmodo? ;)

  • by FunkyELF ( 609131 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @04:07PM (#32341470)

    I'll keep using Firefox as it is actually possible to download and install it.
    Since the day Google released Chrome you haven't been able to install their crappy 550k installer if you're behind a proxy.

  • I installed a dev channel version a while back and didn't even realize it has been silently upgrading.

    I only found out when I read this story and checked my version and found out it was 6.0.408.

    Now I have to figure out how to stop that...

  • ...where is Print Preview?

  • by Eil ( 82413 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @08:49PM (#32344054) Homepage Journal

    I'll switch to Chrome the day it can support a plugin which can block the downloading of ads and other unwanted content, not just hide them with a bit of CSS and Javascript.

    (An adblocking proxy isn't a viable solution for me.)

As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one. -- Dave "First Strike" Pare

Working...