back to article Chrome 9 debuts with WebGL, app store, instant annoyance

Google has released a ninth version of its Chrome browser, rolling in the WebGL standard for 3D hardware acceleration, the new Chrome Web Store, and Chrome Instant, a tool that loads web pages as soon as you start typing into the browser's address bar. But Google doesn't really refer to Chrome 9 as Chrome 9. Now that it's …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Am I getting it wrong or is instant load a security issue ?

    let's say I am slowly typing:

    www.myGoodObscureSite.com

    and the browser out guesses me & downloads:

    wwww.myGoodObsureSiteNOT.com (evil site, but currently more popular than my obscure site by forum poisoning etc).

    I hope I misunderstood something here.

    1. Gold Soundz

      Not how it works

      Having tested it, the instant URL completion/load doesn't work quite the same as instant search, it appears to only complete the URL you're typing and load a page instantly if you've visited it before.

      When you type a URL you do get a list of suggestions, scrolling through them will load those pages instantly.

  2. DrXym

    Something up with the printer

    I try and print a page in Chrome and it says "no printer found" despite it working properly in other browsers. And no print preview either. I welcome an update but I wonder why some of the basics are still getting such short shrift.

    1. Stephen Stagg

      @ Printer problems

      Did you file a bug? what was the response? Printing works in the majority of Chrome installs, so your experiences will be useful to the chrome team

      1. DrXym

        Stephen Stagg

        It appears to be this problem - http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=20135

    2. xenny

      Print Preview

      If you go to about:flags, there's an experimental print preview that may be useful.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Go

        re: about: flags

        Oh thank you very much. I was wondering if there was anything remotely similar to about:config on the 'fox. Plus the lack of print preview still bugs me, since some sites (specially online banking) give you no choice of priting or generating PDFs of transactions made.

        You know, if your banking account gets borked, you can prove some operation was made... like paying your 'leccy bill and your power gets cut (is that my UPS beeping?)... because if it is written in paper, it must be true.

    3. Tom 35

      Maybe they want you to wait until

      Google Cloud Print is ready to go... :P

    4. DrXym

      Finally got it working

      After a reboot it is working. No other app was having a problem seeing the printers, Chrome point blank failed to acknowledge there were any at all. Maybe it's something to do with the upgrade process or W7 but a reboot appears to have corrected it.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Chrome is the man!

    Chrome is pretty damm good.

    The only thing missing is print preview.

    Silverlight would be good as well.

    1. MikeSM
      Thumb Up

      see above

      As noted above, there is a "beta" print preview option available by entering "about:flags" in to your address bar. Also Silverlight is definitely available for Chrome with native support. I use it to stream Netflix every day.

  4. jamie 5

    @DrXym

    Try making sure that your default windows printer is a local one, and not a network printer.

    I had this issue on chrome builds going back to 6.x

    In other news, have they broken H264 on this version? If so I'm not upgrading.

  5. DEAD4EVER
    Go

    chrome 9

    just got the update works a charm now seems to run alot faster nice one google keep it up ive been with chrome for a few months and im perfectly happy with it. much better than firefox or ie put together

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Annoyance is right

    I hate the new app store. Saw it in Chromium 8 (the open-source version of Chrome) when I went looking for AdBlock. Screw that. Back to Firefox.

    Anyone know if there's an option to disable Instant Search from the address bar... or do you need an app for that?

    1. Gold Soundz

      Yes...

      Preferences > uncheck: Enable Instant faster searching.

  7. TonyHoyle

    Luckily, off by default

    Instant is off by default, and thank $DEITY it is, because it's downright broken IMO.. it literally tries to load every character you type.. so if you want www.mysite.com

    www -> loads google (chrome has always done this for me)

    www.m -> error page saying 'www.m does not exist'

    www.my -> error page saying 'www.my does not exist'

    ... etc..

    www.mysite.co -> error page saying 'www.mysite.co does not exist'

    www.mysite.com -> page appears

    Totaly stupid.

    Luckily I'm not in the US so none of the 'fun' of yet-another-appstore.

  8. Deadly_NZ
    Thumb Down

    And as usual

    There's No AD Block, No Script, or Flashblock. 3 of my essentials for browsing oh yes and any thing to keep google out as much as possible.

    No thanx I'll stick to FF thank you

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      WTF?

      2 out of 3 ain't bad

      I've got Adblock and Flashblock on my Chrome install - they're quite easy to find...

    2. MikeSM
      WTF?

      Where did you get your information?

      Upon automatically upgrading to Chrome v9 all of my extensions continued to operate perfectly:

      AdBlock - Version: 2.2.29

      FlashBlock - Version: 0.9.31

      NotScripts - Version: 0.9.6

      Keep My Opt-Outs - Version: 1.0.10

    3. Gold Soundz

      Wut?

      They're in the Chrome extensions browser :/

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still No Color Management

    Firefox does color management. IE9 does color management. When will Chrome get it done? If you use a wide gamut color monitor, as many photographers do, Chrome gets the colors wrong. Can't use it for critical image evaluation.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Why?

      Why are you using a *browser* for critical image evaluation, and not a package designed for the task (rather than, you know, a *browser*?)

      1. magnetik

        Re: Why?

        Maybe he / she is previewing images on stock photo sites before buying?

        As someone who sells photos I find it a bit annoying that potential buyers might discard my images because the colours are rendered wrong when they are viewing them.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 23:40

    Yes, I'm afraid you have misunderstood something. As the article says "sites you frequently visit", with the emphasis on the "you". Much like the auto-completion pretty much every browser has for URIs.

    HTH, HAND, etc.

  11. emgarf
    FAIL

    Bookmark sidebar/pane?

    Has Google figured out how to offer the option of a persistent bookmark sidebar/pane in Chrome yet? Until they do... fail.

  12. Spanners Silver badge

    Will keep an eye on it

    It will never be my main browser until it gets Flashblock or equivalent. I don't see that coming soon.

    Xmarks would be nice too.

    1. Joe Montana
      WTF?

      Flashblock?

      // It will never be my main browser until it gets Flashblock or equivalent. I don't see that coming soon.

      You mean like this:

      http://www.chromeextensions.org/appearance-functioning/flashblock/

    2. MikeSM

      Have you even looked at the extension gallery?

      Flashblock: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoiabjplobcaignabnl

      Xmarks: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ajpgkpeckebdhofmmjfgcjjiiejpodla

    3. TonyHoyle

      @Will keep an eye on it

      So it's your main browser then? Because it's had both of these for ages.

  13. HMB

    My favourite browser, but not perfect.

    Chrome is my favourite browser and I've tried all the big ones, Firefox, Safari & Opera.

    It's a bit disappointing that rotated images still have jagged edges, or that after the IE Test drive site having the flickr post card demo for so many months...

    http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/Transform2D/Default.html

    Chrome still does a bad job of rendering it. (It's standards compliant, Firefox does it fine, just Chrome making a hash of it)

    I'll be watching IE9 and Chrome with great interest.

  14. TonyHoyle

    That flickr demo looks fine

    Not sure what you think is so bad about it.. Works fine here. Maybe your chrome is out of date?

    1. HMB

      Not noticed these flaws then?

      1) The inset image on a rotated element has jagged edges. Anti aliasing has failed to occur. This works properly in Firefox 3.6, IE9 PP7, Safari 5 and Opera 11 (all tested on Windows). This affects the latest Chrome 11 canary build as of writing. (Chromium Issue 36,902)

      2) The inset image (when hovered) despite having a high resolution is blurry (it looks like the image was scaled down for main display, then the scaled down image scaled up for the CSS transform, instead of rescaling from source). This has been fixed in Chrome 10 I think, definitely by 11. This works properly in Firefox 3.6, IE9 PP7, Safari 5 and Opera 11 (all tested on Windows).

      3) The z-ordering is wrong. If you make a few flickr postcards pop up and then go back, things overlap where they should not. This works properly in Firefox 3.6, IE9 PP7 and Opera 11 (all tested on Windows). Safari 5 is a lot better but not perfect (some small text has incorrect z-order but rest is fine). I think it is a web kit issue here.

      I even tested the Ubuntu version of Chrome and it made the same mistakes. I must stress I do love Chrome, I pay particular attention to these issues hoping every time canary gets updated that the rendering issues have been resolved.

      All I can say is it's a good job I am not employing you to do website testing :P

  15. John Tserkezis

    "Printing works in the majority of Chrome installs"

    Really? "majority"?

    They're going to have to do better than that if they expect anyone to actually use it.

    1. Luiz Abdala
      Coat

      re: "Printing works in the majority of Chrome installs" #2

      Oh, so I'm not in the majority, because the print preview is still a no-go. I tried to preview yours truly El Reg forum page, and... it shows a lateral tab with printing settings, but in the main window... a whole lot of nothing is visible.

      Curiously it showed the word MAIN greyed out, as if it was "behind" the page.

      BTW, now that Google can handle PDFs natively, (or appear to do so) what about using that capability to advantage on print previews? No wonder it is in ALPHA stage, and it could "blow in my face".

      I'll get back when they fix it. And where the hell is my coat?

      PS. Anyone even mentioning IE tabs for Chrome as viable will be downvoted.

  16. petrosy
    Thumb Up

    Chrome is awesome

    I love Chrome and the new webapp store is wonderful.

    I suggest giving it a try. As for people who moan about the functionailty etc... simple solution.

    Don't use it stick with your IE and FF if that is what makes you happy.

  17. Brian Scott

    Installation still broken?

    I presume the installer is still incapable of working if you're behind a proxy. When I've tried to install it on a work machine, the little installer would immediately die because it was incapable of navigating a proxy server (presumably to keep the installer very small). The only option has been to try to find the download that the installer downloads and bring it down manually. A task that google appeared to definitely discourage.

    A lot of work and enough to make me think that it isn't a good fit in a business environment.

    Then again, I gave up trying back at about version 3 or so.

    1. Test Man
      Stop

      Google didn't discourage it very well...

      You can download it using this URL

      http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/597.84/chrome_installer.exe

      Just replace the numbers with the figures from the last two sequenced-based identifiers (e.g. for the latest release, use 597.84 taken from 9.0.597.84)

    2. Richard Gadsden 1

      MSI download

      Why don't you just use the MSI download from http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/chromebrowser.html then? That's a much better option for a corporate environment.

  18. Joe Burmeister

    I don't hear any complaints about Linux 3D drivers......

    So what's going on? I thought it was the WebGL stuff causing FireFox4 issues on Linux. Does Chrome 9 manage WebGL on Linux without a problem? Maybe Firefox could copy the Chrome code. ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Linux 3D drivers

      You're right, Joe. The MESA drivers stink. Try running valgrind on an OpenGL program, and you'll see all kinds of pointer glitches in the GL/MESA libraries (which are the user-side parts of the drivers)... especially in ATI drivers. I finally gave up on that one and bought on NVidia card so I can use their proprietary driver. I've had better luck with Intel drivers but their GPUs are pretty basic.

      There's one hopeful possibility -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (= WebGL) drivers should be easier to develop than full-scale OpenGL. I suspect that application developers would happily give up the latter if there were solid drivers for the former. I certainly would.

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