Google Chrome to come with Sony laptops

http://www.news.com.au/technology/st...014239,00.html

GOOGLE has struck a deal to include its Chrome web browser with Sony computers, the first of its kind for the search giant.

The deal could expand the reach of Google's fledgling browser which lags behind Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox in market share.

Google spokesperson Eitan Bencuya said the deal with Sony would go into effect this summer, but declined to discuss specifics.

Google said the company was exploring ways to make Chrome accessible to more people.

"We are in the process of testing one such channel with Sony," it said.

The deal with Sony was first reported by the Financial Times.

Sony trails computer giants like Hewlett-Packard Company and Dell in terms of sales, failing to rank in the top five vendors by worldwide shipments in the second quarter, according to research firm IDC.

But Mr Bencuya said Google was looking at striking similar deals with other computer makers as well.

Google introduced Chrome in September 2008 and remains a distant number four player in the browser market, with a 2.59 per cent worldwide share in July according to market research firm Net Applications.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominates the browser market with 67.7 per cent, followed by Mozilla Firefox with 22.5 per cent and Apple Safari with 4 per cent.

[clearer]

Google introduced Chrome in September 2008 and remains a distant number four player in the browser market, with a 2.59 per cent worldwide share in July according to market research firm Net Applications.

It's sad that the fourth rated browser only has a measly 2.59% (which seems oddly accurate) of the total userbase. Then again, they could just get their arses off and release it for non-windows users.

Chrome i dont think is good enough to be a contender to firefox an IE. sure Chrome is fast at the moment but it also lacks features that firefox has which would make chrome fast. Chrome IMO is going to be for people that have low end computers, this Deal with Sony will help Google spread Chrome around but at the end of the day how many people will end up using chrome on there Sony Vaio when there' is firefox thats feature complete or even Opera

[YeOK]

Chromium is now my default browser, I have ad block working which even has a user script (grease monkey) to remove the now blank spaces. Flash works well, in fact, it handles flash in a much better way than Firefox.

Pages load quick, Slashdot in Firefox for example is painful, clicking each story produces a delay yet in chromium its instant, chromium also makes the loading more stories instant (scroll to end of page), its just a better browser on JavaScript heavy sites. It has issues too, missing a few settings, some JavaScript is plain broken (light box picture preview).

windows Chrome is fast but as i said above it lacks features that one needs, i dislike the way they have done Themes, it sucks. i think Chrome has a long way to go before it starts to make people think twice about using firefox.

i thik also, Google should have made google Chrome a Open Source browser only for the open source community ( linux ) by having it for bothj platforms they tend to lose concentration on the browser an or needs. look at firefox for example its not a Great browser they should of only had Mozilla in Linux an forgotten windows people all together an concentrated on fixing bugs in the linux client an not all 3 or 4 client platforms.

[billy123]

Originally Posted by YeOK

Chromium is now my default browser, I have ad block working which even has a user script (grease monkey) to remove the now blank spaces. Flash works well, in fact, it handles flash in a much better way than Firefox.

Pages load quick, Slashdot in Firefox for example is painful, clicking each story produces a delay yet in chromium its instant, chromium also makes the loading more stories instant (scroll to end of page), its just a better browser on JavaScript heavy sites. It has issues too, missing a few settings, some JavaScript is plain broken (light box picture preview).

I tried using Chromium as my default , because I loved the speed, but the font rendering is rather bad. I have enabled subpixel smoothing, and though Chromium is showing antialiased fonts they are a little 'stretched' out vertically and nowhere close to rendering on Opera or Firefox. Its been discussed on this bug report http://code.google.com/p/chromium/is...etail?id=13185 .

[clearer]

Originally Posted by Demz

Chrome i dont think is good enough to be a contender to firefox an IE. sure Chrome is fast at the moment but it also lacks features that firefox has which would make chrome fast. Chrome IMO is going to be for people that have low end computers, this Deal with Sony will help Google spread Chrome around but at the end of the day how many people will end up using chrome on there Sony Vaio when there' is firefox thats feature complete or even Opera

What features? IE "features" are almost non-existant and firefox only has the one really important feature that it allows addons to change just about anything on a page -- afaik chrome does that too. On top of that it is a lot lighter (which matters to me on my 5 GiB RAM buffed 2.2GHz dual core machine, because it is important no-matter what machine you have). Chrome doesn't crash (most of the time) when a plugin or addon crashes and if a tab dies, the browser doesn't. Those features are features that are -extremly- usefull to anyone doing anything with a browser. Considering that Adobes flash plugin is directly responsible for about 25% of all firefox crashes (i.e. a plugin is the problem, not the browser itself) should make it clear that the chrome model of seperating plugins and tabs (and tabs and browser) is the better way to go.

well when you look at it, i think even Epiphany will be even better browser in linux than firefox or chrome since it now uses webkit

[YeOK]

Originally Posted by billy123

I tried using Chromium as my default , because I loved the speed, but the font rendering is rather bad. I have enabled subpixel smoothing, and though Chromium is showing antialiased fonts they are a little 'stretched' out vertically and nowhere close to rendering on Opera or Firefox. Its been discussed on this bug report http://code.google.com/p/chromium/is...etail?id=13185 .

I only notice the fonts on larger text, so its not been a deal breaker for me. As I said Chromium has a number of bugs / missing features, so its not for everyone.