Google rockets to Chrome 4 beta

Version numbers

Clearly they are trying to get new users on board by constantly changing the version numbers. Add a new feature and add a +1 to the release version is the policy with Google. As the article states it took Mozilla 7 years to reach version 3.6 and Google a year and a bit to version 4. It's a good thing the browser is free!

By vikarmo on 3 Nov 2009

And Opera has had support for synchronization for years now (Opera Link), only it isn't restricted to synchronizing bookmarks, but history and custom searches among other things too, even between the different versions of its browser (mobile, desktop).

I find it amazing that Opera, as solid a browser product as any other and a pioneer of a lot of browser ideas like this one, is consistently omitted in news reporting, not only here but elsewhere too. Why is that?

By Woudenberg on 3 Nov 2009

I find it surprising as well. Opera's Speed Dial is far superior to any similar offering from other browsers, while Chrome's clone was infuriating to start with (the pages I want always there on my front page are not always the ones I visit most for example). It might have a small market share but it's a strong product nevertheless.

By Josefov on 3 Nov 2009

Re: Opera

Because it has an almost insignificant share of the browser market.

By Bassey1976 on 3 Nov 2009

How is that relevant in this context? We're talking about browser features, surely the amount of 'muscle' a browser has matters in that context, not the amount of users? When it comes to the former Opera can comfortably play along with 'the big guys'. And when it when it never gets credit where credit is due, then it will have a hard time improving on the latter.

By Woudenberg on 3 Nov 2009

News?

I use Filehippo.com for my main freeware updates and was surprised to see this story. Why? As the first version 4 of Chrome was released back in August, and my wife has been running it on her Vista laptop since then, as her default browser. I would use it on Windows 7, but I've not found a compelling reason to switch from Firefox!

A look here will show that there have been at least 13 releases of 4.0.x Chrome since August:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_chrome/te
ch/6044/

So, again, why only now is this news?

By BlueLeader on 3 Nov 2009

This time next year

... will people be bothered if Chrome is 40? while IE is 8 and FF might be 4? I don't really think so, maybe they just want to catch up on the trend of being '7'? Or better still maybe they'll use letters or roman numerals or even beta (pun intended) they'll call it other names like 'Chrome - Silver Monkey' or something more witty

By nicomo on 3 Nov 2009

Personally I'm not too impressed with bookmark syncing as such. I've used Mozilla Weave for several months and the history syncing is the killer feature. Passwords and Form Field sync is useful too, though I had to be impressed Weave's encrypted storage infrastructure to be fully convinced. In fact I've switched the bookmark option off, as delicious serves my needs far better. So in summary, if Google took syncing to the next level, not just bookmarks, I'd switch in a snap.

By c6ten on 3 Nov 2009