Is Google-Chrome a totally CRAP browser?

[disciple]

Yeah, but a cache is a good thing unless you have a super fast internet connection and plenty of bandwidth.

[xman]

Problems with Chrome bookmarks I use site favicon images in Chrome 'Bookmarks Bar' for common sites, and normal bookmarks in 'Other Bookmarks' folder for rare sites. Very cool, I think

For example, three common site favicon images:

[DaveS]

DAMN... gone and got to like this damn browser now............. All I can see ahead of me is a world of pain over this 'root' thing

[alienjeff]

With it being produced by google and with no source code provided, makes me wonder what is actually in there (web tracking etc)

An interesting test would be to install it on a test box - not one's daily beater or production machine. Before opening the program, open a terminal and type: netstat -tuc

Set your desktop so you can see both the terminal and the instance of Chrome you will open.

Open Chrome but don't visit any websites - just let the browser sit there idle. Then keep an eye on the terminal to see if the output of "netstat -tuc" has changed. If Chrome "phones home" (or elsewhere), you should be able to see it in that terminal.

And report back here!

[disciple]

DAMN... gone and got to like this damn browser now............. All I can see ahead of me is a world of pain over this 'root' thing

Did you see this?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 637#532637

[DaveS]

DAMN... gone and got to like this damn browser now............. All I can see ahead of me is a world of pain over this 'root' thing

Did you see this?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 637#532637

Yes I did, but like Bert, also found it a bit intimidating. Seems a bit unreasonable to have to edit a binary just to get it to run. Presumably Iron will be the same.......
At present, I have some strange stuff going on. Installed from package manager in Spup (an earlier version), all ok, then overwrote the installation with latest version, and it runs as root just fine????????

[DM was on fire!]

I don't use Chrome/Chromium strictly based on the principle that anything you upload on it is Google's property. I'm curious to run it in Terminal and see what happens though.
I don't suppose running Opera is much better though, right? lol I remember forever ago it was in the nonfree repos on Ubuntu.

[d4p]

Chrome could replace the standard Firefox in the future

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/0 ... worth.html

[01micko]

I recently downloaded chromium-13.0.779.0-i686-3sl.txz Slackware package from slacky.eu (an unofficial Slackware repository) which is compiled and prepared in Slackware-13.37.

It does suffer from the 'run as root' thingy but if you read the error message then it says.. "to run as root, you must specify an alternate --user-data-dir for storage of profile information." I believe this is the exact same message in google-chrome.

This turns out to be a bonus for Puppy users as you can specify where ever you want to save the cache and all the other profile stuff... naturally I put mine outside my save file.

So .. what I did was write a very simple script to start chromium and it's been stable for a couple of days. (Cache is huge though! Will empty soon enough)

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
/usr/lib/chromium/chrome-wrapper --user-data-dir=/mnt/home/chromium

Name it 'start-chrome' or whatever and put in your executable PATH, adjust the DOTdesktop file to execute your script and you are away. No more silly 'root' message, and you can change the "--user-data-dir=" to where ever you want.

IIRC, playdayz discovered the command line option to set the cache size to a more manageable level, that could also be added to the script, I'll get back on that one.

This should be the same for all chromium based browsers, Iron included.
___

Ok, here's the option

Code: Select all

--disk-cache-size=${SIZE_IN_BYTES}

So now my script looks like this:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
/usr/lib/chromium/chrome-wrapper --user-data-dir=/mnt/home/chromium --disk-cache-size=20000000

That should give me a rough cache size of 20M. I'll let you know if it works!

[disciple]

I recently downloaded chromium-13.0.779.0-i686-3sl.txz Slackware package from slacky.eu (an unofficial Slackware repository) which is compiled and prepared in Slackware-13.37.

It does suffer from the 'run as root' thingy but if you read the error message then it says.. "to run as root, you must specify an alternate --user-data-dir for storage of profile information." I believe this is the exact same message in google-chrome.

Yeah, but sometimes it doesn't work. I don't know whether it is in certain versions or builds or what.

[disciple]

Chrome could replace the standard Firefox in the future

Eh? Are you saying that whatever Ubuntu uses is "standard"?

Shuttleworth expressed further admiration for Google's commitment to a computing future based entirely on the Web.

Aahhh!

[01micko]

Yeah, but sometimes it doesn't work. I don't know whether it is in certain versions or builds or what.

Hmmm.. must be a bug.. I just downloaded google-chrome latest stable and it started. I didn't specify anything just ran the exec. It's using /root/.cache. probably because of a previous chromium-11 install (the one DaveS refers to earlier in spup repo)

Also I see Bert's post has a link to the cache settings.

[DaveS]

I recently downloaded chromium-13.0.779.0-i686-3sl.txz Slackware package from slacky.eu (an unofficial Slackware repository) which is compiled and prepared in Slackware-13.37.

It does suffer from the 'run as root' thingy but if you read the error message then it says.. "to run as root, you must specify an alternate --user-data-dir for storage of profile information." I believe this is the exact same message in google-chrome.

Yeah, but sometimes it doesn't work. I don't know whether it is in certain versions or builds or what.

Tried the command line disk cache option for various installs and sizes over the last week and it never worked once! I think my syntax was ok, same as above anyway. One point,... cache size 0 = infinite in chrome world, so for 'effectively' being zero, it needs to be set to '1'.
I saw the error message and wondered about alternate file locations but could not get the syntax right, so on the face of it, this is a breakthrough for me... thanks Mick.

[disciple]

and it never worked once!

That's my experience as well.

I just downloaded google-chrome latest stable and it started. I didn't specify anything just ran the exec.

That must be a bug too Unless they have repented.

[DaveS]

Another small point... I am pretty sure that only the latest beta suggests using an alternate file location when not running as root. I dont think current stable error message says that, so this may be new....

[disciple]

The comments on the bug report I linked to in the other thread indicate that that is supposed to have been a feature for a long time, so I think the only thing that is new is telling you about it in the error message.

[DaveS]

Fresh install. With Google-chrome beta installed from the .deb, link executable to usr/bin, the syntax for the script is

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
google-chrome --user-data-dir=/mnt/home/chromium --disk-cache-size=20000000

Well it runs
Further testing tomorrow... patients waiting.. off to work

[fratermus]

And as everyone knows, browsers are all about bookmarks!

An odd claim. I've used browsers since Mosaic and don't remember anyone making (much less supporting) that claim before. *

One might make a counterclaim that browsers are "all about" fitting on a 1.44MB floppy; Opera used to be famous for this in the mid-90s.




* I do not subscribe to the theory that evidence is measured in exclamation points.

[alienjeff]

One might make a counterclaim that browsers are "all about" fitting on a 1.44MB floppy; Opera used to be famous for this in the mid-90s.

heh re: new millenium-speak "all about". When, like, you said "in the mid-90s", did you mean, like, um, back in the day?

</sarcasm>

More re: browser sizes:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 965964 Jun 6 00:00 /usr/bin/links
http://links.twibright.com/

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1193188 Jan 15 06:37 /usr/bin/w3m
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1132 Jan 15 06:37 /usr/bin/w3mman
http://w3m.sourceforge.net/

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1202448 May 23 14:23 /usr/bin/elinks
http://www.elinks.cz/

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1233360 Jan 30 09:54 /usr/bin/lynx
http://lynx.isc.org/

Dependencies for any of the above are minimal.

I'm not going to bother checking Seamonkey or Firefox, though the latter is the undisputed sweat hog of the lot. If xulrunner were a talk show hostess, it would make Oprah and Rosie look anorexic in comparison.

Never fear, though. The Cloud is going so solve all this browser bloat for us ...

I do not subscribe to the theory that evidence is measured in exclamation points.

Amen, brother.

[MikeF]

Hi all
I think that chrome is a fast easy to use browser but for me personally it has a few problems.
With it being produced by google and with no source code provided, makes me wonder what is actually in there (web tracking etc)
It is not as customizable as the Mozilla offerings with not as many useful add-ons
speed wise I am having great success with Firefox 7 (but again not the add-ons I want)
So its back to Firefox 4 which seems to have the speed and the ability to be customized to my needs.
Thanks for a great thread
Stripe (aka captain paranoia lol)

Pretty much my exact same issues.

Also, Chrome is going down the same fugly path as the new mobile wanna-be DE's like unity and gnome-shell. One feature that drives me nuts is the shared URL and search field. Bookmarking is a joke - no separators? Remove all buttons and panels. Hide everything . We know what is best for you. [channeling Steve Jobs].