5 ms·

Happy third birthday, Chrome

40 points by Uncle_Sam 15y ago

marcamillion 15y ago
Has it been 3 years already? Seems like just the other day.
- kmm 15y ago
  I've got the opposite feeling. Only three years and so much has happened.
  - marcamillion 15y ago
    Well, I guess it's two sides to the same coin. I meant, wow...it's been 3 years already, it has flown fast - because they have done so much.
callahad 15y ago
If you click on the browsers in the lefthand pane, you get a series of screenshots for each major release of each browser. It's really quite nice. But you know what's better? The upper corners of the screenshots are sensitive to clicks, so you can actually close the screenshot by clicking on the appropriate native widget in the screenshot.
- jamesgeck0 15y ago
  Which means clicking on the maximize button in the Windows 3.1 screenshots.
  - callahad 15y ago
    Both of the upper corners are active, so you can also click on the... the other side. What's the name for the [-] widget on the left? The one you could double click to close the window?
    - duncans 15y ago
      The Control Menu.
funksta 15y ago
My hat is off to Google; the progress they have made with Chrome (in terms of both marketshare and features/performance) in just 3 years is remarkable. Chrome has greatly increased my enjoyment of the web as both a user and developer.
ck2 15y ago
So at this pace, version 30 in 3 more years? The end of minor version numbers, oh well.
- CrazedGeek 15y ago
  If the version number is almost never seen by users (and is rather unnecessary for developers considering the auto-updater), does it really matter?
azakai 15y ago
> It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since we launched our open source web browser, Chrome. Chrome is not open source: It contains plenty of closed-source code, from Flash to the print preview implementation. And it isn't just that they wrote "Chrome" instead of "Chromium" in that post - they tout the closed-source features of the browser later down. So it's clear they mean Chrome, not Chromium. I realize this is not news for anyone here on hacker news, but it is disappointing to see Google making this kind of inaccuracy. You can't have your cake and eat it too: If you want to be fully open source you can't include closed-source code, and if you want to include closed-source code you can't call yourself open source. I'm not saying one is good and one is bad, just that you can't do one and call yourself the other.
- deleted 15y ago
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- deleted 15y ago
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- mkr-hn 15y ago
  edit: I just realized that I got trolled. Sorry about the mess. You can safely page down past this tree without missing any valuable conversation. Can you list the things that are part of Chrome and not a separate blob? As far as I know the closed stuff is separate from the executable. Unless you believe shipping an open source product with closed source blobs makes it closed source. Which would be weird.
  - azakai 15y ago
    As I mentioned, Flash is bundled and is closed source, and the print preview functionality as well. There is also the closed-source PDF viewer (which is related to the print preview functionality in some way). And some audio codecs are present in Chrome but not Chromium, but I do not know if they are closed source or not (perhaps they are missing for other reasons). Those are the main things we know about. The bigger issue, though, is that by definition a closed-source application can contain any amount of code that you don't know about. If the closed-source blobs were entirely separate this would not be an issue. If, for example, I could build Chromium from source myself and copy over a few clearly-defined blobs, and I would get something identical to Chrome, that would be one way to separate them. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that is not the case here (if it is, I am honestly curious to see this - please explain how I can do that). Side note: I'm kind of disappointed to see I'm being modded down for saying things that are true. Has fanboyism reached even hacker news, that anyone saying something against their favorite product - even something true - is modded down? Edit: And now I'm being called a troll, ah well. I hope it's obvious that I am 100% sincere in my opinions here, and the fact that I have already conceded the point to wmf should make it perfectly clear no trolling was going on from my side. (wmf says it's an oversimplification, I prefer to say it's an inaccuracy, but they both mean basically the same thing and I am fine with using either term.)

40 points by Uncle_Sam 15y ago

marcamillion 15y ago

Has it been 3 years already? Seems like just the other day.

kmm 15y ago
I've got the opposite feeling. Only three years and so much has happened.
- marcamillion 15y ago
  Well, I guess it's two sides to the same coin. I meant, wow...it's been 3 years already, it has flown fast - because they have done so much.

callahad 15y ago

If you click on the browsers in the lefthand pane, you get a series of screenshots for each major release of each browser. It's really quite nice. But you know what's better? The upper corners of the screenshots are sensitive to clicks, so you can actually close the screenshot by clicking on the appropriate native widget in the screenshot.

jamesgeck0 15y ago
Which means clicking on the maximize button in the Windows 3.1 screenshots.
- callahad 15y ago
  Both of the upper corners are active, so you can also click on the... the other side. What's the name for the [-] widget on the left? The one you could double click to close the window?
  - duncans 15y ago
    The Control Menu.

funksta 15y ago

My hat is off to Google; the progress they have made with Chrome (in terms of both marketshare and features/performance) in just 3 years is remarkable. Chrome has greatly increased my enjoyment of the web as both a user and developer.

ck2 15y ago

So at this pace, version 30 in 3 more years? The end of minor version numbers, oh well.

CrazedGeek 15y ago
If the version number is almost never seen by users (and is rather unnecessary for developers considering the auto-updater), does it really matter?

azakai 15y ago

> It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since we launched our open source web browser, Chrome. Chrome is not open source: It contains plenty of closed-source code, from Flash to the print preview implementation. And it isn't just that they wrote "Chrome" instead of "Chromium" in that post - they tout the closed-source features of the browser later down. So it's clear they mean Chrome, not Chromium. I realize this is not news for anyone here on hacker news, but it is disappointing to see Google making this kind of inaccuracy. You can't have your cake and eat it too: If you want to be fully open source you can't include closed-source code, and if you want to include closed-source code you can't call yourself open source. I'm not saying one is good and one is bad, just that you can't do one and call yourself the other.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
deleted 15y ago
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mkr-hn 15y ago
edit: I just realized that I got trolled. Sorry about the mess. You can safely page down past this tree without missing any valuable conversation. Can you list the things that are part of Chrome and not a separate blob? As far as I know the closed stuff is separate from the executable. Unless you believe shipping an open source product with closed source blobs makes it closed source. Which would be weird.
- azakai 15y ago
  As I mentioned, Flash is bundled and is closed source, and the print preview functionality as well. There is also the closed-source PDF viewer (which is related to the print preview functionality in some way). And some audio codecs are present in Chrome but not Chromium, but I do not know if they are closed source or not (perhaps they are missing for other reasons). Those are the main things we know about. The bigger issue, though, is that by definition a closed-source application can contain any amount of code that you don't know about. If the closed-source blobs were entirely separate this would not be an issue. If, for example, I could build Chromium from source myself and copy over a few clearly-defined blobs, and I would get something identical to Chrome, that would be one way to separate them. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that is not the case here (if it is, I am honestly curious to see this - please explain how I can do that). Side note: I'm kind of disappointed to see I'm being modded down for saying things that are true. Has fanboyism reached even hacker news, that anyone saying something against their favorite product - even something true - is modded down? Edit: And now I'm being called a troll, ah well. I hope it's obvious that I am 100% sincere in my opinions here, and the fact that I have already conceded the point to wmf should make it perfectly clear no trolling was going on from my side. (wmf says it's an oversimplification, I prefer to say it's an inaccuracy, but they both mean basically the same thing and I am fine with using either term.)