Chrome

yeah, yeah, another person talking about google chrome, so what, as a developer I just thought I’d get my quick thoughts across, so here we go:

1. No linux version
2. Based on webkit(yeah, the kHTML clone), so all good websites should work perfectly anyway
3. The licence is horrible

OK, so let’s go over these, no linux version is a kicker, and it doesn’t run in wine, so I can live without it for now, I need all my plugins for firefox 90% of the time anyway, so I doubt I’d be using it anyway.
So, it’s based on webkit, which is cool, it also means that if I’m acting as a designer at any time I don’t need to worry about the appearance, since I test in safari anyway.
Don’t believe me about the licence? Let’s take a look at a few snippets:

4.4 You acknowledge and agree that if Google disables access to your account, you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your account details or any files or other content that is contained in your account.

Yeah, if google bans your account they can ban you from the browser as well, just for fun.

4.5 You acknowledge and agree that while Google may not currently have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions that you may send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be set by Google at any time, at Google’s discretion.

hurray, no limit as yet, but they have the right to impose any limits they want, combined with the enforced update(which I’ll get to later) you’re not exactly given much choice on this…

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

and

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.

both say that ANYTHING you use the browser for can be made public knowledge and used by google themselves, yup, ANYTHING, passwords, bank details, is nothing safe anymore?

And one last thing, since I’m sure someone is going to argue that it’s open source, so all the problems are ok, right? Well not quite:

10.2 You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing.

You need written permission to copy or edit the source code(or any part of it), I’ve got to question that, I mean, what counts? If you download the source to look at it, and accidentally it after pressing space does that constitute as a breach of the terms? What happens if you copy it from 1 computer to another?

What can I say then, I’ve not tried it yet, but I don’t think I’m willing to, at least not since I read the terms and conditions anyway(I’ll throw a few comments on their privacy policy at some point, it pretty much says your giving google the right to all your personal info just by signing up for the service).

Tags: chrome, google