Introducing Chrome for Android Beta

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CranialBlaze

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ArkiTech

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CranialBlaze said:
Officially SA is not part of the supported beta, found my copy over @ http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/0...et-the-chrome-for-android-beta-apk-right-now/
Busy downloading, may finally have a good reason to use chrome on my pc again as FF mobile is a load of crap.

Also remember is ICS ONLY
Click to expand...

Yip, there are only 12 supported countries and would you have guessed it South Africa is not one of those...but in all fairness we probable don't have very many phones running ICS here.

Installed on my SGS running Onecosmic's RC4.1
First impressions...love the tab switching animations
It seems a bit slow/laggy, but its still early days

And has a cool feature that lets you see your tabs that you have open on your desktop version of chrome (assuming you sync chrome to Google's servers)
 
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CranialBlaze

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I can see some benefits in it, but far from giving up my dolphin.

Visually its unimpressive and it greatly lacks in features, not to mention the lack of exit button which was the biggest reason i looked for an alternate to stock. i very seldom browse on the move so why do i need my browser perminently running in the background.

Dolphin also syncs with lastpass and xmarks if your premium which is on my to-do list as i use them both all the time.

Chrome mobile has a long way to go if it intends competing with dolphin, opera and even firefox which is rubbish.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
 
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ArkiTech

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Jan

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ArkiTech said:
Sorry, it would seem my maths skill have deteriorated at this time of day there are 12 supported countries (counted twice this time:D)
Click to expand...

Hah! No worries, I know *exactly* what you mean :).

For those who may not visit the IT news thread or the main page (why don't you, eh?): Chrome for Android Beta coming to SA.

I really hope the info given by Google turns out to be true. It's very weird that we're not on the list, though.

For those who don't want to click through to view the list of supported countries, at launch they were as follows:

  • United States
  • Canada
  • United Kingdom
  • France
  • Germany
  • Spain
  • Australia
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Mexico
  • Argentina
  • Brazil
 
Jan

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cpu. said:
Chrome Beta for Android. Android is not Beta.
Click to expand...

A valid grammar nazi gripe, though in our defence that's what Google called it initially. I see others are calling it Chrome Beta for Android.

However, the name of the product when it leaves beta will be "Chrome for Android" so I'm going to leave it as-is and chat to the editorial team about it tomorrow.
 
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Installed it last night, running fine on my Defy
 
Jola

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I tested it, and discarded it, no Desktop mode - most of my sites work better with this.

The standard browser, as well as Dolphin HD crash all the time, especially with MBB.

IMO the only reliable browser for ICS is Opera, and it also works better than the others.
 
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CranialBlaze

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Jola said:
I tested it, and discarded it, no Desktop mode - most of my sites work better with this.

The standard browser, as well as Dolphin HD crash all the time, especially with MBB.

IMO the only reliable browser for ICS is Opera, and it also works better than the others.
Click to expand...

Dolphin has never ever crashed on my phone, before and after ICS
 
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Vulk

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BigAl-sa said:
One thing that I haven't been able to figure out: all the other browsers are less than 5MB. Why on earth is Chrome 20MB - even now that it's out of beta?

I'll stick with the stock ICS browser or Dolphin HD at this stage.
Click to expand...

A serious question: unless you have a phone with limited internal storage (in which case my heart goes out to you - I used to have an HTC Desire) why does this matter?

To my mind, the most important thing is the user experience. On my phone, Chrome is beautiful and smooth and fast, the tab management is weirdly fun, and the tab syncing is flawless. I care more about that stuff than I do about the size of the apk package.
 
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CranialBlaze

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BigAl-sa said:
One thing that I haven't been able to figure out: all the other browsers are less than 5MB. Why on earth is Chrome 20MB - even now that it's out of beta?

I'll stick with the stock ICS browser or Dolphin HD at this stage.
Click to expand...

Define Every, Dolphin is 4mb, Chrome is 18mb, Firefox is 14mb, Opera is 14mb.
I fail to understand your "all other" and "less than 5mb" only one browser that should actually be considered a browser is under 5mb.

Also the only real reason to care is caused by the lousy internet provided in this country, when you live in a country with 40mb broadband the difference between a 5mb browser and a 20mb browser in indiscernible by an actual human being.
 
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