Google’s Chrome browser has been chewing up market share on desktops and laptops for a while now, and now it’s going mobile. If you’ve got an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) phone or tablet you can download it now. If you don’t — and that should be most of you — time to get jealous.
Chrome for Android features a host of improvements over the old Android browser, but the biggest highlight has got to be automatic tab and bookmark syncing between your desktop and phone. So you’ve got a few tabs open at home, and have to run out the door? Not a problem, you’ve got those same tabs open on your phone with a quick tap. It’s also just a much slicker UI. It borrows a lot of the swiping gestures that are deeply integrated in Ice Cream Sandwich for easier and more intuitive navigation. Tab-management looks awesome, and early indications seem like it’s more than fast enough (quicker than the already fast Android 4.0 stock browser).
We’re playing with it now, and will update shortly with hands-on impressions. [Google Chrome Blog]
UPDATE: Just spent some hands-on time with Chrome Beta on a Galaxy Nexus. Here are my quick notes:
It looks really, really good. Tab management is fantastic. Either swiping from one side of the screen to the other to switch, or by using the card viewer, it’s fast and intuitive. Websites usually tired to reload when I went back into the tab, which slowed things down and was pretty annoying. Scrolling on pages was very fast in general, as was zooming in and out.
Syncing it up with my desktop Chrome browser was really easy, and within a minute I had access to all of the tabs I opened (though it seemed to only show the ones I opened going forward, but not the ones that were open before I linked it all up).
The biggest, saddest omission is that it is lacking the “request desktop site” button that you find in the stock Android 4.0 browser, which allows you to view a full site instead of the mobile version. That’s one of my favorite features from Android 4.0′s browser, and it’s a drag to find it missing here, but hopefully that will be coming soon.
Over all, it’s fast and pretty and considering it’s in Beta, it’s in pretty good shape. Hopefully it will only improve from here.
UPDATE 2: Here’s a hands-on video:
Trishool
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 9:36 AMNo support for Gingerbread? Boo!!
Sam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:02 AMThen flash a ICS ROM then. Are you also going to complain about IE10 not working on Windows Vista?…
Google historically haven’t released many apps which didn’t have (some) amount of backward compatibility with previous Android versions. I’d be guessing theres a good reason why it’s ICS only – either due to being only in beta so far, or requiring a part of ICS framework not present in Honeycomb/Gingerbread and prior.
Jaybird
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:18 AM“Then flash a ICS ROM then. Are you also going to complain about IE10 not working on Windows Vista?…”
The difference is you can just upgrade to Win7 and away you go. Gotta love how you have to actually break Android phones to update them without waiting 6 months for your carrier and handset manufacturer to catch up.
Sam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:50 AM“Break”? Unlocking the bootloader and rooting my phone was the single best thing I ever did for it :)
MotorMouth
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:08 AMReally? You need to get out more. The best thing I ever did to my phone was switch it on. From there, everything just worked. A friend of mine smashed her iPhone in a drunken rage a few weeks ago and bought a new 4S but she still hasn’t managed to get all her contacts onto it because her version of iTunes isn’t the right one. I got a new phone this week and all I had to do was sign into hotmail to get all my contacts and calendar. If I had to do more than that, I’d be just like her and still stuffing around. MS even remembers which apps I’ve paid for and they let me install them again. It is the least painful phone changeover I’ve experienced, by one or two orders of magnitude.
Just out of interest, when you root your phone do you use a condom?
Sam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:20 AMDude, that gag about having sex with phones was old 12 months ago – it hasn’t gotten any funnier since.
Flux
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:26 AMYou do realise that none of what you’re talking up is WinPhone exclusive, right? On an Android you can sync your contacts to your Gmail or any other mail account, and they will make the phone transfer just fine – and without connection to a desktop. Also, which ecosystem DOESN’T remember what you’ve purchased and allow you to redownload? You bought the licence, you get the software.
Sounds to me like it’s been a while since you handled a phone changeover – or you’re just really easy to impress.
Kram
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 9:41 AMThrew it on my Galaxy Nexus & only bugbear so far is lack of flash support but otherwise it smokes the stock browser.
Sam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:02 AMAt 14MB, I’ll wait till I’m on WiFi before I download it. Very curious to see how it stacks up against DolphinHD though.
AshR
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:09 AMreally? I’m on a 5 gig plan on my phone and couldn’t download that in a month if I tried….
StevoTheDevo
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:11 AMFinally!
I can’t believe they didn’t have Chrome for Android from much earlier on (if not from day 1).
Makes it even more tempting to flash one of the beta ICS releases onto my SGS.
MotorMouth
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:10 AMTBH, I had assumed Android’s browser was based on Chrome anyway. It seems weird to have developed one separately, unless it was something that existed before Google bought it?
Geoff
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:27 AMDoesn’t play nicely with Proxies. Therefore no access at work on WiFi. MAJOR ISSUE !!!
Sam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:38 AMBtw, anyone looking for the APK to sideload onto their phone to avoid the Android Market restrictions:
http://db.tt/sLYEFPLC
spanner
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 3:25 PMAbout time. Put it on my Nexus S; it’s very fast and very slick. Scrolling through tabs in the card view is brilliant. The ICS stock browser was a big leap ahead of the Gingerbread stock browser, but this is even better.
Rahux
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 8:59 PMLoving it on my transformer prime but keep needing to switch back when I want to change agent and get the desktop site.