Google Chrome is available for download. I’ve done it in fact; very smooth install. It looks like the company is serious about getting this widely deployed quickly, despite its beta status – there’s a download link on the Google home page – must be important to break the 28 words rule.
Chrome shows your “most visited” sites as a kind of home page. I was amused to see that Microsoft.com shows up here as blank:
No doubt there is a good technical reason. People used to say “DOS Ain’t Done until Lotus won’t run”; and that was not true either.
Update: Honesty compels me to admit that the Microsoft snapshot eventually filled in. Still, it is not much better:
The problem is that the central Silverlight panel is failing to load; the main site looks like this in Chrome as well. OK, so Silverlight doesn’t support Chrome. But Microsoft no doubt has something better than a blank panel for incompatible browsers. Was it warned in advance about the advent of Chrome? Was anyone? I know this is WebKit and that what works in Safari should work here; but we all know that browser compatibility is complex. Still, it is entertaining.
Further update: It looks the same in Safari on Windows! I should explain that there is some more stuff to the right and below the empty panel; but the empty sky background occupies the main part of the page.
To get the full picture, I visited the page with FireFox on Linux:
This looks better, but it’s a tease. It has a link to download Silverlight; if you follow it, it eventually reveals that your browser or operating system is unsupported. Sloppy Microsoft; Google exonerated.
More on Chrome soon, no doubt.
Related posts:
Silverlight is working fine for me in Chrome, about:memory also lists it:
Plug-in
Silverlight Plug-In
So I don’t know why it’s not working for you, I’ve had Silverlight installed for quite a while
Mark
It works on the Microsoft home page? A Vista issue? Neither Safari nor Chrome is officially supported by Silverlight as you may know. I also see the plug-in loaded though so it is trying to work.
Tim
“Neither Safari nor Chrome is officially supported by Silverlight”
SAY WHAT???? Safari is fully supported by Silverlight !
@Morten
I mean Safari on Windows of course.
Silverlight 1: IE and FF on Windows, Safari and FF on Mac:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/silverlight/bb419316.aspx
Silverlight 2 beta 2: Same but not PowerPC Mac:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=2.0#sysreq
Tim
@Tim Indeed it seems to work fine on the Microsoft homepage, I have taken a quick screenshot showing the plugin version and the Silverlight app visible on the Microsoft homepage
@Mark
Thanks – I guess the explanation is that you have Silverlight 1.x installed, and I have 2.x. Admittedly mine is a beta; but bearing in mind that it has a go-live license and was widely used to view the NBC olympics this is still a bit embarassing for Microsoft.
Tim
Not working here on microsoft.com – maybe a vista x64 problem?