Google Chrome is now off beta

-Akshay Ranganath

As per the Google Blog dated 11th Dec, Google Chrome is now off beta.

Frankly though, I am so used to FF that Google Chrome never really registered with me. I did use it more as a fancy thing for a few days and then sort of forgot. How was it with you guys? Any ardent fans of Chrome out there?

One thing that is not clear is if users will need to reinstall the new code or if the browser automatically updates itself. I did not see anything happening to my browser at home. If Google does not support such an automated update it would be a pity since people have sort of come to expect such updates now.

As an aside, Adobe has released Adobe AIR, that lets rich internet applications (RIA) to run outside the browser.
Read more at: http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

Sun released an alternative to Flash/Flex and Silverlight called JavaFX. Read more at: http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/ . Here's a nice post that does an analysis of this new product. Sun being so late into the RIA game, the feeling is that it may not be of any use at all!

Updated after reading the comments…

Writing on the post and responding to comments, I just realized.. We has so many sites that are not cross browser compatible. If there were enough people who are not getting utilized, this could be a wonderful project to take up. It would give us an ability to:

1. Understand the complexity of cross browser support. In our project, we could estimate for anything but this one aspect. Cross browser is such a horrible beast to tame and help is relatively tough to find. Unless you've faced it and solved it, there is no help. And unfortunately, most times, there is no logic in the solution

2. Showcasing capability: By making our own sites cross browser would be a great show case to any client if they ask for our credentials in supporting multiple browsers.

Any team out there interested in this initiative :-)??