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Deal with it. There are two widely used toolkits on Linux, so you can't please everyone. If they'd chosen Qt, they'd just be upsetting the people who use gnome or XFCE, and wouldn't appreciate having to load Qt libraries to run Chrome. Every time some application gets ported to Linux, one of the two tookits is chosen, and the other faction complains about it.

But hey, feel free to try porting it to Qt... the source is there, and code that already supports Windows and Gtk+ APIs is presumably abstracted enough to support another.

I wonder, why would that be the case? Qt is a proper cross-platform and cross-desktop toolkit that has had ample KDE, Windows, Mac and Gnome integration for some time:

http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2006/02/24/qt-and-glib/
http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2008/05/13/introducing-qgtkstyle/

I have no idea why silly people keep trying to repeat that you have to 'pick one' and you have to 'deal with' an inferior Linux port of an application where the Windows version receives all the attention first. Does this sound like Firefox to you? I don't see GTK helping out anywhere on the Windows, Mac or KDE integration front.

With this they get a cross-platform toolkit that implements a ton of functionality that works on all the platforms and desktops they'll want to port Chrome to today, and it keeps their bug list down on all platforms because the same code will have a far better chance of working well on each platform rather than reimplementing what works.

God only knows how they'll reliably do stuff like animations as the browser gets more complex in the future, cross-platform that all works reliably in the same way. Integrated theming? This is amateur hour that could have been implemented weeks ago, for free.


Oh dear God, not this again. Please. Read this until something sinks into the skull about perceived 'bloatware' (ironic given that Chrome on Linux is currently a 500MB executable that draws a window and renders some content - Evan Martin's approximate comments):

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

You either have applications and functionality that people want or you don't. That means programming tools and libraries. If you don't want to load certain things for your own petty, stupid and mental complex reasons then you don't have those applications and that functionality, you have poor imitations and no one uses you. Users simply don't give a shit that you don't want to load some libraries. I've got sick of hearing this over the years and it's what will continually hold open source desktops back and ensure that they will continually be perceived as those things that a minority of funny people use.

I've dealt with the fact that Chrome on Linux will repeat all the same mistakes as Firefox and it'll be a third-class citizen. That's Google's problem though. Most will keep using the Windows version and the Mac one if it works well enough. Cross-platform on an equal footing? Yer, right.


This is not about porting the GUI to Qt, which you and I both know won't happen which is why you wrote that. It's about learning from past mistakes and using something that will give us a cross-platform application that works well on an open source desktop.

Edited 2009-07-09 14:38 UTC

You're bitching about that?

How about the fact that this statement is bs.

That's a load of cocka the size of Mt. Everest.

Never mind the fact the name Chromium is f'n lame--just call it Chrome.

Should we have Firefoxy because Firefox on Linux has to have a different name?

I was obviously joking. Grow a pair.

Of humour glands, I mean.

No, that should obviously be "Vulpes focî".

Chromium and Chrome are different things. Chrome is Google's browser, Chromium is the open source thing. If you don't like Chromium, just run Chrome.

Chromium is the name of the open-source project that Google uses to create Google Chrome (and that SRWare uses to create Iron). They are two very different things.

Google Chrome != Chromium
Chromium + Google stuff == Google Chrome

Thus, you should not use the terms interchangeably.

Edited 2009-07-09 19:15 UTC