

There's no + symbol on the new tab icon in Chrome 17 - wgx
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=98264

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rogerbinns
They've missed the big functionality change in Chrome 17. Everyone knows that
Chrome puts each tab in a different process. However that isn't actually true
- if you open a tab from a page (eg middle click, ctrl click) then the tab is
opened using the same process as the current page.

Those of us who visit HN and Reddit front pages opening lots of links to read
later will find all of them sharing the same process. In Chrome 17 they set
the maximum memory use for the process to 1GB. As usage approaches that amount
the garbage collector runs and will eventually hit 100% CPU time since it will
not find anything to free but the process has run out of memory.

In Chrome 16 the limit was 2GB which took at least twice the effort to hit,
but still was just as annoying. There is no way of fixing this problem I can
find (the --process-per-tab option doesn't do it). (You can kill the process
and/or reload the browser but that loses state in pages.)

I'm on a 64 bit machine with 16GB ram and 8 cpu cores, so having the browser
stuck at 6% of my ram and 12% of my cpu is annoying.

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yummies
i'd predict this will never be reverted. it's another example of google's
infallible design principles being bestowed upon the people.

my favorite justification of removing the plus sign is that "it's too
jarring".

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dylanpyle
Yeah I've been on the dev release channel so this has been the case for me for
quite some time - I personally quite like it, though I do understand that
there's some potential confusion for new users. Certainly wouldn't describe
the old plus as "jarring" though.

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gbaygon
I thought it was a UI glitch too.

Lookin closer the button looks like an "small empty tab", so maybe the
designers decided that the + was redundant?

~~~
Michiel
It doesn't look anything like a tab to me. It has a different shape, size and
placement.

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meemo
That button never looked right to me, but this looks worse. I even reinstalled
Chrome. This makes me wonder about how much thought and attention they give to
UI details.

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dlwh
I suspect this might have at least a little to do with the Google+ rebranding.
Remember how they removed the + operator from search?

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benjlang
Been looking for that symbol for days. Google, you fail, again.

~~~
sp332
Really? I noticed it was missing (a few day ago since I generally use FF), and
liked it. It looks a lot cleaner now, it's nicer to look at and doesn't feel
like it's asking for my attention the way the old one did.

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hollerith
My guess is that the motivation for this change is the same as the motivation
for eliminating the + operator from Google Search's textual interface.
(Namely, that it was requested by the folks who manage the Google Plus brand.)

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vinayan3
This is so stupid. I can't believe people are so focused on such a minor
change. Seriously this isn't the end of the world. All that time spent fussing
about this button could have been put to better use elsewhere.

~~~
chrisdroukas
From whose perspective, though? The new tab button should be _really_ obvious
in a production browser, and in Chrome 17 it isn't. If this is a change
suggested by the Plus team, it's a bad change.

Usability first.

~~~
pasbesoin
Chrome is being used now by "average people". In addition to her personal use
(which I started), my mother's school system newly mandates using Chrome.

In addition to her own confusion, add mine when I'm telling her on the phone
to look for the "plus" icon at the right, and it's no longer there.

I've had similar issues with Google's Calendar product UI, for example. They
just change it, and adopt non-standard and to my mind often rather unobvious
controls -- users be damned.

(I won't start on my parents' use of Android phones...)

TL;DR: You want market share, you'd better make sure that market can figure
you out.

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herf
IE has had an icon-less tab forever. But it is connected to the tab bar, which
makes more sense. I thought this was a bug, too.

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dmoy
I wish I could just get rid of the button completely. I realize that people
will likely need something there by default, but after learning how to use
CTRL+T to open a new tab, I have no need for that little button.

I'm pretty sure Opera lets you get rid of it, but I can't really remember.

