
Google Chrome 4 now natively supports Greasemonkey user scripts - sahaj
http://blog.chromium.org/2010/02/40000-more-extensions.html
======
Kilimanjaro
I've been a big firefox fan since phoenix, but already moved to chrome for
only one reason:

Fastest...browser...evar

~~~
sketerpot
Likewise, on both points. It hasn't got the polish of Firefox, and the
extension ecosystem is a little rough, and I miss the intelligent URL
completion from the Awesomebar, but Chrome wins in speed and stability, and
those were enough to move me away from Firefox for all but a few sites.

Speed is important.

~~~
reedlaw
Hasn't got what polish of Firefox? Firefox is buggy and has a kludgy UI.
Chrome is way more polished.

~~~
sid0
Selecting multiple blocks of text. Scrolling with the mouse wheel. / for quick
find (and ' for links).

edit: I wonder if this is similar to the difference between Windows and Mac.
Windows might be inconsistent in the small things (e.g. button padding), but
it gets the large things right. Mac gets the small things right but the large
things horribly, horribly wrong. Chrome seems to get the small things right
too (e.g. tab animations), but overall Firefox does much better.

~~~
Estragon
Thanks, I didn't know about ' for links.

------
gkoberger
The best part about this announcement is that Google Chrome won't be treating
user scripts as second-class extensions. Greasemonkey scripts will be treated
like real extensions. The ease of creating Greasemonkey scripts plus the
visibility of real extensions in the browser takes Google Chrome a huge step
closer to Firefox.

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sri
I have a Greasemonkey script in FF
([http://defcraft.blogspot.com/2009/02/greasemonkey-search-
hel...](http://defcraft.blogspot.com/2009/02/greasemonkey-search-helper.html))
that'll google for the current selection in a background tab when ALT-G is
pressed. And it uses GM_openInTab API call.

Its equivalent in Chrome seems to be chrome.tabs.create. But when I tried
that, I get this error: "chrome.tabs is not supported in content scripts". It
seems that these "content scripts" aren't as powerful as extensions
([http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/content_scripts.htm...](http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/content_scripts.html)).
Am I missing something here?

~~~
statictype
Yes. Chrome has different ways of extending the browser.

One is content scripts - which don't have access to certain parts of the
Chrome api like opening tabs.

However, each extension can have what they call a background page. This is
just an html page which is loaded in the background and there can be exactly
one for every extension.

So you should be able to have your content script communicate with the
background page (there is a mechanism for this) and let the background page
open the tab.

For this, you'll have to write a fully-fledged extension though. The
greasemonkey scripts probably don't generate a background page when they get
converted into an extension at install-time.

------
pyre
Is the Chromium UserScripts page[1] out of date? Or are these still issues?

    
    
      Chromium does not support @require, @resource, 
      unsafeWindow, GM_registerMenuCommand, GM_setValue, or 
      GM_getValue.
    

A lot of scripts that I come across use `unsafeWindow`, `GM_setValue` and
`GM_getValue.` It seems to be updated (since the last time I looked at it),
since I believe it used to say that @exclude was _not_ implemented, and now I
don't even see a mention of it on the page (though I don't think I've come
across a script that used @exclude).

[1]: [http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/user-
scr...](http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/user-scripts)

[UPDATE] This should shine _some_ light on the topic:
[http://www.greasespot.net/2009/11/greasemonkey-api-
usage.htm...](http://www.greasespot.net/2009/11/greasemonkey-api-usage.html)

~~~
Semiapies
None of my personal scripts (which all use @require or unsafeWindow) work on
this. I've been meaning to convert them to Chrome extensions anyway, though.

------
muffins
I really do WANT to use Chrome, but there are so many Firefox extensions I
just can't do without. One step closer though.

~~~
thorax
They'll never have Tree Style Tabs I imagine, so I'm stuck forever with
Firefox for that extension.

Not that I mind Firefox, but Chrome gets to do a reboot and start again
without carrying legacy support/etc with it.

Early versions of Firefox felt "lighter" than IE to me for that reason.

~~~
sketerpot
Remember when Firefox was the lightweight web browser? Of course it was called
Phoenix back then, and later Firebird. It was refreshing.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Firefox was never a lightweight browser. It was fairly minimalist, especially
compared with what came before it, but those things were just switched off or
hidden, not removed, because that would have been a lot more work.

It's probably only got more "lightweight" with time as they've had more
opportunity and funding to optimise and actually remove things they don't use.

------
jackfoxy
I only wish Chrome would add a second search box, like IE and FF do. I have
never figured out how to get the keyword for another search engine (Wikipedia)
to work satisfactorily in Chrome's combination url/search entry area.

~~~
elidourado
Works for me. In preferences, manage search engines. All or most of the search
engines you've used in the past should be there. Edit the keyword to the
keyword of your choice (for Wikipedia I use "wp"). In the omni bar, type "wp",
space, query, enter. Alternatively you can use a tab instead of a space and
this makes it more obvious that you are searching.

~~~
jackfoxy
OK, so I update my search preferences to make "wp" the Wikipedia key word. (I
think, ok, maybe "w" was too short or something.)

Close the browser. Reopen. Check the options again. (Still there.) Type wp (so
far so good, the Chrome hints drop-down looks like I'm going to hit Wikipedia)
space, "San Francisco" (no quotes) ... and oops, the hints have changed to
"Google Search" (as soon as I type the first character.

~~~
elidourado
That's puzzling. Don't know if it will help, but for reference I'm running the
dev channel build on OS X.

~~~
jackfoxy
I'm running 4.0.249.78 (36714) on Win 7 64-bit right now (where I get a
slightly different problem than I described), but my description is from the
latest build on 32-bit Win 7.

Hey I realize most of you guys like the single omni-box, (I consider it a
waste of real estate), but at least make the second FireFox/IE type search box
optional. Let the user decide.

~~~
elidourado
I have no problems making it optional, as long as many similar options don't
add bloat over time. But to fix your problem you might want to run either the
beta channel or dev channel builds.

Dev channel: <http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel> Beta
channel: <http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel>

------
smokey_the_bear
Does Chrome support scrolling to where you were on the page when you hit the
back button yet? That was what made me switch back to firefox.

~~~
reedlaw
It always has for me.

------
karlzt
this is exactly what's going to make me switch from firefox to chromium

------
ddemchuk
Does not anyone else get really let down every time they read a Chrome
submission that doesn't announce that Firebug has been ported over?

I've started using Chrome for my day to day browsing, but I'll never be able
to wholeheartedly switch until Firebug arrives.

~~~
amandle
Chrome comes with the element inspector built in which replicates a lot of the
functionality of Firebug.

~~~
markkanof
The element inspector is handy, but personally I would also need JavaScript
step through debugging like Firebug provides.

~~~
tlrobinson
Have you actually _tried_ WebKit's developer tools lately?

It has a great DOM inspector (allows editing), network/script/rendering
timeline, step-through debugger, profiler, cookie and local database
inspector, and Chrome even has a heap analysis tool (see which objects are
allocated).

It's far better than Firebug, at least for JavaScript developers, IMO.

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DXL
I always thought Google had a browser for the masses in mind with Chrome.
Something that is easy to use, stable and fast: a good alternative for IE.

User scripts are something for power users, who will always prefer Firefox.
Won't this create the risk that average users will accept installing all kinds
of scripts without much regard for security implications? User scripts are a
powerful yet low-threshold tool which could easily lend itself to purposes
such as identity theft.

~~~
bretthoerner
> power users, who will always prefer Firefox

Why do you say that? Chrome has extension support, I'm not sure what unique
feature Firefox will have left shortly.

~~~
technomancy
Chrome extensions are OK, but they're severely limited compared to what you
can pull off with FF extensions: <http://conkeror.org> used to be implemented
using only the FF extension mechanism. Chromium extensions cannot alter built-
in UI elements, so you're stuck with the standard WIMP UI. It's the only thing
keeping me on the Gecko platform.

~~~
elblanco
Out of curiosity, would this prevent a chrome equivalent of the SQLite
manager?

