Hands on with the new tab synchronization feature in Chrome 19

Chrome's tab sync impresses, but the mobile story is incomplete.

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[MoonShark]

Aurich should totally use this image next time:

Spoiler

 

[JiveTurkeyJerky]

Can't test it now here at work, but on my phone it shows the last Syncs between my laptop, ICS tablet and ICS phone.. pretty neat.. curious how quickly it shows up from one device to the other..

 

[DManatunga]

I have a Chromebook running Aura build and I have the other devices tab sync option. Ironically, my Chromebook was the first one for it to show up in. It may be because I had the flag set earlier to test the feature out before its official release. I'm not positive, but that may get the feature to work on your Chromebook.

 

[rdeforest]

Can't test it now here at work, but on my phone it shows the last Syncs between my laptop, ICS tablet and ICS phone.. pretty neat.. curious how quickly it shows up from one device to the other..

Since it runs over XMPP it should show up as quickly as gtalk or any other XMPP-based chat client. This is the same protocol Wave was built on. The Wikipedia page explains it better than I could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP.

 

[helel ben shachar]

Do you have to subscribe to google plus for this? I'm not a huge fan of all the data being collected on individuals here in the last number of years hence I don't buy into the social networking thing.

 

[robotic_tourist]

cdclndc: then don't post anything to Google Plus. They already have a lot of data about you

segphault: nice idea for naming your devices! though I propose you should use nx-74205 and ncc-2000

 

[taraba]

I don't see the point of porting this to iOS. Just seems like such a wasted effort. How do they generate any money on Chrome anyway?

 

[jwbaker]

Do you have to subscribe to google plus for this? I'm not a huge fan of all the data being collected on individuals here in the last number of years hence I don't buy into the social networking thing.

As far as I can tell, all you need is a Google account of any kind.

It's pretty surprising the amount of stuff it syncs. I renamed my personal Chrome profile while at work to "Notwork", then when I got home my profile there had also been renamed from just "Jeff" to "Notwork".

 

[bladeguy]

While a web interface might be useful, it seems like it would be a real hassle to use. It also seems like it might be more likely to cause privacy issues than I would appreciate. In fact, that's the one downside I see with the ability to view tabs across devices - too easy to have someone with access to my computer too see what I'm doing on my phone (ICS) or other computer... Is there a way to turn the sync off?

Edit: It's easy to turn off, so if you care, or are in a situation where that is likely, you can just disable the feature.

 

[Erunno]

Do you have to subscribe to google plus for this? I'm not a huge fan of all the data being collected on individuals here in the last number of years hence I don't buy into the social networking thing.

You need a Google account to use Chrome's sync service but you can encrypt all of your data locally with an encryption key of your choice which will prevent Google from accessing it. By default Chrome only encrypts the passwords using your Google login password which has a number ob problematic implications (privacy, security if password is compromised, etc.).

To my surprise the article doesn't mention the new settings (+ history + extensions) page which is right now easily the top contender for the worst redesign of the year. Google's war on colors continues here by removing the previously clear distinction between navigation and content of the settings page. Everything looks incredibly dull and unpleasant to look at (a cue that Google does not want you on the settings page). Cramming all options into a single unified page isn't such a hot idea which Google must have realized as well because there's now an "advanced" section which hides the rest of the options by default so that the user is not confronted with a long list in addition to having an option hierarchy which is several levels deep. Personally I prefer a more flat (i.e. apparent, easier accessible) hierarchy. And while I generally like Chrome's use of animation (especially everything regarding tabs and windows) I find the the fade in/out animations on the settings page incredibly distracting.

One of the few cases where I much prefer Firefox' offering. Its redesigned addon page is much more pleasant to use.

 

[doubledeej]

I'm glad the feature is optional. Otherwise EVERY web page you visit is reported to Google so it can be synchronized with other copies of Chrome. So they have a record of every site you ever go to.

 

[bamboozle]

I'm glad the feature is optional. Otherwise EVERY web page you visit is reported to Google so it can be synchronized with other copies of Chrome. So they have a record of every site you ever go to.

Oh no!! Not a record of every site you ever go to!!!!! The sky is falling...

 

[jwbaker]

I'm glad the feature is optional. Otherwise EVERY web page you visit is reported to Google so it can be synchronized with other copies of Chrome. So they have a record of every site you ever go to.

It's encrypted.

 

[danstl]

I'm glad the feature is optional. Otherwise EVERY web page you visit is reported to Google so it can be synchronized with other copies of Chrome. So they have a record of every site you ever go to.

As stated above you can encrypt your sync stuff in chrome using your own pass phrase...

 

[themacguffinman]

I'm glad the feature is optional. Otherwise EVERY web page you visit is reported to Google so it can be synchronized with other copies of Chrome. So they have a record of every site you ever go to.

...I'm 99% sure they don't touch any sync data. Just looks like knee-jerk paranoia.

---

I'm on the beta so this feature has been out forever, but I never noticed the "My Devices" tab at the bottom. I must be blind or something. It's really useful now. I used to have a redundant bookmark folder to file away my tabs for sync with my laptop.

I wish you had some control over Chrome's sync, though. It never really tells you when it syncs or what triggers a sync.

 

[albeec13]

This is an excellent feature, and somewhat of a "killer app" as far as browsers are concerned for me. I've been using Chrome for years now, and recently started using Chrome beta on my Galaxy Nexus, which has had this feature for some time now. I know I'm not the only one who had been clamoring to get this feature to work in reverse. Now I can open tabs on my desktop, walk away and continue looking at those tabs on my phone, get to work and reload those tabs from my work browser, and at the end of the day, go home and continue using those same tabs from my home desktop or phone, seamlessly.

The best part about it is the special "Other Devices" tab, which gives you the option to open synced tabs if you'd like, without forcing them open in your other browsers. This makes it very convenient and unobtrusive.

 

[Kyeotic]

What is the keyboard shortcut to close Chrome? CTRL+W closes the active tab, and CTRL+Q doesn't do anything.

 

[Jasoco]

The best new feature of 19 is one for OS X that I've been waiting for since last September. It finally remembers my Full Screen setting!

Anyway. I hate that the tab list is hidden off in the New Tab page which completely makes it useless for people who use custom new tab pages and extensions like me, who made my own NTP extension because I was fed up with the slowness of Speed Dial and the crappiness of the default pages so I made my own 100% instant page custom to order. I guess I'll have to look into the code for the stock NTP and see if I can tear out the code to make my own tab list too. I think it should be a button in the toolbar instead of a link on the NTP. Or at the very least, a submenu under the History menu like the "recently closed tabs" are, or in the Tools button.

Also, anyone know when the hell the "New Downloads UI" is going to be implemented? There's been an option in about:flags for the past half-dozen versions now for this feature that hasn't been implemented yet, but if you enable it, it disables your downloads bar. Why design it that way? Why not just leave the option out until the UI is implemented? Or make it so enabling it won't disable the bar until it's implemented? Really silly. Not to mention all the options on that page that say "Disable this or that" and need to be enabled to disable it. Now THAT is really confusing wording.

 

[themacguffinman]

What is the keyboard shortcut to close Chrome? CTRL+W closes the active tab, and CTRL+Q doesn't do anything.

Alt+F4

 

[WaltC]

Wake me when Chrome hits version 74, 'Kay? Z-z-z-z-zzzz....

 

[Erunno]

This is an excellent feature, and somewhat of a "killer app" as far as browsers are concerned for me.

I'm going full Opera here but this feature has been available in Firefox since at least a year.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Somebody is obviously a Star Trek Fan!

 

[cosmotic]

So how does this work with statefull java-script based web-apps?

 

[themacguffinman]

So how does this work with statefull java-script based web-apps?

I think it only syncs the URL.

 

[Dmanrocks22]

Tab sync is also currently in the Firefox beta

 

[veldrin]

I could swear Firefox has had tab sync for a long, long time now (and bookmarks sync for longer). It's not anything like real time, though. The sync interval is pretty long.

 

[gullevek]

It seems not really available everywhere. I upgraded to Chrome 19 on OS X and I do not have that tab there yet, neither does the Windows Chrome 19 I upgraded today. I really want that feature and hope it suddenly appears in my Chrome at some point soon.

 

[Da_Captain]

I don't see the point of porting this to iOS. Just seems like such a wasted effort. How do they generate any money on Chrome anyway?

An iOS Chrome Port would save Google money in the sense that people using it would no longer be using Safari's built-in search box. Each time Apple refer a user to Google via that search box, Google pays Apple a referral fee, similar to with Firefox. Any time someone use Google's own browser, it's less money for Google to pay out.

 

[Jasoco]

I wish they didn't put this in the New Tab Page only because not everyone uses the default NTP. Some people use third-party NTP extensions like Speed Dial, or in my case, a custom extension I made myself. They need to put this list elsewhere in the UI. Either in a button next to the wrench, or under the wrench itself. (Or on OS X also under the History menu with the Recently Closed and Recently Visited sections.)

I tried viewing the code of the default NTP to see if I could integrate it into my own NTP but I can't make hide nor hair of it. Hopefully the'll offer an Extension API to access this information like you can the bookmarks list.

For now I just use Xmarks built-in syncing which works across browsers too. But since I mainly use Chrome, I don't need the cross-browser support.

Also, I would kill for an iOS version of Chrome for the following reasons only. One, it would no doubt sync with the desktop version. Two, hopefully it'll also have limited extension support. At least so I can have Xmarks since I can't just use the built-in bookmarks syncing as well since it ends up creating duplicate bookmark sets and Chrome can't sync bookmarks with other browsers so I have to use Xmarks. Also, Safari has been broken on iOS for me since iOS5 came out. My bookmarks refuse to sync from my desktop Safari correctly and have created dozens of duplicates. Right now I use iCab which has extensions and gestures so hopefully Chrome will also come out and have these two things. Oh, and I'd need Pocket support. All my best iOS apps have Pocket support. I use Pocket all the time. So it's a must that they allow extensions so I can install a Pocket extension and an Xmarks extension.

 

[gacbmmml]

I don't know about you, but I'm super excited for the iPhone 19 in 2040!