The Fans

The vast majority of bloggers love the browser, at least so far. iKuwait's enthusiasm about Chrome just keeps building:

i can get used to this, click on the picture to find out more about Chrome.
i even love the icon
update: you guys must try this, its just perfect, i finally found my soul browser (soul mate browser)

Also from Kuwait, SOME contrast thinks Google made a smart move:

As the title suggest, google made a browser. Smart move, google. They said in their introduction that since everything we do online nowadays is within a browser; emails, chat, sites..etc. then they might as well make their own browser and build it from a scratch.

Tunisian blogger Subzero Blue, also a clear fan of the product, explains its interface:

The browser uses the WebKit rendering engine, the V8 JavaScript Virtual Machine, an optimized approach to tabs, a homepage presenting most visited websites, and a number of security and privacy options; in addition to other interesting features.

I think this is a really promising product from Google; and I can't wait to see where they take it, and what it will do for web apps.

Also from Tunisia, Au Monde des Merveilles [fr] is impressed:

Après avoir testé Google Chrome, je conclus qu’il est le seul vrai concurrent de Firefox.

After testing Google Chrome, I conclude that it is the only true competitor to Firefox.

The Critics

Other bloggers have concerns about Chrome. Moroccan tech blogger Thinkervine notes its issues:

My first thoughts on the browser: light and fast, sober and user friendly. But it still has a lot of improvements to get before maturity. Still lot of bugs (javascript and SSL/Certificates handling), still missing lot of options (Java VM, extentions and theming, bookmark organization, own proxy management, RSS,).

The blogger concludes:

I will be waiting for the next betas in order to see how it improves but it is still far from being mature enough to replace Firefox as my default browser.

From Qatar, AmmarTalk [ar] lists concerns about the browser. A few:

2- عدم دعم Google Chrome لخاصية الملخصات أو rss feed.
3- هناك العديد من الاخطاء الإملائية لدى فريق الترجمه بشرح مزايا المتصفح وأقصد الشرح الذي نزل على ملفات فيديو بصفحة تنزيل البرنامج.
4- فكرة التسويق عن طريق قصة جميلة جداً لكن أعتقد أن المتصفح يجب ان يسهل مواصفاته للمستخدم العادي بوضع صور توضيحيه لا الإطاله بقصة ابتكرت طريقاً في التسويق ونست أن المتصفح قد لايكمل مشوار القراءة.

2- Google Chrome does not support rss feed.
3. There are a lot of spelling mistakes made by the translation team explaining the browser's features and I mean here the explanation about downloading videos
4. The idea of marketing it through a story is a lovely idea but I believe that the browser's features should be clearly illustrated to the user - and not through a marketing story which the user may not read to the end.

Jordanian Bakkouz likes Chrome but has a few reservations:

However, Google chrome does need a little getting used to, the interface is very simplistic to the point that it can get a little bit confusing, for example, the “Home” button is by default removed from the U.I, and you’d have to go into settings and add it manually. Another thing that might be confusing to beginners and new users is the absence of the traditional menu bar altogether (file - view - edit - tools, etc…). Another thing is the lack of a drop-down bar for the last visited websites, Chrome compensates that by the use of the auto-completion feature that will automatically try to complete the URL you’re trying to get to once you type in the first few letters, but still this could be somewhat of a nuisance.

For more reviews on Chrome outside of the mainstream media, one must only point one's browser to Palestinian blogger Memories Documented (a definite fan), who shares a smattering of reviews from around the globe and proclaims:

I am totally in love with Chrome, in fact, it has replaced all my other browsers as my #1 browser. I'm already using it alone on all my machines

Lovefrom1stbite shares a recipe for the delicious Ramadan treat chabakia, including a picture of the treats cooking:

Al Miraat/The Moroccan Mirror forgoes words, instead sharing this image:

A day late?

This year, Ramadan in Morocco will start a day later than in most of the world. Morocco, Mauritania, and Iran all determined Ramadan to start Tuesday, a fact which leaves some bloggers puzzled. 27monthswithoutbaseball, a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, says of the delay:

So, Ramadan didn’t begin today after all, at least not in Morocco. It doesn’t really make sense to me – after all, scientists can predict moon phases with complete accuracy from now until the end of time – but they have to wait until the imams say it’s Ramadan. I guess it makes more sense knowing that in every country it’s different – Ramadan started yesterday in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, today in Egypt and most of the Arab world, and will start tomorrow in Morocco, Mauritania and Iran. Who knows, maybe the moon does look a little different in every country. Science doesn’t always have all the answers. We did change the time last night though – back to old time!

North Africa Notes, also a foreigner in Morocco, commented on her feelings after hearing the news that Ramadan had not yet begun:

But today, Monday, sure felt like Ramadan, I think people were so ready for it to be announced as starting today that it was hard for them to get into eating. As I ate a group breakfast with my friend's family we commented on that, it just felt kind of weird to be eating. We were all happy though that the Moroccan government had decided to repeal Daylight Savings time as of this morning,in order to make Ramadan a little easier on everyone ,they said. So we put our clocks back to how they were before and gained an hour. 10 am became 9 am. Sunset is now at 7 instead of 8, Alhamdulilah.

The release process was held up several times by the Israeli cabinet, which held three separate votes on the issue. Among the freed prisoners were Said al-Attaba, Israel's longest serving Palestinian, imprisoned in 1977, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, imprisoned in 1979.

body on the line was in Nablus for the welcome celebrations and compared them to Samir Kuntar's welcome this past July. The blogger wrote:

We waited in the sweltering heat for a few hours (Huwara, by the way, is at most a 10 minute drive from downtown Nablus). It reminded me of going to Samir Quntar’s welcome home festivities this summer, although Hezbollah had chairs for us and fabulous live band (though here we were not getting hit on the head by people waving their flags). But here I could get much closer to the stage, it was not sex segregated, and the crowd was much smaller (I don’t even think the entire crowd in Dahiyaa that day would be able to fit in downtown Nablus). A friend of mine later joined us and I kept hearing people complain about the heat. True, it was unbelievably hot; but I kept thinking about all the torture and living hell these men had endured–one for 32 years–and I thought the least we can do is stand here and give them a hero’s welcome.

The blogger also remembered the prisoners who were not released:

Of course the most famous political prisoners were not released today from their torture chambers: Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat. There was a huge poster in downtown Nablus (see below) about Sa’adat. And of course of the rest of the 10,000+ prisoners in Israeli jails must be remembered. But it also must be remembered that EVERY NIGHT Israeli Terrorist Forces (ITF) kidnap and imprison Palestinian political prisoners. My friend Mustafa, who lives in the old city of Nablus, tells me every day about stories of the ITF coming in with bombs and guns and terrorizing families. In a way, the old city of Nablus is kind of like a refugee camp in that way. It is one of the many sites that gets invaded nightly. Yesterday 9 Palestinians were kidnapped from various West Bank Cities, for instance.

The story was accompanied by the blogger's own photographs, including this one:

For more information from the Palestinian blogosphere, check out Palestine Blogs.