Finally a browser for Speedy Gonzales
So I’m typing this post using Google Chrome, which I’ve been using for a few days now and to which, I admit, I’ve taken a shine. It’s easy to be disappointed by a browser - particularly if your benchmark is a customised Firefox with all your favourite tools installed. IE7 was only welcome because it was better than its treacherous little brother. Safari (on Windows) was too slow to load and Apple’s software update tool too arrogant. Opera, well… Opera is just Opera.
The first thing that will strike you about Chrome is its speed: load time alone is enough make me want to shun Firefox for general browsing, and creating and managing tabs is frightfully snappy. When you open a new tab, Chrome presents you with a search field, your most recent bookmarks and pages visited. It’s like the borg at Google have have read my puny mind!
But what intrigued me from the first moment I laid a cursor on it was Chrome’s process management. Each tab is a new process which can be annihilated without affecting the others. This has already proven triumphant over resource-greedy tards like Acrobat Reader and caters splendidly for my habit of opening 20 bookmarks at a time.
Of course the first thing I do when any new major browser iteration is released is to verify how it renders my favourite websites. Chrome is based on Webkit - thanks, Google!
Okay. So I sound like a lollypop sucking fanboy. It’s not all party hats and fish fingers.
The lack of an ad-blocker is disappointing. It’s strange experience returning to familiar sites without your marketing prophylactic. In Chrome, some of my favourite sites, seemingly aware that they could finally spew their repressed bile at me, shot out banner ads like golf balls at a Japanese driving range.
It also has a simple development tool that comes with a DOM/CSS explorer and JavaScript debugger, which is welcome, but it doesn’t come close to replacing Firebug. Chrome isn’t yet extensible so I think it means that I’ll still have to have two browsers open:
- Chrome for browsing
- Firefox for developing, testing, FTP, Greasemonkey and everything else it does so well
Then there’s the notion of yielding to Google - which I’ve already placed in charge of my email, my calendar, my web search and only sweet Jesus knows what else - the entire range of my web browsing activity. When does it become too much?
It’s clear that Google has big plans for Chrome. It smacks of a base platform to house new and more sophisticated web applications and extensibility is on the cards. At any rate, if Microsoft still harbours any desire to remain in the browser market they’d better pull their fists out. Will the final version of IE8 be a contender? I’d bet no.
But that’s just my opinion. And, now that Google has backtracked on Chrome’s terms of use, it will remain mine.
Tags: browsers
September 6th, 2008 at 6:26 am
It’s become too much for me recently, and Chrome was the final megalomaniacal straw. I’ve begun extracting myself from the unfeeling corporate Borg that Google now feels like (they probably always were, but it was easier to delude myself then). Soon they’ll be nothing for me but a vague memory of distaste and discomfort, like Facebook.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:55 am
I’m wondering what Chrome will look like when and if it ever comes out of beta. I mean, it’s really an alpha release, lacking features like screen reader accessibility, keyboard controls, ad blockers, etc.
But with Google, who’s to say if it will ever become “final”? Gmail is still marked as “beta” and there’s no possible interpretation that justifies that tag. It’s odd, for being a massive corporation Google have a distinctly immature edge - not quite game to call something a 1.0 release and support it like the grown ups
Anyway I think Chrome’s “application link” gives an idea where they’re heading. I think they want us to do things like run Gmail in a chromeless (ha ha) window as though it was an email client. One step closer to a Google OS. They have email, calendar, office tools etc all online and now they have client software for it…
September 11th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Whilst I think it’s good that Google is putting some energy into improving performance for dynamic languages like JavaScript I won’t be sneaking around with their browser any time soon. I’ve been using a Gecko based browser since the early, almost unbearable milestones last milennium… it’ll take more than this effort from a company that’s consistently losing my interest to separate me from my mindless brand loyalty on this one.
September 11th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Fair call. I’m impatient and ruthlessly disloyal. I prefer the pragmatics of speed over fretting whether I’m getting shafted by a gluttonous entity that’s still intent on portraying itself as funky and different.
As for Google’s perpetual beta status, God save us when it reaches gamma.