Google Chrome

[___]

Anyone tried this out yet? If you missed the news, it's a new browser by Google. And it is faaaast. Pretty slick too. I've been testing it out all today during some development work I'm doing and it's been noticeably higher performing. The UI isn't incredibly innovative but it's a little more efficient from the looks of it compared to the other modern browsers. It's based on webkit, the same engine that powers safari, so thankfully web developers don't have to worry about yet another browser they have to debug for. It has a brand new javascript engine though, and it screeeaaams. So far I've seen faster loading and execution times in web apps by about 5 times, zero hangs or crashes. And another thing, each tab gets its own private javascript box to run in, which means hangs in one tab or slow performance won't interfere with web apps running in other tabs.

Be sure to check out the nitty gritty, expressed in comic book form.

 

[Despain]

thanks but i already use it. except it's called Opera

ooooooooooh

but yeah i read the comic thing a couple of weeks ago and all i could think was "opera does this, and opera does this, and opera does that too".

also the guys at work said something about it having massive security issues but i wasn't really paying too much attention to them.

 

[AnsatsuMan]

And Firefox does all of that too.  Chrome was just nice to look at, that's all.

 

[Plubyblop]

I love it.  It's just all around faster and better than Firefox so far, and I really like the concept of Isolating each tab.  The javascript is also much faster.  All in all it's very similar to Firefox and Opera, but these little behind the scenes things make Google Chrome superior.  I'll never switch back.

 

[Zethus]

I've heard they're gonna store information about what sites you go on along with the ip but they become anonymous in 24 hours or so

 

[Despain]

And Firefox does all of that too.

Not really. I'm talking about the interface things that it claims are so revolutionary, like having the URL bar below the tabs or having the speed-dial thing, both of which Opera has been doing for a while. Google Chrome's speed and the way it processes things is the new and fancy thing here, but the rest of it (the BROWSER ITSELF and not the rendering engine that powers it) is so blatantly taken from Opera (wouldn't really be a problem if they didn't act like they were the only ones doing it).

 

[Venetia]

i'm too resistant to change :/

i try to get into a new browser then i get frustrated with the different placements of buttons and shit.

it took me 2 years to get used to tabs.

i;m a dinosaur

 

[e]

its a fun browser, but like everyone else said, nothing much new, except that each tab is a process in itself; if one tab locks, the rest doesn't crash. That's pretty cool, imo.

unfortunately the development tool is far, far behind Firebug, so a big no no for me right now. Still better than IE i guess.

 

[___]

And Firefox does all of that too.

Not really. I'm talking about the interface things that it claims are so revolutionary, like having the URL bar below the tabs or having the speed-dial thing, both of which Opera has been doing for a while. Google Chrome's speed and the way it processes things is the new and fancy thing here, but the rest of it (the BROWSER ITSELF and not the rendering engine that powers it) is so blatantly taken from Opera (wouldn't really be a problem if they didn't act like they were the only ones doing it).

Opera runs Gecko, not Webkit. Chrome is running Webkit, which is from Safari. You're right, the interface elements are very similar to Opera. The goal was to take the best of each world and put it together Opera is nothing special in terms of what's going on under the hood, it just has a sexy interface, so that's the part of Opera that they put into Chrome.

I don't know who told you it has security issues though, Chrome is wound up tighter than your asshole the first night in prison. The javascript engine is completely new, and utterly badass. They should have dropped some props to Opera in the end for all the interface elements they borrowed though.

 

[Totti]

Yeah, they claimed it was revolutionary, but it was just piecmealing the best aspects of everything together.

 

[___]

I don't think Google has ever done anything revolutionary, they're the type of innovators that take existing things and make them really freakin' good instead.

 

[Totti]

I don't think Google has ever done anything revolutionary, they're the type of innovators that take existing things and make them really freakin' good instead.

True that.

 

[Tohsaka]

It's not really that fast. I've found it no faster than Safari or Konqueror.

 

[e]

on a good box anyhow, theres no difference between most browsers.

 

[___]

Well you can't really make a browser go faster in general use, it's not complicated software. Any modern machine is going to be so much faster than a browser requires that it's not going to make a difference compared to bandwidth. What Chrome does faster is Javascript and heavyweight web apps, like the ones Google likes to develop. It does it by compiling the javascript at run time to machine code rather than running strictly on interpretation like other javascript engines, which means you'll see faster load times and faster, smoother responses in those applications. So far my experience has been very positive in that regard, but I use these things a lot.

 

[Totti]

Well, java doesn't work in Google Chrome correctly.  For me at least.

 

[e]

True and not true. Chrome's JavaScript engine is significantly faster, but from a user's point view, it's generally a difference of milliseconds, at most; apps like Netvibes and other well programmed Web 2.0 applications which rely heavily on JavaScript are, from a user's perspective, more or less the same. Though the Chrome's engine is something like 10 times faster, on an average machine, when compared with Firefox, there's not that much difference to the end user. Whilst JavaScript forms a good deal of the time the browser spends working, parsing the HTML, sending HTTP requests and loading images still form up the larger part of it.

imo, Chrome's nice, but the point is moot; it's not "better" than Firefox, or Opera, or Safari, or any standards compliant browser. It's different.

Though, it does have a LOT of potential, considering that the beta version is up to par with the major browsers...and seeing as how its Google backing it up, I'm guessing it'll probably be the next big thing since Mozilla.

 

[___]

I have noticed a measurable difference in Google apps, personally. I haven't tried to benchmark it yet, but comparing them side by side the difference is definitely noticeable. I haven't given it a shot in other heavyweight web apps yet since I don't use them often, but I use gmail, calendar and docs pretty often.

 

[Totti]

I bet Google has built something in there that makes them (Google Apps) run faster.

 

[___]

Google Gears, I don't know if it's implemented yet.