Sean Walther's Blog

Chrome – Holding Steady

I had posted earlier that I had setup Google’s new Chrome browser.

Now it’s been at least a week that I’ve been using it and I wanted to post some comments.

First of all, I don’t consider a “beta” browser.  I know whenever I test out a new browser it feels like it’s almost unusable for a period of time.  It’s been getting much better since the IE4 days, but there’s still always a sense of “this isn’t ready yet”.

Being a web developer, I dread new browsers because … thats just one more environment you have to test in.  

With this browser, I feel like it is already a final product.  Already I’m excited about the integration of “Gears”, the slim application like interface when you “Create application shortcut”, how fast it seems to run, and the possibilities it introduces for Javascript and AJAX online.

Some minor issues I would, however, like to raise are:

• I had a tab freeze, and the other tab froze as well — I had thought each tab was supposed to be entirely independent from one another in processor space and prevent this.  Maybe I’m misunderstood?
• It seems the great “V8” team that Google had put together is in competition with SquirrelFish Extreme in terms of pure performance.  Needless to say, I’m no expert in this, and it’s probably one of those benchmarks that highly favors a browser, or isn’t indicative of the complete functionality of an engine.
•  This is entirely a subjective point, but I don’t like the way the Taskbar icons look.  I know I’m tuned into Firefox and IE’s icons for the web, but I always get confused with the 3 colors in the Chrome taskbar icons.  
• Whos’ taking advantage of the new functionality the most?  I remember years ago seeing links to who was taking advantage to IE4′s new capabilities, does anyone have a list of site’s that are built to embrace Chrome?  (maybe an idea for a future project)

Tags: AJAX, Arstechnica, Browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Gears, HTML, IE, Javascript, SquirrelFish Extreme, V8

Google Chrome!

Along with all the geek’s around the world, today I got a hands on impression of Google Chrome. 

First off — the rationale behind the browser is exactly what it should be.  Clean, quick, and flexible.

Using it quickly, I already want to start creating a web application to take advantage of it’s multi threading, javascript sandboxing, simple “OS” like interface.

When I click on a tab, it finally creates a new window! 

The best part, any advances made in development on Chrome, are open source and can be integrated with Firefox down the line.

Highly recommended.

Update – Great article over at wired on the story behind Chrome
Update #2 – Arsetechnica has just published an article reviewing Chrome
Update #3 – Security flaws in Google Chrome found, based on old webkit flaw.

Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Google