Well, I must admit, it’s still a young project but it looks really nice. The project was keep in secret for more than one year. I cannot wait to try it, so I downloaded it and installed it. It’s a minimalist browser, it has tabs, and a clean UI.
It seems that it is based on Mozilla and Webkit, and it’s really fast when it comes to javascript performance, it is really fast.
They have created an entirely new browser from the scratch. Why? Well they have collected an entire set of reasons into this clear and funny comic style “googlebook”: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
What’s new with this browser?
- It’s free, open source
- It has support for standards.
- It’s designed for the today’s demanding web applications
- It has a faster Javascript VM (Yes! a Virtual Machine, so it compiles Javascript instead of just interpret it!!, impressive). Developed by the V8 Team
- It provides each tab with his own isolated environment called the Sandbox, so the risk from attacks and from malware on the web are minimized (not completed eliminated, that’s really hard to accomplish even for google!!)
- Improved Garbage Collection. (No more memory leaks like in IE?, well, I have to test it!!!)
- Nice UI, simple and consistent.
- A simpler popup blocker.
- It has Google Gears included.
1. I can’t find easily my favorites. (well to be honest, my friend Paolo didn’t find them)
2. They say that each tab runs on an entirely separated process, so, having 10 tabs open, we have then 10 process with all the memory and the resources they need to be opened. Mmm, they claim that his memory management does a great job, and can cope with the challenge… but, let’s try it and look what happens.
3. It has a kind of firebug addon integrated, but, It’s not dockable like the firebug plugin for Mozilla, so it’s a little bit hard to work with it.
So, to resume all in just one sentence…
Google Chrome is not only a Web Browser. It’s an application platform to run Web Applications.
Nice, isn’t it? Well, IMHO, the competence is good for the Web and for us.
