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Sep
3
So, I’ve been playing with Google’s new browser, Chrome. I have to say that this concept is killer. Aside from a few bugs(can’t maximize on a secondary monitor with varying resolutions), I love it.
See, I use a lot of web apps. GMail, Google Docs, MySpace, FaceBook, my blog dashboards, etc. I’ve come to the point that I don’t feel these are web applications anymore. I feel more like they’re local, as I use them so much. As such, I’m glad to see a browser come along that takes the same stance, and takes it seriously.
I really don’t feel like Chrome is a browser. It’s more like a computing gateway, or web container. I’m beginning to think of Chrome more as a necessity for my web applications. I like having certain sites as shortcuts on my desktop that load into an exclusive window with all links opening up in a new tabbed window. It’s just so much more comfortable this way.
I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on Chrome. I know what I’m sticking with for a while, at least.
3 Responses to “Why I like Chrome”
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Says:
September 4th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I have not tried chrome, but I did read about their concept. I think it is awesome that they worked out their own Javascript engine that is many times faster than other engines. The sandboxing and process separation is good. (IE8 seems to try and do this, but it caused major bloat). The only complaints I’ve seen are things that could easily be attributed to it being a beta.
How’s it’s memory usage and processor usage? I’m hoping that splitting the processes doesn’t multiply the memory usage.
I will note that the Mozilla people are working on a javascript engine of their own that is suppose to be slightly faster than V8, even.
Says:
September 4th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I’m really enjoying the whole shebang. It’s memory usage isn’t too bad. It has it’s own task manager to monitor all of it’s open processes. Here’s how mine currently looks:
Process: Browser
Memory: 38,724K
CPU: 0
Network: N/A
Process: Tab:Email
Memory: 26,676K
CPU: 0
Network: 0
Process: Tab:Why I like Chrome | Envied Design.net
Memory: 16,012K
CPU: 0
Network: 0
It all seems much faster than Firefox(which I’ve noticed slowing down in recent versions) and IE. I’ve not put the JS engine through any real stress yet, but it’s coming.
Says:
September 4th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
The way they are treating the web as a application interface instead of a document is MANDATORY for AJAX to be a reality. Before Chrome I had scrapped and mocked the push for AJAX. Because before it would be the equivalent of me saying, hey lets make a accounting program like Turbo Tax in Microsoft Word. While Office Basic (VB Script) would lend itself to allow you to do this very thing the practicality is nil and the time wasted in tracking down bugs and making hack code to get around the unforeseen would be completely ridiculous. Google’s Chrome is the first browser to take the approach of the web as a legitimate application interface and not a document reader first and applications as a after thought.
Problems with Chrome as of now. IE8 has it whooped on a lot of the speed performances. But this is worthless benches when your talking about beta versions. This is due to change on release. One of the major problems I see with the first public release of Chrome is its got a memory leak in its javascript engine. The more active a thread (XHR) is the quicker it expands. The garbage collector is non-existing. A page reload leaves quite a bit of crap in space when it should wipe the majority of memory out. Probably relates to the prior memory leaking issue. Memory not getting collected and left zombie unless the tab is killed.
Chrome as a end-user doesn’t mean much more than a bit more speed and some precision. Scores 75% on the Acid 3 test. Last time I tested Firefox 3.x it scored 70%.
Chrome marks some big changes for the developer world where HTTP/XHR based applications get a lot more legitimate.