September 4, 2008 – Both Microsoft
and Google debuted the
beta version
of their, respectively, updated and new browsers this week. Google Chrome – Chrome refers to everything
in the browser the user actually sees – has so far gathered more buzz, in part
because it’s Google and, also, because it is pretty
cool. And did I mention the cool comic book introduction? I have tried Chrome and I can
definitely tell you it is faster than IE 7 (no feat there) but it is also
faster than Firefox, a speedier, open-source rival to IE. It’s also a lot more sparse – only two menu
drop downs at the right end of the address bar.
The thing that caught my eye
immediately is that the website tabs are above the address/search/menu bar. In both IE and Firefox, when you open
additional “tabs,” they show below the
menu and above the web page. In Chrome,
the actually look like file folder tabs.
Also, the front page does not,
by default, display a startup web page. Instead, it contains thumbnails of your most frequently visited
sites. It is empty when you first start
up, but over time it promises to fill with sites you can just click on. At the right of the browser window is a list
of recent bookmarks.
Chrome also has an “incognito”
mode for browsing that accepts no
permanent cookies or browsing history. You can see why it is already labeled “porn mode,” but it is actually useful for those sites you do not want putting cookies on your system, and there are many of them. This will potentially pose problems for those web-advertising companies (including Google), but it is about time.
But these are not the things
that excite and interest me. The thing
that excites me the most is what they have done on the inside. If you have used IE 7, you know your browser
can often hang after you open a few tabs – usually at the worst moments – and
there’s nothing you can do about except crash IE 7 and lose everything else you
have been working on. That is because
IE 7 runs a single process and if something gets
stuck, it’s done. Chrome actually starts
a new process – like a little program – for each tab. If one hangs, you kill it but you don’t lose
anything else. This, and some other changes, also helps your computer to perform more efficiently overall when the browser is running.
In addition, this permits Google to
enhance security. Each process runs in a
“sandbox” that has firm boundaries against the rest of the system. That means fewer ways for malicious websites
to do their damage. That’s exciting.
The thing that interests me is
where Goggle may be going with this in the future. Google
has made the browser much more highly interactive and more able to handle processes and web applications
on its own. Chrome is meant to work tightly
with web-based applications. Right now Chrome is
available only for Windows – Apple and Linux versions are promised. However, Google's approach means that someday, while Chrome may work with other
operating systems, it might also work with no operating system – potentially
putting Google in direct competition
to Microsoft.
I will write about IE 8 in my
next blog post.
-------------
September 7, 2008 -- As a follow up on my last point, I think Thomas Claburn got it exactly right in his Sept. 5th article in Information Week.
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respectively, updated and new browsers this week. Google Chrome – Chrome refers to everything
in the browser the user actually sees – has so far gathered more buzz, in part
because it’s Google and, also, because it is pretty
cool. And did I mention the cool 
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