Google Chrome Review, Part 1: The Good

Sep 23

AceTech Articles browser, chrome, Google View Comments

Firefox has been a part of my browsing-life since it was still in pre-1.0 beta stages and went by the name of Phoenix. The reason clung so to this new browser (at the time) was due to the fact that I had become frustrated with the much lamented Internet Explorer Microsoft that was developed to sweep Netscape off the table. Back then, Firefox only held a modest percentage of the browsing market-share, its’ main selling point being its open-source nature and security.

Browsers, much like everything else in the computer software business, started to evolve into something much more sophisticated and complex than first envisioned. It seems to me that while Firefox 3.0 was vast improvement over its predecessor, it has lost a lot of its attractiveness, a direct consequence of its increasingly intricate nature.

For a while now, I had been trying out alternatives like IE7, Opera and Apple Safari for Windows. Yet, none of them were able to haul me over. Except for the recently released Google Chrome, that is.

While Chrome was generally well received, despite it being extremely stripped-down, interest calmed though within a week. Consequently, the initial extra market-share it had stolen primarily from Firefox was lost again. It caught up with Opera and will likely stay above that mark.

Google’s promise is to become a driving force behind cloud computing by implementing the ‘best’ web browsing framework out there. To accomplish this, they based their work on the open-source project WebKit and developed their own JavaScript interpreter called V8.

For the time being, Google Chrome is a Windows-only application, with Mac and Linux versions coming down the pike soon.

Crisp UI

The user interface is very straightforward and exceptionally sparing on graphical elements. Every page in Chrome is a tab and each contains its own set of controls. The basic UI elements familiar from other browsers are present:

Forward & back button
Refresh button
A bookmarking star
URL/Search bar (a.k.a. the omnibox)

Unlike any other Windows application, Chrome completely lacks a traditional menu line (File, View, etc.) and substitutes it with two buttons containing all additional menus:

Document drop-down
Wrench drop-down

And that’s it. No bells, no whistles. As it should be, in my opinion. Unlike Mozilla Firefox, Chrome does look native on Windows, no matter which version of the OS you run. If you run Vista with Aero it’ll take advantage of the the transparent glass interface, but if you have transparency turned off, it’ll adapt and display a soothing blue-gray opaque frame. Windows XP users get the full candy-blue experience, while a bit sore on the eyes, it certainly fits right in to the XP atmosphere. I prefer the Vista-look.

Chrome is gorgeous-looking and makes me wonder why Mozilla didn’t pursue the similar plans it had for FF3.0. As a result, Firefox is less coherent, elegant and.. pretty. Alas. Furthermore, If you’re fond of Google’s web services Spartan look like, Chrome’s pristine user interface will most certainly make sense right away.

Lack of Bookmarking

To some this may come across as a flaw, to me it’s definitely a feature. Since I hate the hassle of bookmarking and all the management that comes along with it, I was delighted to see barely any provisions for it. I’ve grown to resent Firefox’ bookmark management system so much and tried a slew of online social bookmarking sites like Delicious.com and Digg – without result. It’s an annoying process and ultimately, I don’t believe we should be bothered by, since browsers [by default] keep track of your browsing history.

You can, however, create a bookmark by hitting the usual keystroke (CTRL+D) or click the well-known star-icon next to the omnibox (I’ll get to that in a minute). Google says they’re working on a more sophisticated system, but I’d encourage actually want to endorse the opposite. Just leave it out.

Speed

Chrome, like Apple Safari, incorporates the WebKit rendering engine, which makes it inherently faster than most other browsers out there. By having their in-house version of JavaScript built-in (“V8”), Google claims web apps will run significantly faster when compared to the competition. And I’m willing to vouch for that, although I lack a scientific way to measure this. I guess you’ll just have to take my unscientific word for it.

While it may cause some additional overhead at first, each tab is run in its own process. This sandboxes every pages and theoretically prevents one tab from causing another to crash or freeze up. Furthermore, RAM’s inherent fragmentation within processes is pretty much eliminated, since tabs don’t generally have a very long lifetime and are closed significantly sooner than the browser window itself. Browsers coming to a grinding halt due to memory fragmentation should be a thing of the past with this measure in place.

The only other browser that I know of that will be implementing a similar feature is Internet Explorer 8 Beta. I haven’t had the chance to look at it yet, though.

Compatibility

From what I’ve heard, Chrome is compatible with more web pages than Microsoft’s latest iteration of Internet Explorer, which is in its second beta right now. I personally haven’t noticed too many glitches from a rendering point of view, apart from YouTube videos not coming through right away. I’ll have to investigate IE8 first before I can make a definite verdict, however.

Incognito Mode

Similar to IE8′s InPrivate mode and Safari’s Private Browsing mode, Chrome also allows you to surf anonymously by means of ‘Incognito’, a specific window mode.

In order to make use of this, you will need to create a new Incognito Window by clicking the similarly-named option from the document-button in the upper right hand region. A spy-like icon will appear in the chrome on the left, further signifying that no traces are left as you scour the net. No passwords, history or caches will be retained after you decide to kill the window and resume your ‘on-the-record’ web surfing. Neat.

Omnibox

Contrary to the convention, Chrome merges the URL-bar and search-bar into one, which is referred to internally as the omnibox. Besides being a two-in-one kind of thing, it also makes attempts at guessing what you’re about to type. To accomplish this, it combines Google Search with suggestions and does a surprisingly good job. Also, while you browse the web, it’ll remember every page you visit in case you decide to return to it at a later time. In that case, just typing the first few letters of either the URL or name of the website will suffice for Chrome to auto-complete your request. Nice.

Download Manager

Google’s take on an integrated download manager is — again — very minimal. Downloads are confined to their originating tabs and uses a visual cue to guide the eye to a bar that runs along the bottom of the window. As you click on files, downloads are queued in the download strip, your files are stored in your usual download folder. Like the tabs, these items can be dragged out of the Chrome frame onto your desktop or any other folder.

Home Tab / New Tab

Analogous to the omnibox, Google further tries to anticipate users’ next steps by introducing a non-empty ‘New Tab Page’, basing its content on your previous browsing habits. The Home Tab/New Tab
Page is a page on which your nine most visited websites are listed in a grid. On the right, Chrome lists recently closed tabs and recently bookmarked sites.

Admittedly, the Home Tab does takes getting used to, but it grows on you once you give it a chance. If you have a web-based homepage, like iGoogle or Live.com, there’s no need to leave it behind since it’ll most likely pop up on your Home Tab too.

If you despise this feature, you’re just a few click away of switching it off.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of good to stand up for in Chrome. So much so that Google was able to persuade me into using it full-time as my only browser. On the other hand, I’d be a complete zealot if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that Chrome, too, is far from perfect. Therefore I’ll be dedicating the second part to this review covering ‘The Bad’ side of Google browser.