Google Chrome

Posted on: Sep 5 2008, 05:44 PM

So what's the big deal? Honestly it isn't much to talk about. It's a beta browser that lacks the features I need for surfing the web. I'm glad they changed the EULA, but I still don't like the idea of sending google information about everything I view. I'm sure that they'll put in ads before long too.

From a feature point, google's celebrated features can already be found in Opera or Firefox with plugins. The "new tab window" page is a clear copy of Opera's SpeedDial feature, except you can't control it. If it had mouse gestures, I may consider using it...sometimes.

I also don't understand the big deal about having tabs as new processes. I've had web pages hang before and they haven't affected my other tabs. Maybe I just have never come across a page that causes the errors they're so worried about (which leads to questions about the necessity of the feature). I'd like to see what google uses to test the browser.

Another thing about chrome is the speed. I admit for most pages chrome is slightly faster (maybe a second or two on an uncached page) than Opera. Not a huge deal, but it is noticable. However, this speed comes at a cost. I did a check yesterday of fresh starts of opera and google, took them to the same page, and compared the memory usage. Opera's footprint was at least 5k smaller, which is somewhat important on my aging system.

And then there is the famed increased Javascript speed. Is it really all that much faster? Actually, depending on the test, it can be significantly slower. I've already seen one article where FF3 was faster than chrome, and running the speed test at http://celtickane.com/webdesign/jsspeed2007.php tells me that Opera is still faster, by about 100ms. Chrome wins in every category except arrays and ajax, which is surprising since I thought Chrome was designed for maximizing ajax apps performance.

So that's about it for my mini-review of Chrome. I'm sure it will get better over time.

On another note, I still haven't heard back from my interview. I've been in contact but don't have an answer yet. I'm also taking a bit of a break from PW. Probably won't last too long, but I just need some time away, as I'm getting burnt out. Coding 8 hours a day and then coming home and doing it some more gets to you after a while.

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