Google Locks and Loads Chrome for Browser Wars

By Greg McNevin

September 4, 2008: Google’s new open source browser has been out for a day now, some are already calling it “revolutionary”, while others are talking up the brewing browser war far more ominously than they were with the release of Firefox 3.0. To see what all the fuss is about, IDM has grabbed a copy of the beta for a test drive…

The most noticeable differences straight off the bat are Chromes minimalist interface and its impressive speed.

The interface features the address bar, the tab bar (integrated into the very top of the window) and typical icons such as forward, back, refresh, add to favourites and options. Very slick and unobtrusive enabling more space for the web or application content. It really has a ‘the browser is the desktop’ feel to it.

Google is certainly on the ball with performance, Chrome easily trumps both Internet Explorer and Firefox when it comes to load times, and as far as memory use goes it is quite lean. It also appears to run javascript many times faster than its peers.

Google has incorporated tabbed browsing, however, it has changed the way it works by enabling users to organising the tab order, and even drag a tab out of the list to create a while new browser window. The tabs themselves also function a little differently as pages opened in a new tab will only start loading when one opens it as the main window.

As IDM mentioned yesterday, Chrome’s multi-threading capabilities enable the tabs to function as individual processes, so if one begins hogging too much of the system resources, or if something crashes then that tab can simple be closed, freeing up the allocated resources and saving the rest of the browser from hanging.

Chrome is being presented as open source and neutral, during the install for example you can integrate your preferred search engine instead of going for Google’s, however, it naturally works best with Google’s own applications and services.

For example, the address bar function like the Google home page, enabling users to type search queries directly into the bar while it offers up suggestions in real time. This feature does exist in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, however, it works a lot better in Chrome.

Along side this, the integration with Google Gears and Chrome’s focus on web applications enables more seamless use of Google apps such as Google Docs, Gmail and Picasa.

Google is planning to scoop “tens of millions” of users from the likes of Microsoft and Mozilla, but more broadly the browser can be seen as the proverbial gauntlet, with Google throwing down in front of Microsoft over what many see as the future of the web.

Google is already nibbling away at Microsoft’s office productivity space with its range of online applications, its Gmail and Calendar applications are incredibly popular, now with a browser to augment its growing stable of applications and world-beating search engine, a big battle is brewing.

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