A Shiny New Google Project: Chrome

September 2, 2008
By: Michael Price
Author's Website: http://www.zillow.com

Google has the world abuzz again today with the announcement of their latest project, Chrome. Chrome is Google’s answer to the browser battle. Why create a new browser? Simple, if you’re entire business model is based upon the future of the browser being the single interface for all computing applications (desktop or mobile), you probably want to have some say in how the interface is designed and operates.

Chrome is developed based upon an open source set of development tools, also released by Google, called WebKit. It is a tab based environment that is Google says will improve the user experience with more stability and security. Chrome also takes advantage of another Google development standard called “Gears“.

A couple of sites have stated that Chrome will be avaialble for download as early as tomorrow. To find out more, Google has released a 38 page “web comic” explaining Chrome.

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Stratégies du Vidéo Keno

Absolutely rocks in every way. Google has once again proven that it has what is needed to deliver great products. it’s a decent browser…download time may be a dash slower than other browsers but the app load time, smooth rendering, space utilization etc are great.

Andrew Mattie

One thing that does make me more at ease with Chrome is that it's completely open source. It seems that they spent quite some time writing the documentation to help get other developers involved. http://dev.chromium.org/developers.

I certainly don't think there's anything shady going on, but with the increasing number of web-based security exploits out there, I'm still glad that Google made it so other programmers can hop in there and check out their code.

Mike Price

Andrew,
Right you are, I actually wrote about that in another post a long time ago and must of had too much Google on the brain. I have not had a chance to try out Chrome yet because it's PC only right now. I'll get around to downloading on our Vista box eventually.

I've heard, that like in other instances, Google is re-evaluating the EULA. I was afraid that there would be some scary language in there, and now I hear that the browser is actually capturing and saving keystrokes. Not sure how true it is, but it warrants investigation. It's a brave new world.

Riverside

I think it's a great leap- very fast, great interactivity. The "Sand box" effect that seperates each tab is why I'm drawn to it though. Firefox's tabs tend to crash the entire browser, and the seperated processes allow you to cut out problems before they freeze your system entirely.
"You were too busy asking the question of if you COULD that you never stopped to ask if you SHOULD", Iam Malcom - Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton)

You're going to find tons of articles out there pushing both ways on this release. From frightening aspects of the EULA to the fact that Chrome seems to be a Frankenstein monster project that pulls from many other major browsers... I however like this monstrosity...possibly because I like ugly animals like pugs and baby aligators... but mostly because it is even more forward thinking by Google.

Andrew Mattie

Additionally, it's worth pointing out that a security flaw has already been found with Chrome. See here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1843.

Chrome sure is fast, but my experience has just been to be careful with with I do with new browsers until the professional hackers have had their way with it first.

Andrew Mattie

WebKit is actually Apple's framework, and it's what Apple had based their Safari web browser on.

Drew Meyers

Mike-
I haven't downloaded "chrome" yet, but a couple people have already asked me today what I think of it -- I'll test this sucker out sometime in the next few days!