In the recent few days, the tech world is excessively bombarded with 1 word – Chrome. At this moment, it’s quite unlikely for anyone not to have stumbled upon this word, unless you were not online during the past 3 days.
Just in case you are reading this post without any idea on what I am talking about, Google has already released a very early version of its web browser – named Google Chrome. We are now living with one more potentially-promising choice of web browser. On the downside, it’s only supporting Windows XP and Vista at this moment.
Google Chrome is built on AppleWebKit foundation, the same engine currently used in Safari web browser.
This is the about:memory (type about:memory into Address Bar) page. The most interesting feature in Google Chrome, which is yet to be found in any other popular web browser, is its handling of each new tab as a new process.
Think of it in this analogy:
In other browsers (including but not limited to Firefox, IE and Opera), all passengers (tabs) are loaded into the same vehicle (process). So in the event of accident, all passengers in the vehicle will be affected.
On the other hand, Google Chrome uses a new vehicle (process) for each passenger (tab). So, even if a vehicle is crashed, only the passenger in this vehicle will be affected, while all other vehicles and passengers are safe and sound.
Undeniably, Google Chrome is superbly fast in start-up. At first, I thought Chrome will consume less memory comparing to Firefox loaded with extensions, but I am proven wrong. I opened 9 exact web pages in both Firefox and Chrome. However, when I compare the private memory, Chrome was using 142.248MB while Firefox 3 was using 119.904MB, a difference of about 22MB. This surprised me, as my Firefox 3 loaded with 8 plug-ins was actually consuming less memory.
According to my observation, Google Chrome requires less memory when it’s first started up, comparing to Firefox 3. However, as I open more tabs with other web pages, Firefox 3 seems to be managing the memory more consistently.
This is the default new tab page. It shows most visited pages in big thumbnails, as well as listing of recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs.
The address bar searches your web history URLs, as well as some suggestions returned from Google search. However, the address bar doesn’t search into bookmarks.
All HTML form fields are automatically bordered with orange frame when active. Besides, HTML textarea (text box) is also resizable – just drag at the bottom right corner to resize.
Instead of pop-up, downloads are shown in a bar at the bottom. Details of all downloads can also be seen and searched in the Downloads page (Ctrl + J).
As of developer tools, Chrome is featuring a very developer-friendly Elements Inspector, which outlines all elements in the inspecting web page by expandable HTML and CSS. When you select a particular node of the HTML source codes, the corresponding section will be shaded in orangey yellow in browser. Even though this Elements Inspector is not as comprehensive as Firebug, but considering it as something available built-in, it’s really good enough.
Similar to Firefox, when finding text (Ctrl + F) in a web page, all matches will be highlighted. Firefox has an option to turn-off this highlight, but I couldn’t find this option in Google Chrome yet.
When you right-click on any hyperlink, there’s a new option in the context menu named “Open link in incognito window”. Once clicked, the link will be opened in a new browser window called Incognito. In layman term, this is a history-less (is there such a term? hahaha) and traceless web browsing window. No history, cookie and cached file will be saved. Good for children using family PC to surf porn :p
Looking for browsing history can be quite a mess sometime. But Google Chrome outlines the browsing history in quite a nice manner - grouped by hour of day.
Chrome’s JavaScript Engine is The Fastest?
Much has been said about the JavaScript engine in Chrome, called V8. V8 is claimed as the fastest JavaScript VM, by compiling JavaScript down to native code and further optimize the executive by inline caching and class system structure.
For your information, these are the JavaScript engines powering some popular browsers:
- SpiderMonkey – up to and including Firefox 3.0
- TraceMonkey – Firefox 3.1 and newer (yet to be officially released)
- V8 – Google Chrome
- IE Jscript – Internet Explorer
Among all, needless to mention, IE’s JavaScript engine is the least optimized, and the worst in performance. There are some interesting benchmarking results published online for your reference:
- Ars Technica - New Firefox JavaScript engine is faster than Chrome’s V8
- John Resig - JavaScript Performance Rundown
In summary, according to the benchmarking results, Chrome’s V8 is currently the fastest JavaScript engine, if TraceMonkey is not coming into picture.
Once Firefox 3.1 is officially released, and if V8 remains the same, then TraceMonkey will be the fastest JavaScript VM.
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I heard about Google Chrome in almost all IT blogs. Feel like it’s about the right time to make some changes and try something new. FF always hang here.
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Read the small print:Google’s new web browser Chrome is fast, shiny, and requires users to sign their very lives over to Google before they can use it. Today’s Internet outrage du jour has been Chrome’s EULA, which appears to give Google a nonexclusive right to display and distribute every bit of content transmitted through the browser. Now, Google tells Ars that it’s a mistake, the EULA will be corrected, and the correction will be retroactive.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-google-on-chrome-eula-controversy-our-bad-well-change-it.html