2009

Google Chrome – Possibilities, Developers Point of View & The Bare Truth

Article Last Updated: 6^th Apr 2009
Posted by Ruhani Rabin in Software | Comments | |

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Recently the Google’s Browser Chrome has been released. As a web application developer and enthusiast I had a lot of expectations from a browser specially when it comes from Google. I’ve seen a lot of people writing about it, some good and a few other stuff. Since it’s just a first beta out of the box, there might be a lot of complications along with it. So I’ve installed it both on my home and office computer and start browsing with it. Yeah, you will find a ton of writing about Google’s Chrome around the Internet. But how many of them actually pointed out what a browser should have and possible problem scenario. Obviously now the browser war is in more wide range. Microsoft Designs it’s Internet Explorer to be more fast on Microsoft platform and Microsoft ASP and .Net coded pages, Apple Designs the Safari to be more efficient on Mac platform, Mozilla is exceptionally efficient in it’s performance in Linux and Windows too, Opera keeps it’s performance on a specific group of Community and peoples and it’s already cleared what Google’s Chrome will do, it performs maximum with Google Apps and Google related products. Chrome comes with the v8 JavaScript engine, no it’s not the V8 Dodge Challenger – It’s just another Level of JavaScript Rendering Engine. Chrome renders the web pages using Apple Webkit (Safari) rendering engine. The question is how much effort has been put into Google Chrome while keeping the web standards on the roll? TechCrunch mentioned it as “Google’s Windows Killer”. Lets take a look into the major benefits and backlogs.

Benefits and Features:

Exceptionally fast startup time
Exceptionally fast v8 JavaScript Engine, claimed to be 10 times faster than Mozilla JavaScript engine
Smooth and Clean Tab Organization, Detach and Attach tabs easily.
Multi Process Tabs, which means each of the Tabs runs on their own process space. So if one of the Tab faces crash, the other tabs will be still running smoothly.
Comes with an internal download manager
Complete anonymous tabbed browsing allows streamlined privacy
Faster rendering
Excellent Google applications performance, in fact it’s 3 times faster than any other browsers
Chrome saves the passwords in Mozilla Firefox manner.
HTML Elements Inspection Tool, a small portion of FireBug.
Task Manager to monitor Tab Process and Memory usage.
Opera Speed Dial like most visited sites with thumbnails
Search inside browsing history

Here is a Quick and Dirty Video Footage of Google Chrome In Action

Possible Problems and Issues:

Incompatibility with many ajax and JavaScript driven social networks and sites. As bare example is FaceBook.com. About 60% of the Ajax functionality is disabled while browsing Facebook using Chrome.
Incompatible and/or New level CSS rendering makes many common CSS DIV and SPAN style tags to behave incorrectly. We know there is so many issue with Internet Explorer that it doesn’t follow the standards, Many developers cracked their heads to make their CSS work into Internet Explorer. Now There are a load of issues regarding CSS style sheets with Chrome, so where are we going from here?
No Extendibility? while FireFox offers thousands of Extensions to Enhance the browsing level to the Next era. Firefox also offers various development tools for web developers. How to use aÂ browser with no feature expansion options?
Running each Tabs in separate memory space makes the browsing safe but consumes more memory.
Offline download of the Chrome is not possible at this moment so if your friends PC doesn’t have Internet connection, you won’t be able to install the browser.
One of the most essential feature, a built in RSS reader is not present. While Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari & Opera provides built in RSS reader. I noticed The Chrome browser doesn’t even have a notification Icon for RSS.
Some of the Internet Explorer variants such as Maxthon Browser, Avant Browser and Some extensions of Firefox offers options to carry your settings online to anywhere including bookmarks, user profile information, preferences and passwords. Also Firefox has proven portability which offers running the browser from USB disks, flash drives and even from CD-ROMS.
When we are living at the Era of Social Networking, it has been silently ignored in the Google Chrome Browser. There is currently no option to socialize. Hey I love to keep my bookmarks in del.icio.us, I like to see updates from my friends using RSS, I like to stumble upon sites that I like, I like to see what my contacts are doing at Facebook, I like to post a tweet in twitter. These are really few to mention here. I am really hoping to see Google guys do something about expanding the browser features.
The HTML element Inspection tool is really simple. Those who are using FireBug or Web Developer ToolBox in Firefox they will understand what I mean by “Really Simple”.

The Verdict:

I love Google Applications and trust me I use Google Applications in personally, professionally in an hourly basis. That is why I expected a lot more from Google Chrome. It’s a fine browser of course but I’m afraid to see it as another “Internet Explorer”. Web developers already have enough headache about multiple browser testing for their web sites and web applications, I hope Google will keep that in mind and won’t make the Chrome as a proprietary application like “Internet Explorer”. In my honest opinion Google Chrome is not yet a full scale browser. I know It’s just started but some of the things really can make any web developers worried. I am wishing the very best for the new journey of Google Chrome and awaiting the robustness that I can dream of from it. Please feel free to share your point of view Google Chrome. I would love to hear from you.

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About Ruhani Rabin

Ruhani Rabin is the original owner and author of this blog. He also reviews web 2.0 startups at Tech2all.com. Largely interested in web 2.0 apps & Social Media. Currently the Vice President of MOL Access Portal (MOL is owner of Friendster.com). Also he is Web 2.0 & Social Media Researcher and a Total fun Geek!.. There you have it ;)

Twitter Profile: http://twitter.com/ruhanirabin