Google Chrome Is Amazing

[Humodour]

I recently was able to test Chrome out on a lab computer at college. To put it simply: it's amazing. It far exceeded all my expectations.

 

It is, basically, the fastest, most stable, most secure, and least memory intensive web browser out there.

 

Its Javascript performance is astounding (keep in mind almost every site uses JS, often to a large degree). Gmail and Google apps, just to name names, are blindly fast and responsive under Chrome. And unlike other browsers it doesn't die at 30 tabs open, and when malware installs or a page dies, it's sandboxed, so it doesn't take down your entire browser or system.

 

It's a beta, and some features aren't implemented yet (basically the only thing missing is plugin support - including adblock, but I don't use either of those), yet it's a sleek, fast, thoroughly usable browser. Once it comes out for Ubuntu I'll hop on board.

 

 

My suggestion is: anybody who is still using Internet Explorer, just switch to Chrome. There's absolutely nothing IE7 or IE8 does better. Chrome even has Opera's SpeedDial!

 

Note: there was some confusion about a rather restrictive EULA inherited from some other Google utility. That was fixed pretty quickly: it basically now reads "anything you do on Chrome is none of our business and we don't own any of your data".

 

Download location: http://www.google.com/chrome

Edited September 4, 2008 by Krezack

[tripleRRR]

Personally I'll stick with firefox 3 for a few more months. Just to let them work some of the bugs out. But I plan on switching to chrome in the future, 100%.

[Pop]

Actually, once you get past 6 or 7 tabs Firefox outperforms it in terms of memory usage, and in terms of speed, depending on your memory. It's quite minimalistic, most of the features I enjoy in Firefox aren't there (yet) and goddamn, having tabs on the top bar is ****ing annoying.

 

As it stands it's just the mongrelized, illegitimate child of Firefox and Webkit. Nothing terribly notable that would draw me away from FF at this juncture. If FF steps up their game in response then it's win/win.

 

Also there was some concern over the EULA stating that Google retains full rights to anything posted via Chrome but apparently that section has since been removed.

Edited September 4, 2008 by Pop

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It's ok, I guess, but I think I'll keep doing what I am now and use Opera, IE7, and Firefox.

Edited September 4, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Humodour]

Actually, once you get past 6 or 7 tabs Firefox outperforms it in terms of memory usage, and in terms of speed, depending on your memory. It's quite minimalistic, most of the features I enjoy in Firefox aren't there (yet) and goddamn, having tabs on the top bar is ****ing annoying.

 

... Until you get to 30 or 40 tabs open and Firefox starts crawling. Opera is also faster than Firefox when it comes to large numbers of tabs I've found.

 

Firefox doesn't out perform it in memory usage over time - junk builds up, though it's superior to IE. In Chrome, once you kill a tab, you kill its memory, so there's no leakage or anything. I imagine the flat-rate toll on memory for each process open would make Firefox the victor for sessions of short duration and an average number of tabs like you say.

 

Opera puts the tabs at the top, too. I like it - makes sense in that the URL is specific to each tab. Once Google releases some plugin and theme support I'm sure you'll be able to move it. I'm personally waiting for a status bar at the bottom.

 

I haven't been able to see how Firefox could be faster than Chrome? The only aspect where there's any sufficiently noticeable speed difference is Javascript, where Chrome opens a can of whoop-ass. Javascript is, 95% of the time, the reason my Firefox is running slowly.

 

As it stands it's just the mongrelized, illegitimate child of Firefox and Webkit. Nothing terribly notable that would draw me away from FF at this juncture. If FF steps up their game in response then it's win/win.

 

The sandboxing and the massive Javascript speed up are each important enough on their own to warrant seriously considering switching. But yeah, it's all good - Firefox will change to keep up. Yay for competition.

 

Personally, I hope the majority of Firefox users stick to Firefox (TraceMonkey should provide Javascript speeds as fast a Chrome). Chrome is an IE replacement so that we can finally be rid of that piece of bloatware (i.e. it falls below 50% to 60% market share and the usage of other browsers snowballs from there, allowing web apps to snowball in turn).

 

I personally like Chrome because it is minimalist, fast, efficient and very secure. The reason I switched to Firefox in the first place was because Mozilla had too many features. Now Firefox has become Mozilla.

[theslug]

Who actually opens up 20-30 tabs at a time? That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.

 

Edit: Unless someone uploads a doujin on 4chan or something I can't possibly understand.

Edited September 4, 2008 by theslug

[Humodour]

Who actually opens up 20-30 tabs at a time? That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.

 

I do it all the time, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one. It's very easy to do on news sites, Wikipedia, a Google search, etc.

 

On the other hand, my autistic friend hates tabs, and even modified Firefox's code to remove them.

[Gorth]

I do it all the time, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one. It's very easy to do on news sites, Wikipedia, a Google search, etc.

Oh yes, especially Wikipedia is bad...

 

For somebody as notoriously curious as me, that place is like a monkey trap. The number of tabs grows exponentially and I can't let go. Darn history pages...

[Humodour]

I do it all the time, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one. It's very easy to do on news sites, Wikipedia, a Google search, etc.

Oh yes, especially Wikipedia is bad...

 

For somebody as notoriously curious as me, that place is like a monkey trap. The number of tabs grows exponentially and I can't let go. Darn history pages...

 

[Gorth]

Pretty close

 

Edit: On topic, I might just have to download that browser and try it out on a virtual machine. One of the benefits of MSDN subscriptions. Gives you the chance to try out things without messing up your physical machine

[mkreku]

My start-up page in Firefox is Speed Dial (3x3) and I use Adblock Plus. Chrome has NOTHING on Firefox + Adblock Plus when it comes to speed. Unless you visit a webpage consisting of text only perhaps..

[Humodour]

On topic, I might just have to download that browser and try it out on a virtual machine. One of the benefits of MSDN subscriptions. Gives you the chance to try out things without messing up your physical machine

What does a sandbox have to do with MSDN?

 

http://www.sandboxie.com/

[Guest The Architect]

I missed you Krezack.

 

Wait what it's MF. Yeah I'm just sticking with that.

 

Initially I said I'm just sticking with ME, and then I said, you get it? ME, as in me. Yeah. Confusing firefox with explorer I was.

Edited September 4, 2008 by The Architect

[Gorth]

On topic, I might just have to download that browser and try it out on a virtual machine. One of the benefits of MSDN subscriptions. Gives you the chance to try out things without messing up your physical machine

What does a sandbox have to do with MSDN?

 

http://www.sandboxie.com/

Thanks, but I already have a library of different VM's. I'll just pick one and test when given the time. If I don't like it, I can just delete the image file again. No harm done (it is beta after all)

[Humodour]

Gorth: Ah, ok. I have no clue what MSDN in is, it just sounded like you were attributing the sandbox concept to it, sorry. That's kind of funny, though - sandboxing a sandbox.

 

mkreku: Chrome is slow for you? Excluding Javascript, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox execute so fast that any difference is typically imperceptible. Except most sites use lots of Javascript, so Chrome loads much faster (and, importantly, is far more responsive once loaded). Theory aside, that's also been what myself and others have found in practice. Especially for things like Slashdot, Facebook, Gmail - anything which uses a moderate amount of JS (DOM, AJAX, etc).

 

Unless you mean because adblock turns off scripts or images or something (I haven't used it). In that respect, plugins are still the main advantage of Firefox.

 

Architect: I, uh... cool!

[Gorth]

Gorth: Ah, ok. I have no clue what MSDN in is, it just sounded like you were attributing the sandbox concept to it, sorry. That's kind of funny, though - sandboxing a sandbox.

MSDN = Microsoft Developer Network. Gives you access to, among other things, most applications, development tools, operating systems and server software from Microsoft without paying a "per whatever" price. Used by developer for inhouse development and testing. Part of the package is a "Virtual PC" thing which you can use to create a bunch of test setups. I.e. we have harddisk image files with Email/Web server setup, Commerce Server/Biztalk Server Setup, several alternate Windows Versions and so forth. I'll grab a Windows XP and a Windows Vista image and just install it on the virtual pc (sandboxing). No need to uninstall it, I just delete the copy of the virtual harddisk file.

[Oerwinde]

I didn't like the interface, and I especially didn't like that you couldn't edit it to suit your tastes. Firefox is where I'll stay.

[Tigranes]

Heard about this recently - the thing is, theres not enough to make me bother to change from the relatively solid FF3 yet. I think after a while when it's fully implemented, and its claims of increased stability through sandboxing are proven, I'll make the jump.

 

Personally, the two biggest problems with FF are stability/crashing and its inability to support flash/java/etc consistently and quickly. So waiting to see how Chrome does on that. 20-30 tabs? My brain would hate it anyway.

[Hurlshort]

Whatever, I'm sticking to my AOL browser

[Kelverin]

I'll wait until it's out of beta.

[mkreku]

Unless you mean because adblock turns off scripts or images or something (I haven't used it). In that respect, plugins are still the main advantage of Firefox.

That's exactly what it does. I never see ads. When compared to IE7 (without Adblock Plus), it's more than twice as fast when you load a normal Swedish online newspaper. And yes, Firefox's strength is that you can do whatever you want with it.

[Moatilliatta]

I'll be trying this when I get my primary computer back.

 

That Wikipedia image is painfully accurate.

[samm]

Don't you mind googleupdate.exe being run in the background, the unique ID, the data gathering and the terms of use? Chrome's a clear no-go for me so far. Maybe when these things and the beta status have vanished.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I agree with Samm, those items were enough to convince me that it needed to be uninstalled. Also, at least in my case, I had to manually disable and remove the update service.

[samm]

Also, at least in my case, I had to manually disable and remove the update service.

That's the case for everyone as far as I'm informed.