A Review of Google Chrome

Google Chrome Screen Shot

Google Inc.’s new Web browser, called Chrome was released Tuesday so I installed it. Google Chrome presents a very sleek appearance, groups pages into easy to manage tabs and offers several privacy features.

Though in my preliminary test it seems that Google Chrome needs more work and is slightly outdone by the latest version of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer. Chrome is built upon simplicity. Though Chrome is an early Beta and the tons of dollars being pumped into it by Google may result in a finished version that threatens Microsoft’s Monopoly.

As a challenge to Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer 8, which is used by about three fourths of Web surfers Google Chrome could be the face of a not to distant merging of Firefox. Many people have speculated that Google Chrome could be meant to challenge Microsoft’s Office software suite, because Google really wants to make the browser a stable and flexible platform that can do practically everything we want to do with a computer, from word processing to photo editing.

Features of Google’s new browser: Chrome

Google Chrome was designed to improve the way browsers handle JavaScript using a rendering engine called V8 that’s supposed to speed up the rich interactive AJAX applications being written for the web.  Google’s online word processing and spreadsheet programs use this technology, but it’s also very widely deployed on Web pages to do less sophisticated things.

Chrome also includes Google Gears so applications can run offline and it’s based on Webkit, the KDE-owing open source application framework used by Apple’s Safari browser and Google’s Android OS. Google said it picked Webkit so developers wouldn’t have to learn another technology.

Chrome uses a privacy mode called Incognito appropriated from IE8 that will hide where the machine you’re using has been.  When used it keeps cookies and other signs of usage off your machine.

Chrome’s tabs, appropriated from Firefox, appear above the address bar and are the prime navigational element. Each tab runs its own process, so each is a separate browser, sandboxed for stability and security. A problem in one tab won’t bring the whole browser down.

Though all of this stuff sounds great the hard facts for me are performance. Performance is where Google Chrome loses its luster. Ok, it does out perform Firefox by a small margin but given the wide range of plugins available to Firefox its too little to make me switch.

The problem with Chrome is also a problem with Firefox. It relates to the way the browser handles Flash. Chrome lets sites running Flash take over your computer’s resources. It doesn’t hog the CPU as bad as Firefox, but in a way, it’s worst, because with Firefox you can install a plugin to mitigate this problem, there’s no way to stop Flash from running in Chrome. Chrome’s controls are bare-bones, hopefully because it’s still in beta.

Performance of Google Chrome

The beta of Internet Explorer 8, released just last week is more capable then Chrome and it is faster in some instances For example when playing a YouTube video Firefox 3 took up 95% of the CPU time on a Compaq laptop running XP Pro SP3. Chrome took up 60 percent of the CPU with Internet Explorer taking up under 5%.

When I told each browser to load a dozen pages, some with heavy Flash and graphics, Firefox took 19 seconds and a continuous CPU load of 50 percent. Chrome loaded them in 15 seconds with a CPU load of about 40 percent and Internet Explorer 8 took 16 seconds to load with no CPU load at all.

All in all Chrome is in Beta so maybe a few bug fixes and revisions will improve it. I would recommend Internet Explorer 8 for beta testers and Firefox 3 for everyday use right now. Though Chrome does win for simplicity and that sleek look.

Download Google Chrome

Download Internet Explorer 8

Download Firefox 3