2 September 2008

Google Chrome

So, its finally happened. Google's next step towards world domination is here, and its a web browser! Its also pretty clever. Indeed, I am writing this post in the new browser.

Its called Google Chrome. The Google Chrome chrome is extremely minimal and I like it. The tabs have certainly taken center stage and got a nice feel to it. It is extremely fast to use and the JavaScript engine appears to be fast and well, I am impressed!

Its well worth a download and a play, and dont forget the developer tools - yes, they are included in the browser.

I wont go into any technical details as Google have done a good (if somewhat unusual) job of explaining things. Check out the website for more information.

My favourite feature so far is the way the browser remembers searches you perform on other sites and makes it so easy for new searches to be performed.

If this is how Google are approaching their application development - and lets face it, no-one expected anything different - then I have high hopes for Android. On that subject, I have recently become the proud owner of an HTC Touch Diamond which is a Windows Mobile phone and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Chrome Mobile is coming soon!

As an aside, being a Webkit based browser, I was hoping that JSquared would "just work". However, I will be doing some testing and you can expect another report soon, especially given the new JavaScript engine.

4 comments:

mdja said...

... and I am posting a comment with Google Chrome. My first impressions -

It's fast. Chrome on Windows in Parallels is *much* faster than native Firefox on this Mac.

My code works. I just tested my latest work in Chrome, and it's all absolutely fine.

I guess that as much as anything, those are impressions of Webkit rather than Chrome. Chrome specific:

Nice, simple, like the start page. The task manager is fun - I have no idea if it'll be of interest to the average user, but it's nice for developers.

The address bar isn't very good at remembering IP addresses and predicting them - something essential for me during development work!

Text zoom only? These days I'd expect a full page zoom as a matter of course.

mdja said...

One other thing. The logo. Very Microsoft, isn't it?

neilp said...

The logo reminds me of 80's family game simple simon.

Am a little disappointed to find out that there are rendering differences on the site im testing on between chrome on XP and safari 3.1.1 on XP.

Was it ever going to be any different?

theeta357 said...

hi...
i went thru the code snippets and info in ur blog..and found them interesting..
can u post a blog on UI development of chrome..like what sort of packages or software they hav used for UI of google chrome..

thanks.