Seemingly by surprise to most Internet users, Google has launched a release of a new Internet web browser dubbed Google Chrome. I have been using it for about five minutes on my super slow computer at work (it only has 256 megs of ram in the damn thing) and the first thing I’ve noticed with Chrome is that it is freaking FAST! No joke. My first instinct was to take a look at the task manager in Windows to see how much memory Chrome was actually using, and what I found was a little puzzling. There was only one web browser window open, but 4 seperate instances of the Chrome.exe process running. Interesting… So I decided to start digging into why it’s so fast, and what the deal was with these multiple instances. Here’s what I learned:
If you do a search for Google Chrome, you’ll discover a little comic book that was put together by Google to help illustrate what they had in mind when they first started designing this browser and how it should function differently from other popular browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer. The most telling is on page 3: ”When we started this project, the Gears Guys were saying that one of the problems with browsers is that they’re inherently single-threaded. For example, once you have Javascript executing, it’s going to keep going, and the browser can’t do anything else until Javascript returns control to the browser. So developers write APIs that are asyncronous — and every now and then the browser locks up because Javascript is hung up on something.”
In plain english, the way other browsers currently function is about as efficient as an HR department in a hospital. The chain of programs (or people, if you continue the hospital analogy) is long and weak in that if one link fails, the whole thing snaps and everybody puts their arms in the air to say, “Not my fault. Tough shit.” The way Chrome funtions instead is to create multiple processes for all the different tabs as well as additional processes (such as Javascript, or other web plugins) that run seperately, and basicly decentralize everything. This adds a great deal of speed and stability to loading web pages and running web applications. It will also help reduce memory bloat that comes from lots of long term use of a web browser, because you can allocate different processes their own memory space.
One of my favorite features is probably something you’ll grow to take for granted: the New Tab Page, seen above. When ever you open a new tab, it is an intential act persuant to going some place on the Internet. The tab page is dynamically created based upon your browsing behavior. Your 9 favorite websites appear with thumbnail previews of each one, for instance. So after a while, it really becomes YOUR browser. Which might not sound great to someone who’s trying to keep their birthday gift shopping or porn addiction a secret. That’s why there’s Incognito Mode!
Another cool feature is the way pop-ups are managed and blocked. If something is trying to pop-up, you’ll only see a little notification at the bottom of the window, and if it’s something you want, you just drag it up and out.
Anyway, I’d love to write more about this but I’m waiting for an important call that’s going to take me a while and wanted to get something written about this exciting new web browser. I think it’s going to have a big impact on the way web browser function and we’ll likely see Firefox and eventually Internet Explorer. The only drawback about this browser that I’ve found so far (other than the fact that they can’t “sandbox” plugins to a lower security level…nobody can yet) is the fact that it’s for Windows only. There are also some websites with minor functionalities that don’t seem to work just yet (Java, not Javascript, comes to mind). I am sure that will change rapidly though, as the browser is open-source…which means it will likely be ported over to just about every OS you can imagine. Until then, I highly recommend this browser to Windows users.