spectere.net
The Chatterbox => Computing => Topic started by: Spectere on September 02, 2008, 09:51:48 PM
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So, Google has a browser now.
Get it here if you're interested: http://www.google.com/chrome/ (http://www.google.com/chrome/) (the beta is Windows-only, for now)
I've only been using it for about ten minutes, but here's my experience so far:
The Good
1) It loads tabs in totally separate processes, so that if one tab or a plugin within the tab goes down it won't kill the entire browser.
2) It uses Webkit as the rendering engine. Sure, all Apple did with it was take the KDE project's hard work and use it to jumpstart their browser, but they still did some decently impressive stuff with it. Thankfully, it doesn't override the OS's font rendering method.
3) It feels pretty quick. Its JavaScript engine is supposed to be pretty nice.
4) It allows you to easily split tabs off into new windows and merge them into existing ones using an intuitive click-and-drag method (note: you can do this with Firefox, but it's not as intuitive overall -- it will only let you drop tabs in existing windows, not split them off to make all new ones).
5) It does a damn good job importing settings. It pulled in my bookmarks and saved passwords from Firefox. It even nabbed all of the history.
The Bad
1) It loads tabs in totally separate processes, so it's possible that it might eat more memory than typical browsers if you have a lot of tabs open.
2) It uses Webkit as the rendering engine. KHTML has always been great when it comes to standards compliance but has always had odd quirks with certain web pages, particularly ones that don't completely follow the standards (read: most of the web pages out there). Webkit inherits these faults, causing some pages not to display properly.
3) Google Chrome's chrome is completely custom. Google Chrome has its tab bar on the top, where the title bar would normally be. The aesthetic choices are strange, to say the least -- it uses a Whistler-style color scheme (basically, XP's original theme long before it was released -- a lighter blue) regardless of how the windowing system is configured. It also uses Vista-like buttons, even on XP, though the buttons don't really fit in with Vista very much. Finally, you can't just click anywhere to open a new tab like you can in every other browser, otherwise the window will be restored. It's a mess.
We'll see how this project winds up. It's going to take a lot for it to pull me from Firefox, though.
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My brother showed me earlier tonight. Certainly an interesting take on a browser, and it did feel pretty fast, but as you said, some sites are quirky (Yahoo live seems to be a little bit weird in it).
I'm interested in how they got the tabs up where the title bar is though...
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I'm interested in how they got the tabs up where the title bar is though...
It's really simple -- you can do that in VB6, even. Basically, you draw a dialog without any WM controls and handle everything yourself.
On that note, I've seen screenshots of it running in Vista (I haven't installed it on my main system yet) and it looks 100% native there, even including glass predominantly in the interface like WMP and Explorer do. I fail to see why they didn't give XP the same treatment...the UI just looks out-of-place when you run it in XP (and, if it fails on that, I can't see it being any different on other operating systems).
As for the speed, I noticed several hiccups as I started using. Also, scrolling is a wee bit more sluggish than it is in Firefox and IE8b2. Other than that, not bad at all. I still have yet to test its JavaScript performance and all of that.
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Ahh, yeah, forgot that, I'm used to thinking of the title bar as a bitmapped image, since IIRC that's the default way it's dealt with, essentially (well, a bitmapped image with some text and an ICON rendered over it with some buttons on the far side).
The other part that intrigues me is containing each tab in separate processes. That must have been a bit painful to get working right.
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Trying it out right now. It's damn fast, and I might even switch over once StumbleUpon support gets added. I like how the tab bar is up in the title bar to make more room.
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http://books.google.com/books?id=8UsqHohwwVYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=google+chrome#PPA1,M1
*edit*
as of now, i wouldn't use this over firefox, mostly because the firefox UI kicks ass, and it makes browsing easy. but jesus this fucker is fast. ill browse around with it for a while and see how i like it.
*second quick edit*
no middle click to quickly scroll up and down a page, they need to add that in.
scrolling through bookmarks takes forever, since i have well over 100 bookmarks (i almost exclusively browse the internet with bookmarks, its rare when i touch the address bar) that is a BIG problem for me.
yeah, not a big fan of the interface...give firefox the speed of this and you have a very nice browser.
*edit edit*
uninstalled. its not a bad browser, but a few trivial things prevent me from using it too long. PLEASE ADD IN A MENU BAR!
will try it again when a new version comes out, or the official release comes.
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I can see how Chrome could be problematic on the average system, which is something they'll need to work out, but like Vista it runs great on my desktop.
EDIT: On second though, someone's going to port a dedicated search bar into Chrome probably.
Also, vlad, thank you for the new avatar.
Also also, middle-mouse-button-scrolling works for me.
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I would like my back/forward buttons to work with this. I usually only visit 5-10 different sites max in a day repetitively, aside from random/special searches, so I don't need a toolbar or a bookmarks bar.
This is very beta, but very fast. If they can integrate just a few more things, I'm happy. hell, i'm already happier with this than FF.
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My mouse's back/forward works as well, and so does my open tab button.
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I found this, which I find really funny: http://www.sfu.ca/~cyrille/news/CFM.gif
Here's the test, if anyone wants to try it: http://wd-testnet.world-direct.at/mozilla/dhtml/funo/jsTimeTest.htm
I averaged 38ms when I ran it in Chrome.
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averaged 438ms in FF 3, 61ms in chrome. Mind you I'm also doing other things, so that might skew those scores.
You know, I really like Chrome, it's got a VERY simplistic interface, but it's not so minimalist as to make things diufficult. I like the speed, too. Very sleek feel to it. Unfortunately, some things are kinda slow. I've noticed that clicking the Save Link As... button seems to be slow. It actually starts the download before you even get to name the file. The whole download system in Chrome feels kinda slow and sluggish to me.
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It actually starts the download before you even get to name the file.
Doesn't FF do that too?
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I believe so, however, it doesn't feel nearly as sluggish there. I think Chrome requires the download to actually begin before opening the save dialog, and that can occasionally make things a bit slower.
In fact, when I first began using FF3 the same issue bugged me, FF2 seemed to be the most responsive one I've had as far as opening many downloads quickly.
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It needs RSS support for me to want to switch from Firefox. I have about
10 14 RSS feeds, and Chrome didn't import any of them. I'm an RSS noob, though, so I'm probably missing something. It's a pretty slick browser, though, and it has replaced Opera for me as my Browser when I Feel Like Doing Something Different.
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I'm even more of an RSS noob. I honestly haven't found a use for RSS yet. the only RSS I use is FF's news headlines, lol.
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RSS is great for webcomickry, especially ones that update sporadically. It's a difference of ten seconds, but I like it.
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RSS is great for webcomickry, especially ones that update sporadically.
If only VG Cats had an RSS feed...
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So, after using Chrome for my default browser for a while, I've noticed a couple rather annoying aspects.
When the download history gets too large, it starts to take a long time between when you clicked "download this link" to when the save file dialog appears.
Chrome can't properly handle SVG files taller than the screen (it doesn't make a scroll bar appear, making it impossible to scroll down and see the rest of the image).
And contrary to common belief, right clicking and spawning a new tab doesn't spawn a new process every time. any link you followed from a website into a new tab will be in that process, until you hit the maximum (90, IIRC). The only way to spawn a new process is to make a new empty tab.
Also, I think this is only in the current dev build, but if you download something (bringing up that download bar at the bottom) and navigate away from the page, you can no longer close the bar or interact with any of the items on it at all until you start another download on a tab you have open, at which point it erases the bar and starts a new one. In fact, if you closed the tab while something was downloading, the bar doesn't even get updated. However, the downloads tab still works, so you can still check/open your downloads. It's just a bit of a pain in the ass.
Not to mention I can'd find the application specific volume bar for chrome (or it's plugins). I dunno whether that's a problem with chrome or Vista, but when I have my main volume at max (which is REALLY FUCKING LOUD), and all my application specific bars really low, and I decide to watch a youtube video, I get aurally assaulted, thanks to not having an application specific volume bar.
Aside form those, I really enjoy using Chrome. It's a very responsive and nicely designed browser, and it easily meets my needs. sure, it's not as extendable as firefox, with the billion or so addons that firefox has, but if you want a nice, responsive browser with a light interface, it's definitely worth trying (for an extended period of time).
Now, there are a couple things I absolutely love about it that I feel deserve mention here, since I don't want this to be a totally negative post.
The "press tab to search" feature. I absolutely LOVE that feature. If I want to search wikipedia, all I have to do is type w into my location bar, and then hit tab, and type in my search. It works for isohunt, facebook, youtube and probably a number of others as well.
The simplified interface is one of the things I really love about it. Somehow the guys at google managed to break all those menus you usually have into 2 buttons. One for page specific menus and one for Chrome specific stuff. and they don't have a gigantic number of entries in them either. Despite the sophisticated back end, Chrome is built upon the ideal of simplifying everything. Especially the interface.
Application shortcuts. Goddamn I love this feature. With a few simple clicks, I have a shortcut to a very lightweight Gmail link right on my start menu, and it even runs in a stripped down version of Chrome. It runs without any of the menus or other clutter that comprise the interface and is straight to the point. It opens up my Gmail and works perfectly. If I need to click a link, it opens a new window of chrome for me on top of my Gmail window, leaving it separate even from the tabs in the current window. To me, this is judicious use of windows in the "new window or new tab" setting we now have.
Moving tabs around, from window to window, or into an entire new window, or anything else you might want to do with tabs is insanely easy. The only thing missing is a "re-open last closed tab" entry in the right click menu on tabs...
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The "press tab to search" feature. I absolutely LOVE that feature. If I want to search wikipedia, all I have to do is type w into my location bar, and then hit tab, and type in my search. It works for isohunt, facebook, youtube and probably a number of others as well.
Firefox has something very similar to that, actually. Just press CTRL-J to jump to the search bar, ALT-DOWN to select your search engine, and start typing.
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CTRL-J is downloads... But either way, there's nothing saying anything about the keyboard shortcuts in there. Plus, having to type 1 letter, and then tab to search is a bit less work than that anyway. Plus, it doesn't rely on having to manually add in the different search engines/sites, it picks them up automatically, or they're built in or something (I'm pretty sure it picks them up automatically.)
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Typo -- I meant CTRL-K. And yes, the shortcuts are documented in the menus -- try clicking on the Tools menu and looking to the right of the bar.
There's also a nice list here: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Keyboard+shortcuts?style_mode=inproduct (http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Keyboard+shortcuts?style_mode=inproduct). The link to this page can be found by simply hitting F1.
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Ahh, well, it's still not as plain as having the message right beside where you're typing (I'm proof that that is more effective).
Mind you, finding the last closed tabs isn't all that easy in chrome.
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Chrome's spell checker seems to be a bit buggy. I wish it was more like (well, ok, exactly like) Firefox's.
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Yeah, I've noticed it's pretty picky about correcting things, too. I think it has to do with cursor placement.
Edit: I've also noticed something else, though it only indirectly involves chrome.
Apparently games with GameGuard disable something in Chrome that prevents it from working right. I can open Chrome when I've got a game in the background that uses GameGuard, but opening it won't bring up the normal home page. Instead it just sits at about:blank and will not load any pages. I can spawn tabs and such, but none of them will load any pages. It doesn't even react to hitting enter or trying to load a page.
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Mind you, finding the last closed tabs isn't all that easy in chrome.
IE8 actually makes it even easier than Firefox:
(http://files.spectere.net/pictures/ie8-newtab.png)
I'm actually looking forward to IE8. Microsoft did a damn good job with it. Not to mention that IE8 beta 2 had many of Chrome's "revolutionary" features, like incognito mode, before Chrome even came out. People just overlook that type of stuff on purpose because they can't admit that Microsoft could have possibly beaten Google to something.