Been using Google’s Chrome browser for a day, and so far it’s a great experience.
No. Sorry. That’s an understatement. It’s revolutionary. As the comic describes (yes, Google released a comic to introduce Chrome), this browser takes the web to impossible places. It makes the web more like an operating system, allowing each site (tab) an independent process and memory allocation, improving javascript speed – via a virtual machine – by orders of magnitude, and integrating more cleanly with Gears.
I’ve liked the browser enough to find Windows more useful than OS X this morning. A strange feeling indeed.
I’d mentioned in an email yesterday that the question was whether Chrome would quickly grab users away from Internet Explorer and other browsers or if it would be incremental in its chipping. My expectation is that it will still be chipping, but it’s going to be much faster than expected.
Just as the Google search tool grew wildly popular purely out of speed and relevance, the Chrome browser will gain huge momentum because of speed and relevance. Since there are still massive amounts of IE6 installations out there (proving that not everyone goes out and upgrades) a swing won’t happen over night, but it will gain ground more quickly than Firefox or Safari (Opera not mentioned since Chrome pretty much destroys the reason for Opera’s existance – speed).
A couple questions are begged… Is this where we really see web 2.0 take hold? I think so. And how does this affect Google in terms of monopolizing the web? They now own search and could quickly dominate the browser.
It will be interesting to see how popular Chrome becomes. Will it be wildly popular like GMail? Or less popular like Google Sites? Only time will tell, but one issue still remains: many. many people use what's installed on their computer because they don't realize they have a choice, or why they need one. Otherwise, Firefox may have a larger user base.
Also, here are some Javascript speed test results of Chrome, Firefox and IE 7:
http://www.degutis.com/blog/google-chrome-javas…
I liked the presentation but chrome is nothing without addons like firefox. Looking by the way google works, I am skeptical if there would ever be an adblock plugin for it. One feature which prevents me from using it more often is the lack of a proper Zoom feature. It is still stuck in the old IE6 type of zoom (where only the text size is increased) instead of the newer Fx3 or IE7 type (where the whole page zooms in). I need that feature because it is hard to squint and read more than 1 paragraph of news without getting a headache.
I would argue that you're right about people using what is installed,
but I disagree about Firefox… FF is great, but not great enough to
justify ditching IE. At this point IE vs FF vs Opera vs Safari is just
preference.
This is kind of like Lycos vs Yahoo vs Infoseek… And then came
Google with a search engine that screamed.
When you can run GMail 2 to 10 times faster (not to mention every
other web app), Chrome shows signs of chipping away at browser share
much like Google Search chipped away at search share.
Still, the question is how quickly it will happen. And since Chrome is
open source, the other browsers shouldn't be far behind in
implementing the same performance improvements.
Completely agree. We're a rev away from those features being
implemented. A Chrome 2.0 would likely include the zoom features.
Since it's so open I don't think they'll stop plugins like that, but
you've got a point… The company who makes the most revenue off of
search just made a browser…
I agree that the browser playing field is rather level right now (and I'm surprised we're not hearing much from the Opera camp which tends to pipe up when there's a new browser release).
Firefox adoption was strongest with v1.x and early 2.x but they started making it an elephant in v2 and tried to fix that with v3. Opera seems to alway have the newest and greatest features but only a small group have adopted it. I stuck with Firefox because it was good enough and comfortable.
Chrome is faster but there are many reports of incompatibility. Yes, it's only v0.2.x.y.z but I still have to keep Firefox open so I can use Evernote and some other sites. If Google can keep the performance and improve compatibility without bloating Chrome it has a lot of potential.
That's a good point. Webkit compatibility isn't so hot. I've had to use
Firefox instead of Opera or Safari (Webkit nightly builds) in order to use
Google Docs, Evernote, and even my own blog's WordPress admin.
With fixes for compatibility of Chrome, developers will automatically make
Safari and Webkit nightlys compatible.
It might be interesting to see if some addons like Adblock can be implemented as Greasemonkey scripts which Chrome supports.
Meanwhile, an extension system has been announced, but not implemented.
Chrome does a great job at popup blocking, which is enough for me. The
main add-on I want to see is TwitterBar.
“…since Chrome is open source, the other browsers shouldn't be far behind in implementing the same performance improvements.”
Because Firefox is also open source it could be at an advantage, but the Opera, IE, and Safari teams are skilled enough to make similar features if they prove to be popular. Now the game is on to see how well and how soon the other browsers can provide these features.
I don't see Firefox making significant performance improvements. The browser
is not geared towards speed and it would be a immense initiative to retool
it from the ground up.
IE and Opera face similar difficulties. It's not easy to change the entire
focus or re-develop the engine of a product.
Webkit/Safari has the easiest time of it… Keep an eye out for these two in
a performance war.
I don't see Firefox making significant performance improvements. The browser
is not geared towards speed and it would be a immense initiative to retool
it from the ground up.
IE and Opera face similar difficulties. It's not easy to change the entire
focus or re-develop the engine of a product.
Webkit/Safari has the easiest time of it… Keep an eye out for these two in
a performance war.