Not another Chrome review!
- By: Qwaider
- On:Thursday, September 04, 2008 2:46:35 AM
- In:Thoughts
- Viewed: (15997) times
- Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
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Rated 4.5/5 stars (139 votes cast) Thanks for your vote!
I've read at least 15 different reviews regarding the new contender, Google Chrome, the new Internet browser. Adding another browser to the already extremely fragmented browser world. With Internet Explorer (6, 7, and now 8) in the lead, followed by FireFox (2.x and 3.x) and finally the rest of the crowd, Opera and Safari, Others barely register to be considered.
While Google took the world by surprise when it launched the new browser. It comes as no surprise as this is exactly what Google is trying to do, Dominate the world around us. But that's not something bad! Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Sun, Oracle and just about any company you can imagine has the same goal. If they could of course.
Now here's a deeper look into this amazing new browser...
Speed
Chrome is amazingly fast, thanks to integration of V8, which causes all Javascript to run way faster, an order of magnitude from FireFox 3.0 or Opera (which is pretty fast too, but much slower than Chrome). Trailing is IE8 Beta 2.
There's another trick the speed here, they appear to be compiling Javascript, which is a brilliant idea. It makes Javascript a whole lot faster when it's compiled. Something everyone should have done a million years ago.
Standards compliance
I don't know if anyone else said this, but I didn't read it anywhere yet, Google Chrome FAILED the ACID2 test (while FireFox and IE8B2 passed)
No title bar
This is one feature I have been SHOUTING to all the developers of FireFox, IE and Opera, PLEASE remove all the wasted stupid space that no one uses and GIVE ME my screen back! It's enough that individual web pages have tons of stupid ads that block me from the main content. Now I have to sacrifice 10px for stupid borders. Take them off .. ALL OFF!
Chrome is so minimalistic that it doesn't even have a border on the sides or bottom. That's AWESOME!
And yeah, I know I am running IE or FIREFOX, do you HAVE TO say that in EVERY window you create!!? Bravo Chrome!
Isolated Tabs
Nice touch, the tabs are completely isolated and each one runs in it's own sand-box. Which means, if one tab slows down, crashes or has malware running it will not affect any other tab. (I love this feature!!)
Nice use of pictograms for addition coolness, with Animation!
Downloads show an animated down arrow, and park on the bottom of your browser window for later use. Crashed tabs show a little mac-like icon indicating there was a crash. Even crashed plug-ins show a thick gold bar on the top of the browser with a sick-mac-like pictogram indicating that the plug-in has crashed
(yes, I crashed the browser, and the plug-ins too :))
Setup, installation and migration
Setup went pretty fast on XP and Vista. On other OSes it didn't go that well. Funny how it went really well from FireFox but not from IE. (remember this later on)
Migration was so quick and transparent. Passwords, favorites ..etc were all moved without much of a flicker!
Cool Textarea size override
This is one awesome feature, if you find the text box too small, you can now drag it to any size you want. Apparently it overrides html and allows the user to resize the boxes. Which is awesome because now you don't need Ajax to do this same thing
Highlighted input boxes/textareas
This is nice! You no longer need to highlight the field the user is typing in. This is marginal change, but it looks really good. Especially on those really dark blogs with dark input boxes
Built in spell checking
Just like Firefox 3.0 spell check is built in. Every Textarea, every string input. But there's one problem. It doesn't work inside iFrame which totally sucks because TinyMCE and other WYCIWYG editors all run in an iframe they use to override the textarea with
No real "zoom" features
CTRL-Mouse Scroll up and down or CTRL-+ and CTRL-(-) no longer zoom in and out (like IE7,IE8 and FireFox), instead you get the IE6 effect of text larger, text smaller. (not cool)
Middle Mouse click to scroll does nothing
In IE or FireFox, if you click the scroll button you get to move your mouse around while it scrolls around the page (excellent for long pages). Chrome lacks this functionality
No ActiveX support
Yeah, so don't think it will work with your corporate application. Right now, only IE is blessed (or is it cursed?) with ActiveX plug-ins
Cool shortcut keys:
CTRL-W still closes the window. CTRL-H for history in a nice Web display, CTRL-D for downloads and CTRL-B to toggle bookmarks on or off. CTRL-F to search within the page (more details below), CTRL-U to view source of the page (like FireFox)
Cool in-page search
Google, the search giant of course had to take that to the desktop. The new search box is part of the frame of Chrome, always hidden until you click CTRL-F or F3. Then you will be given some basic statistics like. How many times the search object repeats in the page ...etc. It also automatically highlights the search term. And the coolest thing ever, it shows you where it is in the scroll bar by adding a little dash on the scroll bar. I found that cute!
Uses IE settings?
If you try to setup proxy information for your browser. Somehow it opens Internet Explorer's connection UI.
Uses only ONE text input field
So if you're entering a URL like http://blog.sweetestmemories.com or Memories documented, you will get suggestions to get to the right place. Which is really cool!
Built in debugger similar to firebug
Want to view the source? Simple CTRL-U. Want to see more details on the elements in the page? Right-click and select "inspect"
Blank page is really not blank!
The best use of blank page is to display something the user "might" be looking for like, most recently/frequently visited sites. And that's exactly what is displayed in the blank page. But not just the page, but a miniature picture of it. Which is really cool! It will save the diehards a few keystrokes to get to their favorite site!
Looks like IE!
This is the selling point of Chrome in my book. The way it renders the pages is VERY similar to what IE does. In fact, I totally believe that had FireFox done this step in the past, they might have took over IE's share by now! Even though Chrome uses Webkit which supposed to render like Safari, it actually didn't render like Safari. It rendered more like IE. That's what I've been saying all along. The browser needs to be forgiving for sloppy web developers.
But still, it failed to render the dialog boxes for TinyMCE correctly, and I had to fish around looking for the buttons (which were on the bottom) to click them
Weird UI
Now the UI of the frame itself is completely different than IE, and diverges from Microsoft's philosophy of providing you with everything at your fingertips. This might not be convenient for all users
Small footprint
It took less than 1 minute to download the whole thing. Why did it take IE8 46 minutes to download is completely beyond me! But IE8 did something no other browser did. It checked my computer for viruses and malware in a special mode. So I'd give it that!
In Memory, it takes at most less than half that of IE. Which is another indication to how bloated IE is! Damn legacy!
Tiny status bar
This is so amazing. When you hover over a link or something. You see the details in a tiny strip at the bottom of the browser window that is barely visible unless you're looking for it. Awesome! Give me back those 10 pixels but don't take away my functionality!
Browse in private
Similar to IE8's inPrivate feature. Chrome has a mode where it will not remember anything. Not the history, not the cookies or anything from a session.
Smart progress indicator
When you're sending a request the progress indicator slowly rotates counterclockwise while receiving from the server, it rotates rapidly clockwise. Brilliant!
Poor security
Yep, just as with any quick to prototype project. Security vulnerabilities started surfacing only HOURS after the release! But, that's the nature of the beast! Chrome by default suffers from the same issues that Safari (another browser relying on Webkit) suffers from. Lets not call it Poor security, but rather, unproven security
Compatibiliy issues
Many sites are not rendering correctly. Many of the older sites are showing wierd UI and become totally unusable at times.
Conclusions
I am totally in love with Chrome, in fact, it has replaced all my other browsers as my #1 browser. I'm already using it alone on all my machines
The next battle in the browser world is gearing up right now. It will be between Chrome and IE. With Chrome doing to FireFox what IE did to Netscape Navigator. The battle is going to rage between IE and Chrome. With each side adding features to better compete for the hearts and minds of the users. Microsoft is going to rely on it's monopoly in the desktop field to get more people onto IE. While Google is going to rely most on it's monopoly in the search business to push Chrome. At the expense of everyone else. Soon the "reclaim the web, use FireFox" buttons are going to be showing Chrome. Across millions of sites.
One thing is certain. When these big players fight... we "the users" win!
PS, for the stupid people in the Google commercial claiming that browsers are doing things now that they were not designed to do. Please shut-up before you look more stupid than you are. Web-Chat was introduced in 1997. Web-Videos in 1999. So excuse me, there isn't a single browser that doesn't support these features, unless you're comparing Chrome to text based Lynx. Exactly what happens when you ask a developer with still developing human skills to do marketting!
Memories....
Anyhow I love it I just hope the cool addons of firefox get here - namely adbolock so I don't have to see the "stupid ads that clog websites" cough. Ahem.
ya zalameh betet-khawat enta? they didn't release it for any OS other than windows yet eh!
7asak mortazaqa ya man!
It also didn't work well for Windows server 2008. So .. No, I'm not "itkhawwating" I promise
بس كان لازم تقول
On other versions of Windows it didn't go that well.
r u facing this as well ?
No no ... allah yib3idna 3anhom
Naser
I don't "facebook" that much :) So I'm not facing this problem ;)
Hani
Most plugins are probably going to be migrated. Who wants to be the last on the new and Shiny Chrome? huh? :)
Shaer
No my friend. With Google, EVERYTHING is infinitely in "Beta" mode, so their beta needs to be taken with a little bit of scrutiny don't you think?
No I'm not sure if you're talking about IE8Beta2 operating correctly or Chrome doing it right. One thing is sure, both appear to be heading towards a head to head match
ino wuts the technology behind it wut do i know u know better :D
anyway,i have 4 emails i must keep track of all day long so i can't replace the FF for now .bless the email notification add on.
and its been crashin much :/ i usually watch 3,4 vids at the time,checkin blogs,browsin in general,w kteer be3alle2 ma3e :/ they better fix those annoying things soon.
You mentioned the bright side of it, but didnt you notice its EULA prior to install it?
2. About the title bar, in Opera (still my favorite, even with a quicker Chrome) you can turn all bars off except the main menu (file, edit, view, bookmarks, etc.) which is not much bigger than that of Chrome. You can even hide the tab-bar or even the address bar!
3. The speed in Chrome IS amazing. I have to admit that. Even the download speed from rapidshare is much better than that of other browsers.
For the time being, I have stopped using it for its lack of security. Let's see what the final version brings.
Sorry for the long post but I just couldn't let this one go.
P.S.- Why do the words become delayed when I try typing here.
Chrome is much faster, there isn't really anything that you can do to disqualify the statistics. So let this one go
Firefox is way more customizable but that's only because it's been around longer, there's an "add-on" for just about everything you can imagine. Yet, many of the things I mention are actually already in there for chrome.
For me, mostly use Chrome or IE. Nothing else qualifies, I trust no one else. Sorry, but that's my personal preference. Speed/performance wise, Chrome and Opera are unparalleled, for flexibility it's Firefox. For everything else, it's IE. I still use ActiveX controls for some sites, and must use IE
By the way, IE8 appears to be rock solid.
Firefox is going to be facing some tough times ahead. As Google eats more and more of their share. You can continue to marvel at Firefox but without proper funding it's going to soon be starving for resources and eventually dies. Sadly, just like Netscape navigator