Google launches new browser
03.09.08
After two years of hard work, search engine giants Google finally released their entry into the web browser market yesterday. At the moment it is only available on the PC and although Mac and Linux versions are in the pipeline, no definitive timescales have been set for their release.
It is an open source web browser and although it is only at the beta testing stage, 'Google Chrome' is available for free download here. The name derives from the fact that Google have reduced the amount of 'chrome' from around the browser to maximise the visible browsing area. We downloaded it post haste and here are our initial thoughts.
The first obvious thing about Google Chrome is the 'Most Visited' area. This is a kind of home page that stores your most visited sites whenever you open a new tab. It will, once it has learned your browsing habits, store up to 9 of your favourite sites in total and will display the homepage of your most visited sites. Don't worry though, you can still set a traditional homepage if you want!
Also on the 'Most Visited' page is a list of recent bookmarks and a box to search your history. This functionality is available in other browsers, but putting it on this page just makes good sense.
As with most recent browsers, Google Chrome provides the ability to browse multiple sites in one window via tabs. These are nothing new in terms of functionality but Google have moved them above everything else to maximise the visible browsing area to the user.
It is worth mentioning that each tab is totally independent of other tabs. This is excellent news because it means that one badly behaving tab cannot crash your whole session, something which is still very prevalent and annoying in other browsers today.
The next thing we noticed whilst testing the browser was the 'Omnibox'. It's an address bar and a search box combined into one. It's a very simple and obvious feature but the best ideas often are.
Then we come to the speed of the browser which is definitely faster then the other major players in the browser market today. The difference may be oh so small but when you surf the web as much as we do as part of our jobs the difference is really quite noticeable.
For Javascript fans, V8 is certainly something to get excited about. Javascript is prominent across the web today and Google's V8 solution guarantess to execute javascript to an order of magnitude faster than it would in any other browser.
Lastly as a company providing web design services, a new browser can strike fear into our hearts. Do we really have to accomodate another browser and modify all our CSS code? As far as we can tell there is no need to panic. All of our sites looked consistent in the new browser, no modification needed, phew!
