Google Chrome: The Browser Wars have been re-ignited

On September 2, 2008, Google Inc. surprised everyone when they released a beta version of a new browser without an advanced notices. Google Chrome came out of beta exactly 100 days later. It currently has less than 2% of the market share and is slowly chipping away from the share of other browsers, especially Internet Explorer, which is also being chipped away slowly from Mozilla Firefox as well as others. It is now a very heavily advertised product around on the internet including being bundled by default with various products in addition to being all over YouTube and other sites.

Google Chrome Overview:
Pros:

1. Currently the speediest stable released browser (non-beta)
2. Easily drag and drop tabs into new windows
3. New Tab page shows most visited pages
4. Isolated Tabs so that if one tab freezes, only that tab crashes, not the whole browser (Multi-Process: Each tab and plugin is its own process)
5. Create application shortcuts so a web page runs as its own application
6. More address bar space with Omnibar, integrating search with the address bar
7. Incognito Mode (Private Browsing): Web History and cookies won't be stored
8. No obtrusive download manager

Cons:

1. Multi-Process architecture often causes excessive overall memory usage
2. Lack of plugin support: Most plugins don't officially support Chrome
3. No option to block third-party cookies (links to tracking cookies), only an option to restrict their usage
   
4. No extension support (yet)
   
5. No printing setup
6. Windows only (Mac and Linux in the works)
7. No option to show menu bar if users wish
8. Many times the entire browser freezes and then after closing, at least 1 process remains and cannot be ended through task manager. In order to end it, users must reopen Chrome and close it although in this situation, it takes at least 1 minute to open.
9. Unless users press Show all downloads, the downloads stop if the tab accidentally close
10. No download resuming after browser closes
11. No RSS Feed support
12. No autoscrolling support. Added in Chrome 2 (Beta) however it is difficult to use compared to other browsers
    

Google Chrome Feature Review:
Google Chrome is the newest browser and it has reignited the browser war. Upon its release, browsers like Mozilla Firefox started adding features like drag and drop and Private Browsing.

Isolated Tabs is useful feature also available in Internet Explorer 8. Each tab and plugin is run as a separate process so that the two cannot contact each other or affect each other. If one tab goes down, the whole browser wouldn't go down in flames. However, multi tab architecture often leads to excessive RAM usage. In addition, even when I closed any tabs using plugins like Adobe Flash Player, the process remains. Microsoft Silverlight doesn't support it but when I visit a page using this plugin, although the plugin doesn't work, the process still opens and stays open until manually ended. In addition, tabs that are on the same domain (i.e. two Wikipedia pages) will run as one single process.

Download Statusbar is a feature that allows downloads to show in a statusbar in the tab from which it downloads. Unfortunately, unless the "Show all downloads" button is pressed, the download automatically stops when the tab closes. Also, there is no resuming of downloads.

Drag and Drop allows tabs to be quickly dragged out of hte window into a new window as well as back into other windows.

Extension Support is not available yet although Google says they are working on it. However, my concern is that Chrome might be badly hurt from add-ons. Add-ons naturally slow down browsers although it is worth it. Personally, I am a very big fan of add-ons in Firefox. Unless you have a lot of add-ons like me, the browser won't be slowed down noticeably. With Chrome, add-ons will probably cause an extreme RAM and CPU overload considering that the add-on would have be factored into each tab's process. Popular add-ons such as Adblocker Plus actually speed up page loading because ads (esp. Flashy) often takes longer to load then the page itself.

Application Shortcuts allows web pages to be run in its own window and own application without the URL bar, toolbars, etc...


Other Notes: During testing, I experienced a lot of problems with text field editing in Chrome. For example, while editing an article in Wikipedia, clicking into the text field doesn't have the blinking cursor where I clicked, but at the end of the article. When I started typing, it scrolled to the bottom and started typing there. This happens numerous times already.

Learn more about Google Chrome's features here.

Note: Many of Chrome's features can be enabled on Firefox through add-ons. Read about it here.

Web Standards (Acid2 and Acid3)
The web standards test is the way that browsers can test if the browser meets web standards. Most browsers pass Acid1 and Acid2. At first glance, Google Chrome seems like it passes Acid2. However, if you zoom in, you may realize a very thin and light line to the left of the nose. It must match pixel by pixel to pass. See screenshot below from Google Chrome 1.0.154.48. The line is boxed around in the following screenshot. As always, click to zoom and if you're using Firefox 3+ or another browser supporting image zooming, zoom even more to see the line better.
As of March 11, 2009, no released browser passes the Acid3 test. Google Chrome 1.0 scores 79/100 on the test.

Google Chrome Rating: 90/100 (Excellent)

Personally, I would prefer Mozilla Firefox, which I have been a fan for years.

Verdict:

Google Chrome lacks many features of modern browsers, such as RSS Feed Support and Full Screen Reading, but is one of the fastest browsers available today. If you're in need of a super speedy browser that doesn't "even have a progress bar because its that snappy" [CNET Prizefight]. However, if you want to be able to personalize your browser like never before, try Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome, like many Google products, are very simple in design. Both browsers are perfect alternatives to Internet Explorer. To find out a comparison between various browsers, click on the CNET Prizefight link to watch a video (you MAY have to disable ad blockers for this video sometimes starts off with an ad). Chrome's engine is Webkit, which is what Apple Safari uses. One of the most unique features is isolated tabs and plugins, available in no other browser currently (IE8 only has tab isolation). if you're looking for a complete all in one browser, get Mozilla Firefox, the award winning open source browser, today. But If you're looking for a simple but speedy browser, Google Chrome is for you.

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