Chrome

[Ghoulish Delight]

I've downloaded Google's new toy, Chrome. It's their entry into the web browser world. Their big claim to fame on it is that they're launching a new process for every tab with the theory that a single unstable page, such as a flash animation with a memory leak gone amok, won't bring down the entire browser.

It's a good theory, as long as they keep the per-process overhead in check. A very informal test on my part shows that Chrome, with 8 tabs open, is using about 60% more memory than Firefox with the same 8 tabs. Not a good start.

[Moonliner]

I've downloaded Google's new toy, Chrome. It's their entry into the web browser world. Their big claim to fame on it is that they're launching a new process for every tab with the theory that a single unstable page, such as a flash animation with a memory leak gone amok, won't bring down the entire browser.

It's a good theory, as long as they keep the per-process overhead in check. A very informal test on my part shows that Chrome, with 8 tabs open, is using about 60% more memory than Firefox with the same 8 tabs. Not a good start.

Try the beta of IE8. Early reports are that it uses ridiculous amounts of memory.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I'm not really looking at Chrome as a competitor to IE. I've already long ditched IE. I'm more interested in how it compares to Firefox.

And I know this is a first beta release, so it's not going to be anywhere near ideal yet. But the per-page process launching is their main differentiater, so they'd better get it rock solid eventually.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh hey, turns out the way I was opening tabs wasn't even actually spawning new processes. If I do it such that it actually takes advantage of the new process feature, the memory factor grows from ~160% to ~200%+. Yikes.

[Alex]

Other than lacking elegance, are you generally running sufficiently tight on resources that this would be a problem?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Other than lacking elegance, are you generally running sufficiently tight on resources that this would be a problem?
Generally no, but if they're trying to tout memory management as a selling point, using more than double the memory isn't the best place to start.

[Alex]

Oh, didn't know they were touting that.

I'm going to hope they fail regardless. I don't need the added headache of another major browser to consider for testing and design.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh, didn't know they were touting that.

I'm going to hope they fail regardless. I don't need the added headache of another major browser to consider for testing and design.I read one opinion that thinks it'll drive web developers to better practices. Not only is it going to spawn individual processes per page, but it will supposedly have its own process manager (I don't think that's implemented yet, but I could just be missing it). So you'll be able to immediately, from within the browser, spot and kill memory-hog/leaking pages. The writer of that opinion is hopeful that it will lead to people being more careful about their java and other in-page apps since the browser will now be calling them out to the user.

I don't think the average user is going to be savvy enough for that to be much of a factor.

[Alex]

I agree, and so long as we have to develop and test for IE and Mozilla/Firefox, nothing is going to be optimized to Chrome.

[BarTopDancer]

We only develop our internal and external software for IE, which completely sucks for Mac users.

We even had a couple brainiacs send us code to make our end user facing page work with FF.

I am looking forward to playing with Chrome, but my primary computer is on its last legs and I don't want to risk epic failure until school is done.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Here's an interesting theory that CP heard and brought up to me.

Chrome is a nascent OS. Memory management, talk of using it as an application platform. Moving towards the ever-present paradigm of "Let the applications exist online, using pooled processing power," or "cloud computing" as it's come to be called.

And the most genius part? Google is using Windows as a test bed. Chrome is basically a virtual machine running on top of Windows. They're tapping millions of Windows customers to help shake out their first shot at an OS platform.

That's not a bad guess as to what they're doing.

[BDBopper]

Very astute. It really makes sense because Chrome has its own task manager. If done right they could be successful. I am using Chrome right now. It is blazing fast! I like it so far...but I've only used it for five minutes.

[keith - SuPeR K!]

@Alex

Chrome is based on WebKit so if you are already testing your sites on Safari (which you should be) there really is no need to also check in Chrome.

[BarTopDancer]

Here's an interesting theory that CP heard and brought up to me.

Chrome is a nascent OS. Memory management, talk of using it as an application platform. Moving towards the ever-present paradigm of "Let the applications exist online, using pooled processing power," or "cloud computing" as it's come to be called.

And the most genius part? Google is using Windows as a test bed. Chrome is basically a virtual machine running on top of Windows. They're tapping millions of Windows customers to help shake out their first shot at an OS platform.

That's not a bad guess as to what they're doing.

From what I've read I'd say CP is completely correct.

[Alex]

It's not a guess, it is pretty much the stated goal. NPR interviewed a Google product manager saying as much (though not in so much in a "we'll grind Microsoft under our bootheels" way).

But first they'll have to get their office productivity Web apps to a non-suck point if they even want to have the slimmest of chances. And then offer them in a convenient way such it can been used as an enterprise solution without in any way exposes corporate information to life outside a firewall*. We're expressly forbidden from using them here at work.



*They may already have that, but if so it isn't ever coming up as an option that I've seen.

[Alex]

@Alex

Chrome is based on WebKit so if you are already testing your sites on Safari (which you should be) there really is no need to also check in Chrome.

We don't (officially). But it wouldn't matter. Regardless of how identical the rendering is supposed to be, each officially supported browser gets tested separately.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

From what I've read I'd say CP is completely correct.Like GD said, I read about it, just like you and others have, wasn't my (totally genius) idea.

I say awesomeness - bring on the Microsoft killa.

[BarTopDancer]

Like GD said, I read about it, just like you and others have, wasn't my (totally genius) idea.

I say awesomeness - bring on the Microsoft killa.

I totally thought he said it was a thought you had, not heard. Sorry!

/goes to the corner to sleep now.

[Gemini Cricket]

I like Chrome so far. I like the less cluttered top portion.
:)

[Gemini Cricket]

Hmm. Weird. The Quick Links tab doesn't show up when I am on Lot using Chrome.

[Pirate Bill]

Type "about:internets" into the location bar and see if this (http://robert.accettura.com/blog/2008/09/03/aboutinternets/) works.

(I'm not using chrome just yet. Waiting.)

[Gemini Cricket]

Type "about:internets" into the location bar and see if this (http://robert.accettura.com/blog/2008/09/03/aboutinternets/) works.

(I'm not using chrome just yet. Waiting.)
It worked for me...
:)

[Moonliner]

So has anyone moved to become a full time chromeian?

I gave it a test run, it did in fact seem to fly through Gmail but overall I felt it was just different not better.

[Andrew]

I use it as the default browser on my Windows machines. Its only downside for me is the lack of an ad-blocking plugin, but aside from that it's very slick.

[Alex]

Nope, haven't even tested it yet. When it comes to browsers I just don't feel any urge to move on until my current experience is deficient in some way and so far I don't have that with Firefox (if IE had been faster with tabbed browsing I probably would have never left it).

[BDBopper]

After a few weeks of use I am liking Chrome more and more. There is rarely a total crash and total crashes like in Firefox are annoying. the reason for this is because Chrome works like its own Operating System and if something, like Shockwave doesn't work just right only that application crashes and can be fixed easily with a refresh of the page.