What is Google Chrome?

Google Chrome is a fresh expression of web browser, they’ve tried to make it quite bare-bones in terms of user interface but the backend is hooked into Mozilla Gecko (the engine behind Firefox, K-Meleon and Camino) and WebKit (the engine behind Apple’s Safari, and Adobe AIR), but with it’s own JavaScript engine (also Open Source) called V8.

At the time of writing this, only the Windows version was available. Mac and Linux versions are due to be released soon.

I’m writing this on Wednesday 3rd September 2008, I’m testing Google Chrome version 0.2.146.27 on Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate on a Toshiba Qosmio (2.4GHz Intel Dual Core).

Initial impressions

  • Good: It’s reasonably quick with loading pages, everything seems to load up at the same time.
  • Good: I like the URI highlighting. You’ll notice in the address bar the domain name is darker than the protocol, directory and file names
  • Good: It handles viewing my own webpage nicely
  • Good: handles javascript graphics manipulation well (for instance, my recent ModernEsotericChristianity page which uses the OpenLink AJAX ToolKit load up RDF and then show (and manipulate) an SVG graph using JavaScript)
  • Good: It loads scriptaculous and jQuery (including Visual jQuery) well.
  • Good: you can use search engines other than Google, in the address/search bar.
  • Bad: No menu bar… I can’t stand not having a menu bar, not having one is one of the things I really dislike in Microsoft Windows Vista, the newest Microsoft Office and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It is a lot easier to use a menu bar than it is to use some silly drop down button.
  • Bad: No status bar
  • Bad: No plugins/add-ons/extensions… like the Firefox extensions that you get. Personally, I can’t live without the Web Developer Toolbar and OpenLink Data Explorer. I know that some people wouldn’t be able to live without Firebug, and soon alot of people will crave Mozilla Ubiquity.

Tests

How about using well established web-based tests to find out how it fairs up against Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

. Google Chrome Firefox Safari Opera Internet Explorer
Test Platform: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit) on a 64-bit 2.4GHz Intel Dual Core Toshiba Qosmio Laptop Ubuntu 8.04 Linux (64-bit) on a 64-bit 2.4GHz Intel Quad Core home-made Desktop Apple Mac OS X 10.5.4 on a 2GHz Intel Dual Core Apple MacBook Laptop Apple Mac OS X 10.5.4 on a 2GHz Intel Dual Core Apple MacBook Laptop Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit) on a 64-bit 2.4GHz Intel Dual Core Toshiba Qosmio Laptop
Versions: 0.2.146.27 3.0.1 3.1.2 9.52 7.0.6
Acid1 test Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass
Acid2 Test Pass Pass Pass Pass Fails (really badly)
Acid3 78 out of 100 (Linktest failed) 70 out of 100 (on Firefox 3.0.1 for Mac it gets 71) 72 out of 100 46 out of 100 Fails completely (rendering is terrible)
CSS3 Selectors Test 578 out of 578 373 out of 578 578 out of 578 346 out of 578 330 out of 578

Conclusion

The conclusion is, if you want stability when it comes to accessing pages then go for Google Chrome as it is most likely to render the style and graphics of a page correctly. Safari comes up second in terms of style renderisation, followed by Firefox and Opera. Quite clearly you should never use Internet Explorer.

In terms of easiest to use, Chrome provides a nice interface but I think it needs some extra bits (such as a menu bar). Opera also provides some neat user experience features. Safari is really simple to use. Firefox has a reasonable user interface and it’s theming can make things even easier if desired. I personally find Internet Explorer really awkward to use.

For extensibility, nothing beats Firefox. The add-on system is practically perfect with its update from repository feature, and there are so many extensions in that repository. There are some plugins for Safari (see pimpmysafari.com ) , although not many. Unfortunately Chrome doesn’t have extensions yet, but as it reuses modules from the Firefox and Safari engine I suspect it will do in the future. As far as I know Opera and Internet Explorer don’t really have extensions yet, their developers tend to prefer to build features into the software.

For now, I think I’ll be sticking with Firefox… but I do suspect that Google Chrome will grow, and because of competition that will make Firefox, Safari and the other browsers grow also.

Peace and Light,

Daniel

UPDATE - the hour of 0 on the 10th September 2008

After making a fresh install of the 64bit Opera version 9.25 on my Ubuntu machine I achieved an 84/100 score for the Acid3 test. Which is obviously the highest score available now.

The weirdest thing is that in order to achieve such a high score, it needs to be a fresh install… not quite sure why. Please note that the scores in my original post are not fresh installs and, Firefox in particular, had a lot of use before the test.