Chrome, New Web-Browser on the Block

It was announced only a few days ago, and it launched the following day. Google is out with a new web-browser and it tries to make things faster, safer, and easier for you. But everyone is wondering the same thing: could this chip away Firefox users in a mass movement, or even take out a good chunk of the Internet Explorer faithful, like Mozilla's product has? I think it comes close, and nearly perfects the key elements of a good surfing experience.

Although many tech-savvy professionals will argue that they are surprised this didn't happen long ago back when even Netscape Navigator was still a competitor, others will say that this is just the right time. Their thoughts are that if Google had entered into the web-browser fights earlier in this decade, it wouldn't have the financial support, experience, or credibility to support itself. If you ask me, I belong to the latter of the two: Google is doing this right, and now they have the product and user-base to help them make a dent in these modern day browser-wars.

So, what all does Chrome have that sets it apart from competitors like Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (aka- IE)? We can look into three categorical areas of performance when looking for the major differences that Chrome uses: speed, security/reliability, and user interface.

Speed-wise, Chrome is fast, and I mean fast like you'll really be able to see a difference even at the first startup of the browser. Using a popular refined web-rendering engine called Webkit (which can be found in Apple's Safari, too) and a new javascript engine called V8, which was developed by a Dutch Google team in Europe. Webkit already has remarkable operating speed as some advanced users of Safari are aware of, but Google took the engine a step further with better memory management and usage. When you open up Chrome and begin using a number of tabs immediately, memory is devoted to those tabs just like in Firefox and IE. However, when closing those tabs in Firefox and IE, the memory used becomes mostly erased except for some fragments that remain within the program; but when closing tabs in Chrome, the memory becomes either wiped all-together returning the devoted memory to a clean slate, or the space becomes recycled for another new tab or one already in existence. What this translates to is smart memory usage that that prevents Chrome from expanding so much during the course of the application's lifetime, from when you open and close it.
The javascript engine developed by Google, V8, almost follows the same idea. Javascript is a common internet coding standard that allows computers of all sorts of Operating Systems to all use the same applications, it's used for stuff like web-browser based office applications, radio players, etc.. When using javascript in Firefox or IE, once the javascript starts in a browser, even after you've closed the tab/window that was devoted to the javascript application, javascript is still running in the background for the remainder of you having that browser open. So if you've gone to check your GMail once early in the day, and the browser continues to run slowly as you try to read newspapers online, you're possibly being slowed down by that javascript engine! Chrome makes it easier by running and closing the javascript engine only when it's needed. If you've closed the tab related to your GMail account, javascript will stop since it's no longer being used in your browser. Hence, smart memory management!

When it comes to browser security, Chrome does a good job of keeping your daily activities safe. As you surf the 'net you could be exposed to sites that contain spyware or malware that are harmful to both your computer and your personal identity. Acknowledging this, Chrome uses two multi-levels of security in the browser: the user, and the sandbox. The sandbox is the level that all things from the web go, and it acts as a jail that doesn't allow any rights of access to your computer while it is there. All communication from that level of security to your computer can only be initiated by you, and all information in the sandbox is eliminated once the relative tab is closed in your browser. Essentially, Google developed Chrome to prevent the electronic exodus of any online software onto your personal machine through the use of this jail, known as the sandbox. Google is also using its extensive web indexing and search history to produce two black-lists of sites that contain spyware or malware, which are updated to your browser regularly, in order to prevent you from causing damage to your system or personal identity. When visiting or stumbling upon these sites, you'll be greeted with a warning message of what the site contains, and asks you to either continue to the site or return “back to safety”.
One of my favorite features of Chrome is the ability to withstand normal full-browser crashes one something goes wrong. If you're browsing maybe five-tabs worth of the internet, and one tab causes your surfing experience to crash, normally the whole browser and all the other tabs would go with it; and this can be a horrible loss if you've been working on an online document or email. However, Google developed Chrome to use independent processing lines for each tab. In the case of a usual browser crash, the tab that is relevant to the problem would crash instead, and you'd keep your four other tabs safely.

Cleanliness and real-estate haven't been high-remarks for browsers like Firefox and even more so for IE, but Chrome aims to offer that as well as practical function. The chrome interface seems to expand your viewing area of webpages. By hiding items like the status bar, refining both tab location and the main menu, it really does maximize your monitor's size really well. The address bar, which Google is calling the 'omnibox', can serve as an efficient searching tool for a number of web services. For example, instead of going back to Amazon in order to search for a specific product, you could just type into the omnibox: “Amazon”, and then press Tab to open up a search dialog. This function works for a wide number of services, including Wikipedia, and (of course) Google. In addition to searches, you could easily find websites that you've visited in the past. If you were working on research for new laptops, you could just type “laptops” into the omnibox to queue up a list of sites you've visited on the past relevant to laptops. The way Chrome does this is by recording an index of sites you've visited in the past, separated by user. When you begin an activity that may relate to a past website, it'll search the index for items or articles that may be what you're looking for. Chrome makes things like this easy, fortunately.
In the case of you wanting to use an online session that you don't want recorded online, there is also an “incognito” mode, which acts like a privacy curtain for your web browsing. Once you activate the incognito mode Chrome stops recording and indexing what sites you visit while you're in that mode. Safe, and easy.

Overall, I'm very impressed with what Google has brought to the forefront, but one thing is missing: community support. Chrome is an open-source project that allows independent developers to create plug-ins for the browser, making this a customizable and even more practical surfing experience. The system is similar to what you'd experience with many custom Mozilla Firefox browsers today. However, the community support isn't there yet, and no plug-ins are available to match the capabilities like AdBlock Plus for Firefox, or numerous others. If you're not an advanced internet user though, this shouldn't really matter to you: Chrome is nearly perfect as it is.