Google’s browser

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Google’s browser

Google’s browser – Chrome

There are lots of browsers about so what does the new one from Google contribute?

A first impression.

Google’s Chrome delivers the facilities we expect from a browser. On the surface it is similar to Firefox, Safari, Mozilla or Explorer so there is no learning curve. It is easy to install Chrome on your PC (Mac and Linux versions promised).

The differences lie beneath the surface. Given that this is another browser, the differences are subtle. Key amongst the innovations is that it runs each process with a separate part of memory. To explain why this is a ‘feature’ we need a bit of technospeak.

Not too long ago memory space and processing power were precious commodities. So the skill of software writers was to try and use the same memory space over and over again and minimise the amount of processing power used. So the code, once loaded, was shared by other processes that required it.

This was an efficient use of hardware resources and was excellent until one of the processes jammed. When this happens the shared code stops your browser and can dramatically slow your whole system. Soon your entire browser, with all the other process that we using that little bit of code, grind to a halt.

But now that computing resources are cheaper, Chrome have gone retro and given each process its own space in the computer. This limits any damage. You only lose one tab and you don’t jam the processor. The second virtue claimed for this strategy is that it is much quicker and my first impression certainly supports this claim.

Chrome requires a more powerful machine to run which will not be an issue if your computer is only a few years old. If you are getting by one a faithful old Windows 95 machine, Chrome might stretch the resources.

You can set Chrome to open certain sites with their own tabs when you open the browser. So if there are four sites that you normally want running (such as writersservices.com) Chrome will open these for you. FireFox does something very similar and the other browsers will doubtless follow – Having a series of tabs open means you can quickly check the sites you need to watch.

Google also claims to have improved security. The battle between the crooks and the cyber geeks has not been won but the good guys seem to be doing well. Improvements in security are not easy to spot but I am willing to respect Google’s claim, not least because of their informal, in-house motto of ‘Don’t be evil’ which is close to the Hippocratic oath where doctors modestly strive to do no harm. I’m British so I like a bit of understatement. Google’s reputation and track record makes it easy for me to accept that they have made it much more difficult for people to crack into the code or take over the browser.

Another feature which has received some attention is the possibility of browsing incognito. This stops the system remembering your browser history and storing cookies from sites that are visited. So you can prevent people checking to see the sites you have been visiting. (You can achieve much the same in other browsers by clearing the history file). If you are sharing a computer this will be handy. This feature will have obvious benefits to those who don't want others to know to what purpose the computer browser is being put, but we will gloss over their motives without comment. Excellent for teenagers and love rats.

The search and address windows have been combined which saves some screen real-estate. You just type in your search where most browsers would display the name of the page you are viewing. Chrome has successfully combined the two and is remarkably adept at suggesting suitable searches.

So....

So after a few months using Chrome it is stable and could become my preferred browser so worth giving it a try. Chrome is not a revolutionary but an evolutionary step in the development of browsers. The functionality is a small improvement on Firefox and Explorer but I expect the others will catch up in weeks rather than months. There is some healthy competition in the browser market at the moment.

However, I suspect that Chrome is just an opening shot from Google. As web 2.0 morphs into web 3, I expect that Google’s browser will be the first to provide ‘web information on demand’. You ask the questions and the power of Google’s search engine will populate your tabs with relevant information. You will not have to rely on a particular site to provide you with pages. Instead you will let your browser filter the bits of information you need. And is there anybody better placed than Google to provide that filtering?

This could be yet another retro development because, once upon a time we used to have ‘Gofers’ and they would go and fetch information for you. We could be back to fishing for information again soon, only this time it will have a much bigger pond to search and the results will be displayed with style.

Browsers are regularly updating. Firefox regularly upgrades in the background provided you tick that box. Other browsers are keeping up.

What is behind this competition? The browser is expanding to become the front page software through which all other applications are accessed. The browser occupies a valuable piece of computer ‘real estate’ and I strongly suspect that under the hood of modern browsers one can find pieces of code which will allow for extensions like word processing and all the other desktop facilities that we have come to take for granted. Will these soon be neatly integrated into the browser?