Just downloaded Google’s Chrome and been browsing with it for most of the day.
The first thing you notice about this new browser is how wide it makes the screen look. That’s because there’s no titlebar, just one toolbar, and the tabs are located at the very top of the screen. If you’re running with a maximized window, it can actually get tricky to find the tabs because they’re all squished up against the top of your screen. Then there’s the ‘omnibar’ – Chrome’s address-slash-search bar. All this streamlining has led to a lot more screen real estate, which (as expected) Google doesn’t clutter up with graphics.
The defAULT new tab screen (blank in all other browsers) features thumbnails of your Most Visited Sites, a search bar, and a listing of all your recent bookmarks. Really neat, except if you browse from work and are a regular visitor to porn sites. LOL!
Performance wise, Google says that Chrome makes browsing faster by having each operation run on an independent thread, rather than stringing each operation on a single thread, like a string of pearls. So, if a big download on, say IE, makes other web operations run slower, the same download on Chrome doesn’t. The secret lies in the fact that on other browsers, big operations tend to eat up computing power, starving the other operations on the same single thread. Chrome, however, gives each operation its own thread, so they don’t compete.
That’s how I understand it, anyway. Techies will love (or maybe cringe) the hyper simplified illustrated explanation Google provides.
Mesself, I haven’t really felt any significant difference in performance, but maybe that’s because I don’t use web-based apps too much. But since the future is looking more and more like it’s gonna be about web-based apps, I imagine Chrome’s multi-thread style will make on-line computing a more viable alternative to desktop computing.
Looks wise, like I already said, Chrome actually looks pretty bare. ANd it doesn’t support a whole lot of extensions and add-ons like Firefox. As a Firefox user, this was a big deal for me. One of the first things I tried to do was to tweak themes, but as I found out, that can be pretty cmplicated for Chrome. Still, I noticed that there’s already a number of downloadable themes for Chrome – but nothing that really goes beyond changing background colors. Icons remain mostly the same and so on, so there’s really not much point.
But themes and such don’t really matter all that much, do they? Functionality rules, and in that, Chrome is holding its own so far. Which, for me, shouldn’t be considered as saying a lot. Hell, I’m a casual browser, bitches. As long as this thing isn’t a step down from Firefox, I’m a happy camper. LOL!
Filed under: blogging, intartubes, tech, blogging, browsers, Chrome, Google, review
smoke 
Recent Comments