Interesting story about Google Chrome

[Semper Fidelis]

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

This article piqued my interest about Chrome particularly due to this:

Bak set up a small team that originally worked from the farm, then moved to some offices at the local university. He understood that his mission was to provide a faster engine than in any previous browser. He called his team's part of the project "V8." "We decided we wanted to speed up JavaScript by a factor of 10, and we gave ourselves four months to do it," he says. A typical day for the Denmark team began between 7 and 8 am; they programmed constantly until 6 or 7 at night. The only break was for lunch, when they would wolf down food in five minutes and spend 20 minutes at the game console. "We are pretty damn good at Wii Tennis," Bak says.
They were also pretty good at writing a JavaScript engine. "We just did some benchmark runs today," Bak says a couple of weeks before the launch. Indeed, V8 processes JavaScript 10 times faster than Firefox or Safari. And how does it compare in those same benchmarks to the market-share leader, Microsoft's IE 7? Fifty-six times faster. "We sort of underestimated what we could do," Bak says.

The main drawback for me is Roboform integration at this point but I like how fast the PB runs on it.

 

[fredtgreco]

No Roboform, and uber-big-brother Google spyware, watching everything you do.

FF 3.1 will have a new javascript engine that is just as fast, if not faster.

I have not found Chrome very useful at all. I donwloaded it mostly to use it with Google Docs, calendar, etc. It is (in my opinion) very buggy. The cursor selects the wrong rows in spreadsheets, it crashes, etc.

 

[Devin]

I downloaded it not too long ago, and it seemed quick. However, the extensions on Firefox are too awesome for me to switch.

 

[Quickened]

I downloaded it not too long ago, and it seemed quick. However, the extensions on Firefox are too awesome for me to switch.

Thats exactly whats keeping me with FF. I like all the plugins that I have.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I'm not abandoning either FF or IE but I'm considering Chrome for apps where I don't need some of the functionality.

One of the points that the article makes with the Java engine is that, if successful, it could lead to the browser becoming more of a platform for applications where performance has heretofore been an issue. I'm happy to see FF or any other browser move in this same direction.

I'm not a "koolaid" drinker on Google. I'm rare among people as an early critic of the company. I did a lot of web advertising in 2004-2005 timeframe and learned a lot about how Google does not protect its advertisers from fraud. The truth is that many people lose their shirts on advertising because you really need to know what you're doing to protect yourself from the sharks out there and Google does not go out of its way to refund your money if you're the victim of the unscrupulous.

Thus, their able to maintain an image as a caring company that "gives away" apps to the masses because millions of advertisers are starting businesses online every day and don't know how Pay Per Click works and end up losing money out of it.

 

[DMcFadden]

Thanks, Rich. I'm trying it out now because of your recommendation.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

No Roboform, and uber-big-brother Google spyware, watching everything you do.

Fred,

Don't you use Google apps?

 

[fredtgreco]

No Roboform, and uber-big-brother Google spyware, watching everything you do.

Fred,

Don't you use Google apps?

I do. And there is no getting away from Google. But as far as I can tell right now, the only benefit to Chrome is that it is new, and it has Google's name. It actually performs worse for me with Google Apps. So I don't see any reason to let them document and save every website I go to (which they do, when you use Chrome).