Undoubtedly you have completed the rest of that phrase as, “isn’t gold”.  In this case you’re only partly correct.  In this case, it should be, “isn’t gold. Sometimes it’s Google Chrome”.  Google Chrome is the terrifically shiny new browser from our friends at Google and like most Google applications they have done things mostly right.

The first thing you will notice about the Chrome experience is the small footprint as a function of install time.  The installer weighs in at a mere 475KB and installs in under 15secs on a 64-bit Athlonâ„¢ X2 running Windows Vistaâ„¢ Home Premium rig with 4GB of RAM.  The installer will immediately prompt you for permission to import details from Firefox (Internet Explorer users have to click the ‘Customize these settings’ link) and you’ll be off to the races from there… and what a start you’ll have.  Using a blank home (or start) page, Chrome is faster than Firefox by a noticeable margin at load time and navigation to this domain, defang.net,  and rendering the previous article content was faster by the same wide margin.  Note:  I don’t have any plug-ins loaded in Firefox during this.

But speed is not the only factor here.   Lets talk about the UI… or not since the UI itself leaves a lot to be desired.  First off there is the surreptitious movement of my bookmarks into a non-obvious but aptly named ‘Other Bookmarks’ button.  Things on my Firefox bookmarks tab/bar are where I expect them to be once imported into Chrome but it took more time that is should to find the rest of them… 5-8secs is too long to find my bookmarks in a new browser.

Lets also face the inglorious and shabby facts that the UI is just ugly out of the gate.  I disagree with the idea that the tabs are too large, I don’t believe they are any larger on a pixel-by-pixel comparison to Firefox 3.  In fact, I believe they are smaller and they do actually give the appearance of ‘tabs’ given the shape.  Plain aside, the UI has a very Zen feel and is uncluttered by the presence of Menu Bar and the icons have a very familiar & meaningful feel to them.  The current menu and options layout extend the Zen and there is little in the way fluff or filler.

Out of the box you’ll enjoy the use of Flash based experiences.   Whether this is due to a ‘built-in’ flash engine or leverage of the fact that you likely already have Flash installed on your machine has yet to be determined by this user but given the fact that I didn’t have to think about Flash support, I don’t really care which.  However, when I upgrade my dev workstation to Windows Server 2008 I’ll let you know how that works out.

Alas, with all the good there are some things I want to see sooner than later:

• An ad-blocker, though I believe this will slow the browser experience
• A compatible, or easy porting path, plug-in architecture so that using Firefox plug-ins is not an arduous task assiduously avoided.
• Better discrimination when importing from Firefox.  I don’t like that fact that my saved passwords were so easily imported.  Though maybe this is a Firefox problem… master password?
• An option to import content from Firefox or Internet Explorer that does not import password data.
• A better cleanup routine at unintinstall time or options to remove all content, i.e. cache, settings and the like.

In short, Google is off to a great start in this 0.2 release.  One place I feel this browser will prove most useful is in web appliances and kiosks where small and fast are what you want above all else.

No doubt there will be a ripple affect with this new addition, not to be confused with a new combatant in the browser wars - if there is still such a thing. Chrome is about innovation and taking the next steps. If Apple, Firefox and Microsoft truly see themselves as innovators then they will take a long hard look at the internals of Chrome and apply the best things to their own technology.

Though, what’s with the logo that makes me want to play a game of Simon?
 
Update 2008-09-03: Google Chrome does not have a built in Flash engine.  Uninstalling all the Flash support from my system left Chrome flash deprived.

September 2nd, 2008 by ChrisJ | No Comments »