Web Development, Hosting & More

Google Chrome

Quick Hit:

Google Chrome is a web browser like FireFox and Internet Explorer. It is based on the same code as Apple’s Safari browser, but has a different interface.

Why Should I Care?

Google is a very big company, with excellent programmers, that has added competition to the web browser market. Chrome’s biggest achievement is that it is very fast (for certain types of pages) and that will force the competition to improve their browsers. This should provide us, the consumers, with faster, more stable, more secure and feature rich software.

How Much Does It Cost?

Chrome is free like most of Google’s Services. The underlying code that actually reads the page is an open source project and is shared with Apple’s Safari. The rest of Chrome’s code is free, which means you can download all of it to see how it works and make any changes you want… if you are into that sort of thing.

Should I Download Chrome?

Most “normal” users will probably be happiest using their current browser (FireFox is recommended by Carroll Valley Computers), but anyone with a web presence would be wise to see how their sites look in all of the different browsers.

How Well Does It Work?

As stated above, sites that use JavaScript (a programming language used on web pages) are incredibly quick. Sites like Google Maps and GMail are much faster than on any other browser. On the other hand, we had problems with less popular sites that had some unusual (but necessary) programming, and with Pandora skipping.

Verdict:

C+ The web browser market is already very well established. Chrome is Windows only, so it looses 10% of the market share right there. It doesn’t support add-ons like FireFox does, loosing much of the user generated customization. It doesn’t come bundled with windows like Internet Explorer. The one big killer feature is that it is really insanely fast for certain types of sites. As it is currently, we feel that the competition will integrate the features and speed of Chrome before Google can fix the shortcomings.

There are two caveats. First, Google is also doing work in the mobile phone market. If Android, Google’s mobile phone operating system, takes off, and uses the same code, it will drive adoption. Secondly, Google could “pull a Microsoft” and release updates or features to it’s web services that only work in Chrome.