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LAN Party Forums => FITES News => Started by: sully! on September 02, 2008, 07:37:40 PM

Title: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 02, 2008, 07:37:40 PM

(http://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/chrome/images/chrome-205_noshadow.png)

Are Internet Explorer and Firefox ready to do battle with Chrome?

Google announced Monday that it has been hard at work on an open-source browser known as Chrome, a beta version of which will be released in 100 countries on Tuesday.

New features will included "isolated" tabs designed to prevent browser crashes and a more powerful JavaScript engine.

"Why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web," Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, Google engineering director, wrote in a blog post (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html).

Google was apparently looking to keep news of Chrome under wraps until after the holiday weekend. A 38-page, online comic (http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/) book that provided details about Chrome hit the blogosphere Monday morning, but Pichai and Upson said in their blog post that Google had "hit 'send' a bit early" on the web comic.

Full Story (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2329247,00.asp)

More links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10030888-92.html (JavaScript benchmarks)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10030962-26.html (Acid3 test)
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html (Features overview)
http://www.google.com/chrome (Download)

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 02, 2008, 08:11:24 PM

I'm posting this from Chrome. I'm going to give it a try over the next several days and post my thoughts later in the week. I ran my own SunSpider benchmark and compared it to FF3.01. Overall, Chrome performed 1.63x (i.e., 63%) faster than FF3's already very fast performance on my very modest hardware (Athlon64 3200, 1GB RAM). FF 3.1 promises to increase their JavaScript performance with the introduction of what they are calling TraceMonkey (http://ejohn.org/blog/tracemonkey/), so we'll have to see if Chrome can keep up with Mozilla's effort, but as with seemingly every Google product release, Chrome is still in beta.

For comparison's sake, Chrome was 20.2x (i.e., 2,020%) faster than IE7.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: Negley97 on September 02, 2008, 09:23:55 PM

I've only been using it for about 3 hours tonight and I've noticed a HUGE speed increase in the web pages loading.  So far (knock on wood) no crashes.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 02, 2008, 11:22:11 PM

Haha! Gotta love the error message when something crashed or you close the tab's process in Chrome's task manager!

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: The Shoctor on September 03, 2008, 08:27:57 AM

Man, it's fast... I just wish it had addons. (I know it will probably slow it down.) But the only thing I would want is adblock.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: The Shoctor on September 03, 2008, 08:33:11 AM

Also here is the snapshot directory. It's the real open source one with no EULA.
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: decepticon on September 03, 2008, 09:53:00 AM

I installed chrome this morning and I must say, I like it better than any other browser I have ever used....so far.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: Negley97 on September 03, 2008, 02:12:55 PM

comcast.net does not load properly, at least not the flash coding.  I've also found that some of the sites I go to that use ASP will garble text on occasion so I don't think it's 100% CSS compliant.  It still runs 10x faster than IE7 on my machine.  So far I like it better than IE and FF3.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: Mr.Tibbs on September 03, 2008, 03:44:30 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxGGHChTt9c

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: DoubleG on September 04, 2008, 04:38:50 PM

ALl I see is... Multicolored Pokeball... Multicolored Pokeball... Multicolored Pokeball...

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 04, 2008, 04:52:13 PM

Quote from: DoubleG on September 04, 2008, 04:38:50 PM

ALl I see is... Multicolored Pokeball... Multicolored Pokeball... Multicolored Pokeball...

I thought of Simon when I saw it.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: DoubleG on September 04, 2008, 05:03:32 PM

I'd really have to see at least 4 panels or add the blue somewhere to see it first.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: decepticon on September 04, 2008, 05:35:55 PM

One thing I have noticed with chrome is although it plays flash objects, it slows the browser to a crawl in some animations.  And, animated gif's slow it down as well.  When all the smilies load on a full reply, it takes 2 seconds to scroll the page a few lines.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 04, 2008, 05:39:04 PM

I've seen that too. Especially F3ar0n's two animated gif movies. It looks like they're crawling around at about 2 fps.

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: decepticon on September 04, 2008, 05:41:39 PM

Well, I was gonna say something about his avatar/sig.  They slow down any browser I use. 

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: sully! on September 04, 2008, 05:58:23 PM

They display fine in FF3 for me though...

Title: Re: Google to Release Open-Source 'Chrome' Browser
Post by: decepticon on September 05, 2008, 07:41:25 AM

Maybe it's my crappy laptop then....