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Google Chrome is here
Today, Google officially launched its contribution to the browser market, with its new browser "Google Chrome". I will not go into all the details about it, because I already wrote about it here, but I will talk a bit about the performance.
One of the things that Google Chrome is supposed to do, is to improve the world of web applications. That is, this browser is designed to be a faster, better and more stable platform for complex websites. So how does it perform?
The answer is both "well... that doesn't seem that impressive..." and "oh my god!!! - that was fast!". You see when it comes to rendering a page; Google Chrome is consistently slower at displaying a site, than any other browser. It is slower at rendering the page on the screen and it takes Chrome between 200-500% longer to connect to a site.
E.g. it took 46 seconds to display Core77.com in Google Chrome and only 11 seconds in IE 8.
So it is not a browser I am going to use for general browsing. It is terribly slow at rendering pages.
But it is amazingly fast when it comes to JavaScript usage, one of the key performance problems with web applications. As you can see below, Google Chrome is almost twice as fast as the second fastest browser.
(Using SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark)
The initial verdict? Well, the insanely slow rendering speed far exceeds the incredibly fast JavaScript performance. As such, the overall experience was a bit of a bummer. I have only used it for about an hour, and I am already annoyed at waiting for the pages to load.
And, I have not - yet - looked at all the other features. The only thing I tested was speed.
- Download Google Chrome (XP/Vista only)
Comments
Zyb - Sep. 3, 2008
I played around with it a little and I can confirm the sluggish rendering - a direct comparison with Opera or Firefox lets Chrome look pretty slow.
I have mixed feelings about the interface, too. It's clean and unobtrusive, without unnecessary clutter. But while it claims to focus all on the tabs, they actually get out of easy view and reach on the very top of the window above address and bookmark bar. And the inactive tabs have such a dark background color, that it's hard to scan their title=s quickly. Also the lack of a classic status bar makes it necessary to pop up a little white bar with the destination url whenever you mouse over a link - I find that more annoying than a static status bar which reduces my screen estate for a few pixels.
Overall Chrome adapted many of the best things in different browsers and does without many of the unnecessary things. It's amazingly complete for a beta but of course it lacks essentials like feed reading or ad blocking, which will certainly be available when the plugin/extension system is in place. The incognito mode is a great new idea, but it's plain stupid that you cannot switch an existing tab to incognito mode - you have to open a new one, which is incongruent with the situations in which you usually need an incognito mode.
I am sceptical about web applications like Google Docs or webmailers at large, so I'm probably not the target group of Chrome. But also there is not much else in it which will convince me to use Chrome rather than my good old Firefox or Opera. But maybe future versions will, who knows. :)
Looking forward to read further reviews of Chrome! Zyb
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 3, 2008
About the UI. I actually like it many of the things.
I like that it is a relatively simple look. I like the the menu and url bar text size is bigger. I like that the tabs looks like tabs, in other browsers it is sometimes hard to to see which tab is active. I like how the find bar does not take up the size of a full toolbar.
I actually think that Google should lose the window, so that only the tabs is visible + allow us to move tabs around, and even move a tab away from other tabs (a free floating tab).
I really like the idea that you can "create an application shortcut", which will give you a direct link to web application (as if it was a normal application) and removes the normal browser fluff. (although I do think they should design this window a bit better)
Overall I agree with Zyb about Google Docs etc. Not as long as we base our web application on HTML (which is a document markup language), CSS (a style for rendering HTML, which is again document), and the very slow Javascript (which Google has improved a lot, but it is still 1000 times slower than dekstop programming languages).
The languages of the web is not designed to be able to create applications, so we run our programs through an emulator (the browser), and with javascript, through an emulator (the Javascript virtual machine) running in an emulator (the browser again).
But, I do appreciate that the browser manufacturers is trying to make it easier and more powerful to create web applications.
Zyb - Sep. 3, 2008
»I actually think that Google should lose the window, so that only the tabs is visible + allow us to move tabs around, and even move a tab away from other tabs (a free floating tab).«
It's already possible, isn't it? You can grab a Chrome tab, reorder it, drag it away so it becomes a stand alone window. Or do I misundertand what you're looking for?
Ian - Sep. 3, 2008
"It is slower at rendering the page on the screen and it takes Chrome between 200-500% longer to connect to a site"
I found that to be true only when behind a proxy. Otherwise the rendering and connection speeds were fast!, comparable to that of Safari.
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 3, 2008
Zyb, ? I have to test that
Ian, I am not behind a proxy. I have also found that GMail is a lot faster in Chrome - even at displaying the page.
Gamermk - Sep. 3, 2008
Well looks like Firefox 3.0 remains the best of both worlds. This is really disappointing news though since with Google's backing you'll see a number of people that otherwise wouldn't have switched away from IE going to Chrome. If Chrome is slow at the day-to-day stuff then you'll see them quickly switching back to IE and becoming much less likely to try a new browser again.
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 3, 2008
Zyb, Ahh.. yes - you can drag tabs out of the current window and thus create a new window. That is actually pretty cool.
One thing I don't understand. Chrome is actually extremely fast when it comes to rendering Google's websites. Maps, Gmail, Analytics Google Docs all loads pretty fast. I wonder if the speed issues is related to something else than rendering the page - DNS lookup perhaps, or malware detection?
media kingdom - Sep. 3, 2008
despite the rumors, i'm finding Chrome to actually be slower than Firefox... it hangs constantly
Ian - Sep. 3, 2008
"Chrome is actually extremely fast when it comes to rendering Google's websites. Maps, Gmail, Analytics Google Docs"
That might be the reason for my perceived performance, I'm a heavy Google user :-)
Truski - Sep. 3, 2008
Hi
Did you notice that GC installer besides GC installs also a separate program GoogleUpdate ? It starts with the system and checks for update. At first glance it is nothing unusual, but first time I see stand-alone program for updating such kind of application, moreover I have noticed that after I removed Google Chrome, Google Update is still running in system. Perhaps it is something more than the update program....
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 3, 2008
Truski, No I did not notice that, but I am not suprised. As I recall Google also use the seperate Google Updater for its other desktop applications and toolbar.
And, Apple does the same with Safari.
Basically, I have no problems with a seperate program for handling updates, but I hate the fact that they are constantly running. I don't want something on my computer, that most of the time does nothing useful, and yet consumes ressources all the time.
The program should be started up when Chrome is started, and closed down again the instant it has finished checking for updates.
All that said, Google Updater is actually very small. It only requires about half a megabyte of memory. That is far less than Apple's startup programs, 20% less than the Flash updater,
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 5, 2008
The Register have created (through its readers) a somewhat different Google Chrome Comic...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/google_chrome_comic_funnies/
Simon - Sep. 5, 2008
Anyone else see google chrome taking over the browser space? With google's incredible reach I guess it's only a matter of time they get the thing spreading.
May I ask something off topic here Thomas? I love the way you handle the RSS feed with the additional info, but how do you get the "read comments" working, I think that's fascinating :)
Livia - Sep. 5, 2008
It really is much slower! But it's a beta version and it's out only for a few days. I hope the people out there in google hear our complaints and will do something about it (won't you, google?). I'll keep it installed and try to wait.
Other things in this new browser are perfect for me!
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 6, 2008
Simon, Thanks :) ...The RSS feed is a custom made, so I can do anything I want with it. In other words, I don't have to do this with other blogging platforms.
The read comments link is simple a link with an anchor tag to the comments [pageurl]#comments.
Livia, I think Google will do something about it. I was just suprised when speed was one of the key features - that it wasn't speedy. I don't think Google actually realizes how tough the browser market really is.
Sam - Sep. 7, 2008
Yeah, I found it slow in connecting and rendering a site. Even with gmail, I didn't notice the difference in speed.
One thing you should be aware of - whatever you type in the address bar is sent to Google (and / or whatever other search engine you've sent) to display the search suggest. Yes, that includes every URL you type too. Its a creepy feeling ...
Simon - Sep. 7, 2008
Ah I see, that's tricky but nice. I guess with enough knowledge one could also grab the yoast's rss footer plugin and then something like get_permalink to automate this (for wordpress). Hmm I guess I'm going to learn new stuff this week ;) Nough offtopic, thanks for the answer!
Simon
Rick - Sep. 10, 2008
I support non-techie end users who find it difficult to move away from their sacred AOL, Butterfly (MSN), or IE browsers for Firefox (my current preference). I think the speed and ease of use of GC and the name behind it will help bring some of these folks away from those less secure, spyware magnet browsers into the world of modern browsers. IE 8 shows some promise, but in my mind...too little, too late.
Joe - Sep. 13, 2008
As a web developer, I am pleased to find that Chrome is rendering pages properly and sticking with the standards, unlike Internet Explorer.
Using Chrome for about a day now, I agree that Connecting to a site and rendering the HTML is very slow. I'm using Vista, not sure if that matters. Firefox w/ Firebug no longer operates reliably on my machine. Firefox becomes unresponsive after using it for an hour or so and I cannot kill the process or start a new Firefox browser. The only way to fix this is to reboot.
Chrome's UI is really nice. Since I can't stand IE, I might stick with Chrome for a little while and cross my fingers they fix some of these speed issues. It would also be nice if they worked on their "Inspect" tool and make it more like Firebug.
E-Commerce Shopping Cart Solution - Sep. 13, 2008
Google Chrome's javascript processing works GREAT! This is good news since everything is moving towards a more interactive web (*cough* - JQuery).
Now that Google made Chrome's javascript processing quick, maybe they should make initial web page load time quicker.
I also love the fact that you can drag tabs around and going Incognito is great! Maybe we'll start seeing up much needed Chrome updates soon.
Ryguy - Sep. 26, 2008
I enjoy using Chrome. The only aspect that annoys me is Chrome's slow rendering of Flash applications.
When you scroll through a page that has Flash elements or scrolling inside a Flash app itself, there is a huge slowdown.
Other than that, I love it.
Published: Sep. 2, 2008 in Products
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Rolf Winkler - Sep. 2, 2008
Hey .
google chromes works great. just love the interface perfect for browsing