Google Chrome

This is a deviation from my normal theme of classroom related technologies, but I think it is something important that will change the foundation of the World Wide Web which in turn will affect everything I have discussed so far and much of what I will continue to discuss. However, feel free to ignore this post. It is more technical than most of my posts, and I will not build upon this post or reference to it extensively later, however I did wish to inform for those that were curious.

Earlier today it was leaked that Google would soon be releasing their own web browser (a program like Internet Explorer or Firefox) called Chrome. Google has many web applications, including almost everything I have discussed up until this point, so they realized that people need a browser that would be their main application which would in turn run the web apps they would use.

Google approached this from a completely new angle writing the entire browser from scratch. Google realized that the beginning of most browsers had been written over a decade ago. At that time web pages were static and not particularly interactive. Now entire applications can run right in your browser. In the beginning of most current browsers, malicious software such as viruses and malware were not a threat. Now they permeate much of the web.

Google recognized this and built their browser with this "new web" in mind. It is structured much differently than the browsers we are now used to. I will list some of the more important differences below.

Javascript is a technology used to power much of the web we know today, and is used heavily in web apps such as Gmail and Google Docs. Current browsers handle this using "single-threading." This means everything works in a line, one thing "handing over" the website to the next process that needs to run. So if Javascript experiences a problem the whole system locks up because the next process can't run. Google separates all processes and tabs meaning that is something does lock up, nothing else is affected and the rogue Javascript is easily closed.

This also means less memory bloat. Typically, when you close a tab, fragmenting occurs leaving a small piece of your RAM reserved but unused. This means that after extended periods of time your computer will have much RAM reserved but unused. In Google Chrome, when you close a tab, you are closing every process associated with that tab meaning all RAM is reclaimed.

Of course, Chrome will be used on millions of web pages so it has to be tested extensively on many pages. Google used an infrastructure already in place to test Chrome - the same one used to index pages for the Google search engine - to test Chrome using millions of pages.

Chrome also places Javascript in a virtual machine. This means that if a problem occurs it can be quickly and easily eliminated. Also "garbage collection" is made much more efficient meaning your web-browsing experience will be much faster.

Google also made some changes to the "standard" browser interface. Its tabs are on the top of the window and every setting in a tab is unique to that tab. This also allows for tabs to be easily moved in a window and between windows. The address bar (in Chrome called the omnibox) not only accepts standard web addresses (i.e. www.ezaptechnology.com) but also searched your history and popular pages making it easy to locate the page you need quickly.

Chrome also has a nice default home page for new tabs that is a nice balance between nothing (loads fast) and a full webpage (is useful). When you open a new tab it displays your nine most visited pages and the pages you search the most.

In addition Javascript is contained to its tab. This means that there is no way to force a pop up on you. It will be confined to the tab it came from and from there it can be closed or (if you want it) you can just drag it out.

Similar to the separate process approach is "sandboxing." This means Chrome will completely contain all things running. This means it is pretty much impervious to malware, viruses, spyware, etc. Something bad may be running, but it will completely die when that tab is closed.

In addition to malware, etc, there are phishing attempts to steal your information. Chrome is constantly updating a list of malicious sites and will alert you if you are about to visit a site that might steal your information.

Finally, Google Chrome is open source. This means that anyone can adapt portions of Chrome to their web browser. Google did this because as a search engine and web app provider, it is in their interests to have the entire web grow and mature. So they decided to open source their browser so that other could make use of it.

To download the windows beta go to www.google.com/chrome. This link does not yet work, but I am told it should work by Tuesday night (Sept. 2).

For more information go to http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html

If you have any questions please comment or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.