Google Chrome Browser

The internet is a buzz since Google's release yesterday of its browser named Chrome. There are many wild predictions about its future, what it means for Microsoft and Firefox and a share of nay sayers. I downloaded and to it for a test drive myself. But I waited a day to see what reactions would be and if more detailed information came to light before I went shooting my mouth. Overall the reaction seems to be very positive.

A number of things stand out about Chrome.

1. On the surface, its page rendering seems fast. It uses WebKit
2. Browser tabs are spawned as separate tasks. This the most talked about feature so far, because it means that if one website's scripts are running slow, the other tabs will not slow down. The problem child can then be killed off. This point gets my vote.
3. Chrome uses the V8 JavaScript engine. It means Chrome has speed advantages over many of the other browsers.

The general consensus seems to be that the new browser is clear pitched at web applications, and specifically web applications that continue to work when off line. Many see this as the way of the future, where applications are not tied to any one particular operating system, and are available anywhere, any time.

The browser then coupled with Google's Gears, a collection of web widgets, clearly puts in competition with Adobe's Air and Microsoft's Silverlight. As JavaScript engines become faster and if a standard HTML video element was adopted, the future looks dim for these two proprietary platforms. This is one point that seems to have garnered much applause from the technical community.

The next thing that seems to be rather sensational and wildly exaggerated, is that Chrome is Window's killer. As many people have pointed out, Chrome needs an operating system to support it. So Windows is not about to go away. But, where it does spell trouble for Microsoft, is when Chrome and other browsers create a fast, stable platform for web based productivity software, its Office cash cow is in serious trouble.

For me, it has been interesting to use Chrome for the past day, but four things stop me from using it more regularly.

1. No add ons - I love my Firefox ad blocker, Firebug development debugging tool, as a developer, I can't live without this one.
2. Its CSS rendering is not up to date. It fails the Acid 3 test. My WordPress admin theme does not work properly. So I'm using Firefox right now to write this.
3. There seems to be some JavaScipt incompatibility, some of the WordPress Editor Monkey features didn't work.
4. I can't install Flash. While this Chrome is meant to ultimately mean the demise of this platform, the nearly the whole internet still uses it. For instance, Google's own Analytics.

None of the other browsers are sitting still, so the competition is on. I believe we can expect to see some amazing developments from all of the browsers in the near future.

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Microsoft says that Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) now has three rendering modes, “one that reflects Microsoft’s implementation of current Web standards, a second reflecting Microsoft’s implementation of Web standards at the time of the release of IE7 in 2006, and a third based on rendering methods dating back to the early Web”.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, (a post previously held by Bill Gates himself) said that: “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behaviour as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8”.

Could the following comments of Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel, be an indication that Microsoft is taking notice of the US and European regulatory authorities?

“While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue”.

Weight is lent to this notion when you consider that last week, European regulators fined Microsoft 1.4 billion euro for not adhering to their 2004 ruling that Microsoft was in breach of their competitive regulations and the actions Microsoft promised they would undertake to resolve the issue.

Opera recently filed an antitrust complaint to the European Commission over Microsoft's dominance. In addition to requesting that Microsoft be forced to unbundle its browser from Windows, Opera also asked that the company be forced into "fundamental and open" standards. If IE came close to rendering things the same way as Opera, Firefox, and Safari (none of which are perfect, of course), then web developers of the world wouldn't have such a headache on their hands when creating new sites.

The one shortcoming with Opera's antitrust complaint is that Firefox has made significant headway against Microsoft. Firefox has managed a huge surge in popularity where Opera has failed over the last 10 years, demonstrating that it is possible to make inroads against IE's dominant position.

Time will tell if Microsoft live up to their talk with IE8, and whether we developers will have an easier time with developing websites compatible with multiple browsers. 

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Harry McCracken writing for PC World plays it safe with his summation of Microsoft's latest action in his article "Internet Explorer 7's Slow Start".

A more cynical view would be that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is loosing large amounts of market share to their most serious rival Firefox. By allowing anybody to download and run Internet Explorer 7, including those with non-validated versions of Windows (pirates) the hope is that they'll pick up some traction. 

Looking at the satistics of a number of sites I host, which are quite varied in their audiences, I would conclude that IE7 doesn't have a chance. Firefox usage steadily continues to grow. All of these sites are now reporting 30% or more Firefox usage.

Times are changing, including the browsers. 

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Firefox 3 is in its final stages of Alpha development with a host of new features and improvements.

Mozilla has unveiled for the first time several security features it's talked up for months. Among the security provisions are built-in anti-malware warnings and protection against rogue extension updates. 

Debuting is Places, the name given to the new unified history and bookmark manager. Unlike current browser bookmark tools, Places will use a database — the SQLite database engine powers it — so users can search for saved pages. Places will also support the use of tags, or user-defined labels that are applied to categorize bookmarks and make them easier to retrieve via searches.

On offer is also a new download manager that will integrate with third-party virus scanners and malware protection.

The graphical rendering of Firefox also gets an update with the Cairo rendering engine and animated PNG image files. The versatile Cairo graphics library is a vector-based drawing API that supports a wide variety of backends. Cairo can take advantage of hardware acceleration where available and simplifies cross-platform graphics application development by providing an internally consistent and cohesive framework that emphasizes platform-independence.

Thanks to this new graphics infrastructure, boxes with corners rounded by the pre-CSS 3 property border-radius are rendered with beautiful anti-aliasing (currently accessible as the non-standard -moz-border-radius and soon -webkit-border-radius). Cairo also provides smooth scaling of images. Up until now scaled images looked jagged.

The new improvements in Firefox 3 will finally enable it to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development.

Firefox 3 has particular implications for the development of the Mac version of Firefox, as it provides support for the use of Cocoa Widgets.

One downside of Firefox 3 is that several older operating system versions are no longer supported: Windows 95, 98 and ME and OS X 10.2 Jaguar. 

Mozilla has not officially committed to a release date for the final version of Firefox 3.0. 

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A friend of mine, Julian Guppy, recently found himself deep in the bowls of Microsoft's London office to discuss a project. We had joked that he should wear his Linux penguin hat and his Firefox T-shirt. The T-shirt he did wear, but Julian's surprise was not at any reaction to his apparel, but to discover that even Microsoft employees use FireFox and it's host of web developer tools to debug websites.

It's a sad indictment of Internet Explorer and it's development tools, but a resounding endorsement for Firefox.

Here's my favourite list of FireFox plugins that make it the most indispensable web development tool I use:

• Firebug
• Web Developer's Toolbar
• ColorZilla
• Copy Plain Text
• IE Tab
• ShowIP

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