Thursday, 4. September 2008, 12:02:11
Browsers
Here's the thing: You're on a web-site or search page containing lists of links, either a search you've entered or a site with articles you like to read. Scanning the list you find one that vaguely interests you, likely to burn up a few minutes quite peaceably, and click on it. The page is slow to load and the progress bar grinds slowly away at the top of the browser (or wherever you've put it) until you begin to imagine the bar moving when it actually isn't. Your eye wanders...
Suddenly you spot another link: a
better link! Something you'd have MUCH rather read then the one you clicked on but
just before you can drag your mouse pointer all the way over there (back from idly drawing pretty figure-of-eight patterns)
the page changes to your original choice, meaning you then have to browse back to find it again costing you more precious seconds of your life staring at the screen/progress bar/screen/progress bar/screen....
This happens to me a LOT.
Wednesday, 3. September 2008, 10:13:01
Software, Geek, Browsers
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a new Internet Browser on the block! 
Google Chrome be it’s name and – arrrr – she be a fine, quick browser to boot*. Still in Beta, meaning there’s still a lot of work to do before 
it’s suitable to release to the general public, but what’s already there is impressive.
The thing is FAST. Having considered Opera 9.5 the current pinnacle of browser speed (with Firefox 3 nipping very closely at its heels) I was blown away by how much faster and more responsive Chrome feels, particularly on JavaScript-heavy pages; it actually makes Opera look like a sluggish, last-gen product...
Another feature I particularly like is the separate processes-per-tab. No longer do we have to suffer browsers that completely lock-up when just one tab misbehaves! Further, these separate process are ‘sandboxed’: a technical term describing how the browser segregates each progress from the wider OS it’s running on. Malware and other nasty little web-buggers should now have no access to vital systems, now that they are securely confined to their particular browser tab, keeping you safer online. 
There’s a 30-page comic presentation that goes into depth about the design process and new features which isn’t as dull as you might think. Having read it, I find myself greatly excited by Chrome for already managing to find several key improvements in a crowded and fiercely contested browser market. Ok, lots of what it does has been ‘taken’ from Opera (inspired, homaged or ripped-off, depending on how generous you feel) - the Speed-dial, the tabs above the address bar, the ‘Omnibar’ search functionality – but in all cases they’ve made small but genuine improvements.
Google Chrome, Yesterday
I have a great feeling about this piece of software, this beautiful hodge-podge mongrel of ideas and tech drawn from Opera, Firefox and Safari. It’s Open Source, too, meaning that once the source code has been released into the wild anyone can integrate their favourite features/extensions/plugins/themes...which should manage the neat trick of keeping nearly everyone happy. Not only that, but any feature that Chrome has can be freely adopted by any of its competitors.
Thus with one dramatic and seemingly effortless gesture, Google manages to re-energise the so-called 'browser war', and shows us a little bit of the future, too. I’ll be keeping a very close eye on this one from now on...
[UPDATE] One thing Chrome doesn't do very well is render this blog! I'm missing my funky custom header image! CSS problems, perhaps?
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*No, there was no reason for the pirate-speak there, that's just the way it sounded in my head as I was writing it. 
WIDGETIZE