Google Chrome: that’s no moon
Google’s much-anticipated operating system turns out to be real – but it’s built into a browser.
11 Responses to “Google Chrome: that’s no moon”
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Google’s much-anticipated operating system turns out to be real – but it’s built into a browser.
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mupwangle on September 2nd, 2008
It looks quite promising.
mupwangle on September 2nd, 2008
Mind you, if they’re using webkit – why is it initially windows only?
Gary on September 2nd, 2008
Sheer numbers, I’d imagine. Loads of Google things start as Windows-only jobs.
Squander Two on September 2nd, 2008
In what way is it an OS, then? Is it not just a browser?
(My spam word is “CONNECT”.)
mupwangle on September 2nd, 2008
Arguably a browser could be described as a type of thin-client OS.
Squander Two on September 2nd, 2008
Well, arguably, yes. But everyone still understands what the differences are. If you were keenly awaiting the new Google OS, and this turned out to be it, you’d be disappointed, wouldn’t you? I would. Or are Google fanboys getting as blind as Mac fanboys these days?
Besides, since the insane Microsoft case, wouldn’t they be treading on dodgy legal ground if they had a single app that was both browser and OS?
Gary on September 3rd, 2008
> Or are Google fanboys getting as blind as Mac fanboys these days?
There’s an element of hype, sure, but this is a very early part of a bigger picture – basically, cloud computing. Google’s vision is of pretty much everything delivered in-browser, and Chrome’s being designed to facilitate that – hence the emphasis on multi-threaded operations and faster javascript performance. It’s not too far-fetched when even Photoshop, albeit a cut-down version, runs in a browser.
> wouldn’t they be treading on dodgy legal ground if they had a single app that was both browser and OS?
Not necessarily. By funding Mozilla (via search referral revenue – to a lesser extent they do it with other browsers too) and making the code open source they’re in quite a strong position. Let the proper OS take care of drivers and dull things like that, have the browser do the lifting for applications… it’s interesting.
It’s nowhere near finished, mind you.
Gary on September 4th, 2008
I’ve done a comparative review here.
Squander Two on September 4th, 2008
Hmm. Can’t see Google going for ad-blocking, somehow. People would block half their revenue.
A question you didn’t address in your review (which is fair enough, ’cause it’s for users, not designers): can IE8 render a page properly? Or are we going to have to code yet another lot of bug workarounds into our CSS?
Gary on September 5th, 2008
They’ve gone for standards support rather than backwards compatibility this time out – there’s a button on the address bar to make IE8 behave like earlier versions (ie, to handle IE-specific pages).
chi - Chrome Browser on September 23rd, 2008
I think Google is going for the browser platform instead of attacking the Windows OS directly because it would be too difficult to defeat Microsoft in that manner. Google knows the internet better than anyone so they are using their strengths and want Chrome to deliver their applications, mail, analytics and adsense. I’ve found those services are much faster on Chrome than any other browser.