Chrome Is Available! [UPDATED x3]
You can get it for Windows from here. Mac and Linux versions are on the way. Here are the key highlights:
- It’s based on Webkit. Just like Safari from Apple.
- Each tab runs as own process. That means that one crash doesn’t take down the entire browser and each tab is isolated.
- Google rewrote Javascript code from scratch, calling it V8. It executes Javascript much much faster than existing technologies.
- It has Private Browsing. A.K.A. “Stealth Browsing” or “Porn Mode”
- The Browser is fully sandboxed so that exploits can’t take over your PC.
Give it a try and leave a comment telling us what you think of it.
UPDATE: I just installed it. It’s freaking fast! Plus it imported all my Firefox stuff with ease. Now if I can figure out how to get my client side certificates working, I’ll start using it as my default browser to see how it really performs.
UPDATE #2: Be sure you read the fine print before you install Chrome.
UPDATE #3: Some other things I’ve noted:
- The browser comes with its own task manager that allows you to kill individual tabs and even individual flash elements. Plus it will show you detailed memory usage.
- I can’t get it to use imported certificates so that I can access secure websites. Weird. I’ll spend some more time playing with it to see if I can get it to work. I’m sure it’s just user error.
September 2, 2008 at 3:21 pm
It certainly is fast – and slick looking. I like it so far but we’ll see how I feel about it in a week. I’m into the developer tools and code inspection (as a developer). Funny though, you mentioned that it imported your Firefox stuff – mine won’t give me the option. I can only import IE. Aside from that – so far so good!
I’m hoping that they make it possible for you to sync bookmarks and browsing history through Google accounts so that I can have all that stuff synced across multiple computers. That would make my day. I’ve come to rely on a module I installed in Firefox that syncs my bookmarks. I can’t live without that anymore.