Download NowGoogle Chrome has matured from a lightweight and fast browsing
alternative into an innovative, standard-bearing browser that people
love. It's powerful enough to drive its own operating system,
Chrome OS.
The browser that people can use today, Chrome 25, offers highly
competitive features, including synchronization, autofill, and standards
compliance, and maintains Google's reputation for building one of the
fastest browsers available.
Chrome 25 represents a major milestone for the browser, but those
expecting to see dramatic changes in major version-point updates will be
disappointed. For a while now, Google has been pushing features over
what it calls milestone numbers in a rapid-release cycle, which means
that as soon as new features are usable in the beta version of Chrome,
Google will likely push them to all users in the stable edition.
Please note that there are at least four versions of Chrome available at
the moment, and this review only addresses the "stable" branch,
intended for general use. Chrome beta (
Windows (download) |
Mac (download)), Chrome dev (
Windows (download) |
Mac (download)), and Chrome Canary (
Windows (download) |
Mac (download)) are progressively less stable versions of the browser, and aimed at developers.
There's also
Chrome for Android and
Chrome for iOS.
Installation
Chrome's installation process is simple and straightforward. If you
download the browser from Google's Web site, it will ask you if you'd
like to anonymously submit usage statistics to the company. Although you
used to be able to toggle this easily, Chrome now splits up the
anonymous data-tracking options into multiple categories. You can toggle
these from the Preferences menu (the three-line icon to the right of
the location bar) under Settings, Advanced Settings, then Privacy
Options. Depending on your processor, the installation process should
take less than 2 minutes.
Interface
Google's Chrome interface has changed remarkably little since its
surprise debut in September 2008.
Tabs are still on top, the location bar (aka Omnibox) dominates the
minimalist design, and the browser has few visible control buttons
besides Back, Forward, a combined Stop/Reload button, and Home. Although
some users may not like having the tabs on top, we find it to be
aesthetically preferable because it leaves more room below for the Web
site we're looking at.
The former Wrench icon for accessing settings has been replaced with the
Android-styled "three-line" design. Settings open in a new tab, with
many additional options available under various "advanced settings"
links. It's not the best layout, and it's easy to get lost in the
configuration woods as Google moves options around. Some controls, such
as page zoom, are readily available. Others, such as the extension
manager, are hidden away under a Tools submenu.
Chrome's extensions are fairly limited in how they can alter the
browser's interface. Unlike Firefox, which gives add-on makers a lot of
leeway in changing the browser's look, Chrome mandates that extensions
appear only as icons to the right of the location bar. The benefit is
that this maintains a uniform look to the browser, but it definitely
limits how much the browser can be customized. Chrome doesn't support
sidebars, either, although other Chromium-based browsers (such as
Comodo Dragon)
do offer the feature. There is an option in Chrome's about:flags, a
series of experimental features, that lets you move the tabs to a
sidebar.
Even with its limitations, the interface design has remained a
contemporary exemplar of how to minimize a browser's screen footprint
while keeping the browser easy to use and versatile.
Features and support
Chrome 25 offers a complete range of modern browsing conveniences. The
basics are well-represented, including tabbed browsing, new window
creation, and a private browsing mode that Google calls Incognito, which
disables cookie tracking, history recording, extension support, and
other browsing breadcrumbs.
Incognito, known in other browsers as "private mode" and to the
cognoscenti as "porn mode," does not prevent your Internet service
provider from peeking in on your Web traffic.
Chrome is based on WebKit, the same open-source engine that powers Apple
Safari, Google's Android mobile platform, and several other desktop and
mobile Web-browsing tools. However, Chrome runs on a different
JavaScript engine than its WebKit cousins, and there are other changes
as well.
Along with hardware-accelerated 3D CSS, there have been interesting
security improvements. You can delete Flash cookies from Chrome, which
makes sense given that Chrome comes with Flash built in, and there's a
Safe Browsing protection against downloading malicious files. Chrome's
Web app support now includes the capability to launch Web apps from the
location bar. This gives keyboard jockeys a bit more power to avoid
mousing around, more readily apparent in Chrome OS but nevertheless good
to have in the regular old Chrome browser. You can also change plug-ins
like Flash from loading automatically to click-to-run, both a security
feature and a page-load time saver.
There's Native Client, too. Also known as NaCl, it's open-source
technology developed by Google that allows C and C++ code to be securely
run in the browser. It basically lets software run within two protected
sandboxes, which will theoretically cut down on browser-based threats
dramatically. When completed, NaCl will enable Web apps to run as
smoothly as programs that are hosted on your hard drive.
Besides allowing you to disable JavaScript, Chrome will automatically
block Web sites that are known to promulgate phishing attacks and
malware threats or be otherwise unsafe. The usefulness of this depends
on Google's capability to flag Web sites as risky, though, and so it's
recommended to use an add-on like the
Web of Trust extension or a separate security program to block threats.
Although Chrome has a poor reputation for privacy because of its Google
origins, it actually does offer a lot of privacy-tweaking settings. You
can toggle and customize most of the browser's privacy and security
settings. Cookies, image management, JavaScript, plug-ins, pop-ups,
location information, and notifications can be adjusted from the Content
Settings button. This includes toggling specific plug-ins, such as the
built-in Adobe Flash plug-in or the Chrome PDF reader (which is
deactivated by default). Still, that's not going to be enough for many
people. If you're not comfortable using Chrome because of privacy
concerns, we recommend the independent browsers Firefox or Opera.
Chrome offers malware scanning on Web pages to include downloads, and
the precaching tool for loading sites in your search results early works
with the Omnibox location bar.
Chrome's tabs remain one of the best things about the browser. The tabs
are detachable: "tabs" and "windows" become interchangeable here.
Detached tabs can be dragged and dropped into the browser, and tabs can
be rearranged at any time by clicking, holding, dragging, and releasing.
Not only can tabs be isolated, but each tab exists in its own task
process. This means that when one tab crashes, the other tabs do not.
Though memory leaks are a major concern in Chrome when you have dozens
of tabs open, we found sluggish behavior and other impediments weren't
noticeable until after there were more than 20 tabs open. That's not an
immutable number, though, and different computers' hardware will alter
browser performance.
You can sync tabs and their browsing histories to other computers and
devices such as Android and iOS, and Chrome 25 introduces mic support in
the browser. This means that developers can build sites and Web apps
that can incorporate audio from your onboard microphone. Previously,
this required a separate plug-in. Chrome 25 also prevents third-party
programs from installing extensions without your permission.
Some of the basics in Chrome are handled extremely intuitively. In-page
searching works smoothly. Using the Ctrl-F hot key or the menu option,
searching for a word or phrase will open a text entry box on the top
right of the browser. Chrome searches as you type, indicating the number
of positive results and highlighting them on the page.
Account syncing is another area in which Chrome does well. Using your
Gmail account, Chrome will sync your themes, preferences, autofill
entries, passwords, extensions, and bookmarks. You can toggle each of
those categories, too.
Chrome has multiple user account support. This means that you can now
have multiple people, or at least multiple Gmail accounts, running in
Chrome simultaneously. However, it's not "people-secure," which means
that although your data might be secured on Google servers, once an
account is logged in to Chrome, you don't have to re-enter your account
data. Anybody with access to Chrome on your computer can see your stuff.
The intuitive New Tab page allows you to create custom categories by
dragging and dropping apps and bookmarks, and includes navigation arrows
on the left and right edges of the page that become more visible on
mouse-over.
Like Firefox, Chrome gives broad control over search engines and search
customizations. Though this doesn't sound like much, not all browsers
allow you to set keyword shortcuts for searching, and some even restrict
which search engine you can set as your default. Chrome comes with
three defaults to choose from: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
The Chrome extension manager, bookmark manager, and download manager all
open in new tabs. They allow you to search their contents and throw in
some basic management options like deletion, but in general they don't
feel as robust as their counterparts in competing browsers. For example,
URLs in the bookmark manager are only revealed when you mouse over a
bookmark, and you must click on one to get the URL to permanently
appear. That's an extra click that other browsers don't require.
Two other low-profile but well-executed features in Chrome are
auto-updating and translation. Chrome automatically updates when a new
version comes out. This makes it harder to revert back to an older
version, but it's highly unlikely that you'll want to downgrade this
build of Chrome since this is the stable build and not the beta or
developer's version. The second feature, automatic translation of Web
pages, is available to other browsers as a Google add-on, but because it
comes from Google, it's baked directly into Chrome.
Chrome is also a leader in HTML5 implementation, which is uneven because
of the continuing development of HTML5 standards. This will become more
important in the coming months and years, but right now it doesn't
greatly affect interactions with Web sites.
Performance
Based on the open-source WebKit engine and Google's V8 JavaScript
engine, Google Chrome debuted to much fanfare because of its rocketing
rendering speeds. More than three years down the line, that hasn't
changed, and the stable version of Chrome remains one of the fastest
stable browsers available. The less stable versions, with their more
recent improvements and bug fixes, are often faster.
You can see
CNET's most recent benchmark tests
that included Google Chrome; while that particular version of Chrome
didn't do too well, the browser has seen a lot of changes since that
test and you definitely should not discount it.
Note that to effectively use hardware acceleration you must make sure
that your graphics card drivers are up-to-date. Nevertheless, Chrome
remains one of the fastest browsers available, and its rapid version
update rate ensures that it is consistently competitive. It finally has
extended hardware accelerated graphics to older Windows and Macs
courtesy improvements to WebGL support and changes to Canvas2D.
Conclusion
It's hard to tell which is faster, user adoption of Chrome or its
development. Certainly the two are linked, and due in no small part to
Google's capability to lay claim to the "fastest browser" title, even
when it may not be strictly justified. The rest of Chrome's appeal lies
in its clean, minimalist look, and competitive features that justify its
still-increasing market share. Chrome is a serious option for anybody
who wants a browser that gets out of the way of browsing the Web.
More than just speed in Chrome:
Publisher's Description
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