[tt] NYT: Serious Potential in Google's Browser

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Serious Potential in Google's Browser
New York Times, 8.9.3
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue.html

State of the Art
By DAVID POGUE

Does the world really need another Web browser?

Google thinks so. Chrome, its new browser, was developed in secrecy
and released to the world Tuesday. The Windows version is available
for download now at google.com/chrome; the Mac and Linux versions
will take a little longer.

Google argues that current Web browsers were designed eons ago,
before so many of the developments that characterize today's Web:
video everywhere, scams and spyware, viruses that lurk even on
legitimate sites, Web-based games and ambitious Web-based programs
like Google's own Docs word processor. As Google's blog puts it, "We
realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to
rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely
rethink the browser."

What this early version of Chrome accomplishes isn't quite that
grand. But it is a first-rate beginning.

With no status bar, no menu bar and only a single toolbar (for
bookmarks), Chrome is minimalist in the extreme.

Some might even call it stripped-down. This initial version is
labeled "beta," meaning it is still in testing. True, Google labels
almost everything beta -- four-year-old Gmail is still in beta --
but this time it's serious.

At the moment, for example, there's no way to e-mail a Web page to
someone, no full-screen mode, no way to magnify the page (rather
than just the text), and no bookmarks organizing screen. Google says
that these features are at the top of its to-do list.

Chrome is, nonetheless, full of really smart features that seem to
have been inspired by other browsers -- or ripped off from them,
depending on your level of cynicism.

Take the address bar. As you start to type, a menu of suggestions
appears immediately beneath -- a list culled not just from pages
you've visited before, but also from your bookmarks, search
suggestions and popular Web pages that you haven't yet visited. That
works even the first time you try it, since Chrome auto-imports your
bookmarks, history and even stored passwords from your old browser.
(See also: the similar address bars in Firefox and Internet Explorer
8, also now in beta testing.)

If you've ever searched Amazon, eBay, nytimes.com or another popular
site, another cool shortcut awaits. You can just type the site's
first letter in the address bar and then press Tab. Do that with
"A," for example, and the address bar changes to "Search
amazon.com," allowing you to search within that site without even
going there first. You've saved one big step.

As your start-up page, Chrome displays pictures of nine mini-Web
pages, representing your most frequently visited sites. (See also:
the Opera browser's Speed Dial feature.) This start-up page also
lists several of your most recently visited sites and searches,
making it a natural, time-saving starting point. (You can designate
a more standard Home page if you prefer by clicking on the Options
command that hides in one of the two menu icons.)

The "Create application shortcuts" command (also hiding in those
menus) generates an icon on your desktop. When you click it, the
corresponding site opens without the usual address bar and buttons
-- in other words, it now works exactly like a regular desktop
program. For services like Gmail or blogging software, this feature
further blurs the line between online and offline software.

Downloading files is really easy. A status button appears at the
bottom of your browser window -- there's no Downloads window to get
in your way. You click that button to open the downloaded file,
without having to worry about what folder it wound up in.

If you believe Google, though, the best stuff is all under the hood.
For example, Google chose, as the underlying Web-page processing
software, the same existing "rendering engine" inside Apple's Safari
browser.

As a result, Chrome is quick -- faster than Internet Explorer,
although not quite as fast as Firefox or Safari. Since Chrome came
out only Tuesday, I haven't had time to test it on all 40 billion
Web pages on the Internet (I gave up around dinnertime). Very few
Web sites gave Chrome problems, though. NBCOlympics.com, for
example, failed to recognize Chrome and therefore refused to play
its videos, but that will change; nobody ignores Google these days.

Also under the hood are what Google considers some of Chrome's most
important features -- the security enhancements. Google says that
each tab runs in its own "sandbox," so that if there's nasty
spyware-type software running on one Web site, it has no access to
the rest of your computer, or even the other tabs. Google asserts
that this is much stronger protection than Internet Explorer 8 gives
you, especially in Windows XP. (Internet Explorer 8 supplies its
best protection only in Windows Vista.)

Also in the security category: something called Incognito mode, in
which no cookies, passwords or cache files are saved, and the
browser's History list records no trace of your activity. (See also:
Safari, Internet Explorer 8.) Google cheerfully suggests that you
can use Incognito mode "to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays,"
but they're not fooling anyone; the bloggers call it "porn mode."

For more of the techie details about Chrome security, Google has
created what may be the most innovative feature of all: an utterly
charming comic book -- yes, comic book -- that explains the browser
and its features.

Already, speculation is running rampant online. Will Chrome catch
on? What about Google's business relationships with its competitors?

And above all: what is Google up to?

Is it trying to build a platform for running the software of the
future, thereby de-emphasizing Windows and other operating systems?

That's a yes. Google even went to the trouble of rewriting
Javascript, the programming language that underlies many such online
programs. According to online Javascript speed tests, Google's
version is twice as fast as IE7's.

Will Google ensure that its own services run better in Chrome than
in other browsers? Is this part of Google's great conspiracy?

That's a no and a no. Chrome is open-source, meaning that its code
is available to everyone for inspection or improvement -- even to
its rivals. That's a huge, promising twist that ought to shut up the
conspiracy theorists.

For now, it's best to think of Chrome as exactly what it purports to
be: a promising, modern, streamlined, nonbloated, very secure
alternative to today's browsers. You should do exactly what
Microsoft, Apple and the Firefox folks will all be doing: try it out
and keep your eye on it.

Because every now and then, Google's fresh approach ends up
dominating its once much bigger competitors (See also: AltaVista,
Lycos, Ask ...)

E-mail: pogue at nytimes.com