Noman H Malik

I was driving when I came to know about the launch of Goggle’s innovative web browser — Chrome, through a local radio station. The RJ was telling the innovative features and ample reason to be excited about the release. I speeded-up my car because I wanted to experience those exciting features of open source web browser.

Within a few moments, the first beta of Chrome was in front of me. The attractive and catchy look enthralled me throughout the research. From its looks, Google Chrome appears to be far more advance and interesting as compared to contemporary available web browsers.

Lots of innovative web browsers have been developed. I still remember my school days when we used Netscape Navigator, developed by the famous Mosaic programming team. With the passage of time, it was renamed Communicator and then renamed just Netscape. Netscape quickly became a success and captured the market but with the launch of Windows 95 and a web browser of its own ‘Internet Explorer’ in August 1995, Microsoft began an effort to challenge Netscape with one major advantage i.e. the Internet Explorer was free of charge.

The war started in mid 90s. This was the critical time for both the companies; it seems like every second week one company or the other was releasing a new version of browser with beta or final names. But eventually, Microsoft gained the market share because of the distribution advantage.

A beta version of Google Chrome was released on September 2, 2008 in 43 languages for the Windows Vista and XP users. Initially the release was scheduled for September 3. If we look at the history of web browsers, we notice that web browsers haven’t changed much. The preliminary concern of Chrome’s development team was the improvement in security, speed and reliability as compared to the widely used Internet Explorer.

What makes ‘Chrome’ different

Google Chrome is not just a browser for viewing web pages. It is built on the best programming elements to view web pages and to run interactive applications. Here are a few pros and cons of this newly launched browser. Weigh it yourself and then decide what suits you.

• Thumbnail view

One of the interesting and catchy features of Chrome is the thumbnails view of the recently visited websites. Google Chrome keeps track of most visited websites (regular basis) in the form of image thumbnails and links for those websites automatically through the New Tab feature. This allows users to access web pages easily.

Chrome also keeps track of the recently closed tabs and the recently saved website on the same window.

• Separate processes for each tab

Google Chrome is powered by the feature of separate processes. If a website causes a tab to crash, only that tab is affected. The browser itself remains stable and other tabs remain unaffected. This feature makes Chrome more stable and efficient.

• V8

V8 — the JavaScript virtual machine seems to be the finest feature of Google Chrome. This will help users to access heavily packed JavaScript applications like Gmail, Netvibes etc, in an efficient manner.

• Phishing and Malware protection

Internet fraud is on its peak these days. Stealing someone’s personal information has become very easy. In computing, ‘phishing’ is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire someone’s personal information like credit card numbers, passwords and bank account details. Scam artists send emails that contain links to malicious web sites to obtain your personal information. When you follow the particular link, it directs you to a website that is specially designed to capture your personal information. Whereas Malware (Malicious software) is a general term used for any harmful software that affects computer user, it includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spywares.

Google Chrome constantly downloads information on website that are known to be insecure for a web user to visit. It also keeps warning you of potential Malware and Phishing threats.

• Incognito

Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Incognito browsing mode allows you to browse in stealth manner. Web pages that you open while you are in incognito mode won’t be logged in your browser’s history. Similarly, files downloaded through incognito mode won’t be logged in the download history. Closing the window will automatically wipe out all the cookies of the session.

On one hand it is quite an interesting feature whereas on the other hand from the security point of view this feature is not feasible.

• Tabbed browsing Chrome’s catchy interface allows you to manage the websites you’re using. You can easily shift, switch, rearrange, duplicate and move tabs to a different window. This leads to time saving and efficiency.

Rest of the features like ‘Domain Highlighting’, ‘Groups for tab’, ‘find on page’ and ‘resizing input textboxes’ are no doubt great features but Google is not the first to introduce them. They all are the exact copies employed by other browsers such as Inter net Explorer 8, Safari, Firefox and Opera.

The ‘truth’

It is irrefutable that Google Chrome is not that much innovative as the hype created for its launch. In fact, it is all stitched up from pieces of IE 8, Safari, Firefox and Opera. The development team took the best features and ideas of all the contemporary available browsers and packed them in viable manner. All the features sound cool, but more or less they all are already available in other browsers under some other name except the powerful JavaScript engine (V8). Still, Chrome is nice, fast and easy to install. The interface is so simple that it appeals to novice users as well as it fulfils the requirements of those who demand more from their browsers.

I am convinced and using it since it has been launched. Time will tell how long will I use it but for now I am really impressed and suggest you all to use it. You can download Google Chrome from www.google.com/chrome