MozillaZine

Google Launches New Browser

Wednesday September 3rd, 2008

Google has launched a new open source browser, Chrome. The new browser boasts a minimalistic UI, a new Javascript engine dubbed V8, and sandboxed tabs to prevent one tab from crashing the browser. Chrome uses components from Apple's webkit and Mozilla Firefox.

Gigaom has published an article including comments from Mozilla CEO John Lily that while Microsoft, Apple and Google have other businesses and agenda, Mozilla's singular agenda is to make the web better.

PCMag has published an article commenting on blog posts from John Lilly and Mozilla Foundation Chairperson Mitchell Baker. In his blog post, John Lilly addresses how the introduction of Chrome affects Mozilla and its relationship with Google. Mitchell Baker commented on Mozilla's open development process and the need to continue building great products in a competitive environment.

CNet News Webware has articles commenting on Chrome's Javascript performance and Chrome's fine print, specifically auto update.

Last week, Google and Mozilla extended their search partnership until 2011.

News of Google Chrome leaked early when the comic book explaining Chrome's features was published before Chrome was formally announced.

#1 Firefox need upgrade product road map

by sunose

Wednesday September 3rd, 2008 7:25 PM

ASAP to push tab isolated and new javascript engine and ACID3 complianced for Response the chrome challenge!!!

#2 ISOLATED Tabs

by taahwrux

Thursday September 4th, 2008 1:49 PM

I don't know why. But the firefox 3.0.1 in Linux is not working very well as the Firefox 2. It crashes much often than the Firefox2. I think that Google's Chrome has some excellent feature. The Isolated Tab is a must have for Firefox.

#3 development

by Racer

Thursday September 4th, 2008 2:37 PM

Here are some interesting links I found: Chromium project with source available (BSD licensed): http://code.google.com/chromium/ -- Chromium is the open-source face of the Chrome project Chromium project FAQ: http://dev.chromium.org/developers/faq Various 3rd party libraries/etc that Chrome uses: http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html -- interesting Developer stuff: http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/getting-around-the-chrome-source-code

P.S. I have to admit that when I heard the word Chrome, I was wondering if it would be using the Chrome framework (which is the same UI framework that Firefox uses). Alas, it was just a browser name. On top, it looks like a straight C++ application (not .net et. al.). Is this correct?

#4 NIce start

by underscore

Thursday September 4th, 2008 2:41 PM

I love the minimalistic UI and some of the smooth tab features. It's rendering engine seems a considerable improvement over IE and Firefox.

What I noticed though is with one window (with several tabs) open, Task Manager showed several instances of Chrome running. Tabbed windows are nice, but not when they always spawn new processes. Seems they have a long way to go in plug-in support, too.

#5 Re: Nice start

by rajbhaskar

Friday September 5th, 2008 1:32 AM

But that's how Chrome implements tab isolation: each tab runs in a separate process.

#7 Re: Re: Nice start

by greenknight

Sunday September 7th, 2008 1:18 AM

Correct. However, when I launched it I found it had 3 processes running when there was only 1 tab open. Puzzling.

#8 Re: Re: Nice start

by underscore

Monday September 8th, 2008 6:52 PM

That's fine and all, but what's the point of tabs then, other than to reduce task bar clutter?

#10 Re: Re: Re: Nice start

by MillenniumX

Tuesday September 9th, 2008 7:20 AM

I thought that was the whole point in the first place.

#12 The point of tabs

by tepples

Friday September 12th, 2008 10:25 AM

I think part of the point of tabs was to reduce the system resource footprint of having multiple documents open at once. In Windows 95, 98, and ME, there were two heaps called "user" and "GDI". Even if you had 512 MB of RAM installed, the heaps were limited to 64 KB each. The included program "rsrcmtr.exe" would display the lower free percentage of the two heaps as "free system resources".

#6 Chrome Forums

by supernova_00

Friday September 5th, 2008 12:47 PM

There is a forum devoted to Chrome at http://www.chrome-forums.net

#9 here's why google chrome has 3 processes in 1 tab

by stupidhomer

Tuesday September 9th, 2008 2:02 AM

Google Chrome turns plug-ins into processes too

Flash = 1 process Browser = 1 process Tab = 1 process Java = 1 process etc.. so its probably: Browser + Tab + Flash = 3 processes

#11 A few observations

by iva

Tuesday September 9th, 2008 10:28 AM

Well, and I noticed that Google Chrome browser consumes quite a huge amount of CPU (namely, 60-70% during the "active usage", at least that's my experience), while I also discovered that it integrates deeply into the operating system. For example, during the installation (i.e. after launching the "ChromeSetup.exe" executable), it was the Windows-owned "svchost.exe" process (to be more precise, the one "instance that runs the most "NT services") that actually downloaded 7.5 MB "chrome_installer.exe", and 22.3 MB "chrome.7z" files (that then performed the actual installation, e.g. creating the startup-entries, starting the "googleupdate.exe" process etc.), and not the mentioned installation-executable itself as I would've expected.

Regards, Ivan Tadej, Slovenia, Europe

#14 s/Lily/Lilly/

by djst

Friday September 26th, 2008 1:31 AM

John Lilly. Nothing else. :)