Chrome Launches: Browsers Will Never Be the Same

Google launched a web browser two days ago. It is called Chrome, and I have been using it nonstop since I downloaded it.

I know what you are thinking. Why does the world need another web browser? We have Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari. The browser market is already crowded. What could Google possibly add?

Speed. That is what Google added. Raw, ridiculous speed.

The First Launch

I installed Chrome on the one Windows machine I still have access to (my friend's laptop) and the first thing I noticed was how fast it launched. Firefox takes a few seconds to start up, especially if you have extensions installed. Internet Explorer is faster to start but slower at everything else. Chrome just appeared. Like flipping a switch.

Then I loaded Gmail. Gmail is a complex web application with a lot of JavaScript. In Firefox, it takes a noticeable moment to load and become responsive. In Chrome, it snapped to life almost instantly.

I opened Google Maps next. Same thing. Fast. Responsive. Smooth scrolling, quick rendering, everything just felt snappier. I started opening more tabs, loading heavier pages, trying to find the point where Chrome would slow down. It took a lot more tabs than I expected.

V8 and Why It Matters

The reason Chrome is so fast comes down to something called V8, which is Google's new JavaScript engine. Google built it from scratch, and they designed it to execute JavaScript as fast as possible.

Here is why that matters. JavaScript used to be a language for small things: form validation, dropdown menus, simple animations. But the web has changed. Applications like Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Docs are essentially full software programs running in your browser, and they are all built with JavaScript. The old JavaScript engines in Firefox and IE were not designed for this level of complexity.

V8 compiles JavaScript into machine code before executing it, which is a fundamentally different approach from what other browsers do. The result is JavaScript that runs many times faster than in any other browser.

And here is the really exciting part: V8 is open source. Google released the entire thing for anyone to study, use, and improve. The whole browser is actually open source, under a project called Chromium. Google is not just competing with other browsers; they are trying to push the entire web forward.

Each Tab Is Its Own Process

There is another technical decision in Chrome that I find fascinating. Each tab runs in its own separate process. In Firefox or IE, if one tab crashes, the whole browser goes down. We have all experienced that moment of dread when the browser freezes and you realize you are going to lose everything in every tab.

In Chrome, if a tab crashes, only that tab dies. Everything else keeps running. There is even a built-in task manager (Shift+Esc) that shows you how much memory and CPU each tab is using. If one tab is hogging resources, you can kill it without affecting anything else.

This is such an obviously good idea that I am surprised nobody did it before. It treats the browser like an operating system, where each application (tab) runs independently. If you think about it, that is exactly what a modern browser is: an operating system for web applications.

The Comic Book

Google announced Chrome with a comic book. A literal comic book, drawn by Scott McCloud, that explains the technical decisions behind the browser. I read the whole thing and I have to say, it is one of the best pieces of technical communication I have ever seen.

They explain V8, the multi-process architecture, the sandboxing security model, the memory management, all through simple illustrations and analogies. Complex engineering explained clearly enough that a student like me can understand not just what they built, but why they built it that way.

I wish my textbooks were this good.

What This Means for the Browser Wars

Firefox has been my browser of choice since I discovered it a year ago. It was such a breath of fresh air compared to Internet Explorer. Extensions, tabbed browsing, better standards compliance, an open source community that cared about the web.

Chrome does not have extensions yet. It does not have the customization options that Firefox has. In many ways, Firefox is still the more full-featured browser. But Chrome is faster, and in the long run, I think speed wins.

More importantly, I think Chrome is going to force every other browser to get faster. Mozilla will have to improve Firefox's JavaScript engine. Even Microsoft will have to pay attention. When the fastest browser is also free and backed by Google, you cannot afford to be slow.

Competition is good for users. We are about to see every browser maker invest heavily in performance, and that means the web is going to get better for everyone, regardless of which browser they use.

The Web as a Platform

I keep coming back to this idea. Google is not just building a browser; they are building a platform for web applications. V8 makes JavaScript fast enough to build real applications. The multi-process architecture makes those applications stable. The sandboxing makes them secure.

Google wants the web to be a place where you can run applications that are just as good as desktop software. Email, documents, spreadsheets, maps, all in the browser, all accessible from any computer. Chrome is the foundation for that vision.

As a student who is just starting to learn web development, this is incredibly exciting. The platform I am learning to build for is getting more powerful every day. The things you will be able to build in a browser a few years from now might be things we cannot even imagine today.

I am sticking with Firefox on my Ubuntu machine for now since Chrome is only available for Windows at the moment. But I will be watching Chrome closely. I think this is the beginning of something significant.