
Google Chrome, Google's Browser Project - nickb
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html
======
krschultz
I don't think this is an attack on Firefox over 50 million bucks. I think this
is Google looking at the web and saying we need a faster, more stable, more
rich, browser that has these 20 features to allow us to push our web apps
forward. Their game is to make web apps equal to desktop apps so that they can
sell advertising on them - and hammer Microsoft. This goes towards that goal.
I'm looking forward to it. Firefox is in a lot of ways IE done right. This
looks like a step forward in a new direction. Maybe not revolutionary, but a
step forward none the less.

~~~
johnyzee
That seems to be what they are saying.

However, Google does not have a good track record of delivering product for
non-technical end users. GMail, their one succesful homegrown, mass-market,
non-search product that I can think of, is a mess (haphazard user interface,
no improvement for years, still beta). For such a strategic app, that is
worrying.

As for their platform vision, it also seems very scattershot. They have
visionary initiatives (GWT, Gears, App Engine, now Chrome) but it seems
awfully disjointed with hardly any synergy between these projects.

I think it has yet to be proven that these projects can be integrated into
something larger than the sum of its parts. For my money, if they can't do it
with Chrome I have no confidence they can do it at all.

~~~
jotto
GMail has been improved in ways other than UI changes.

They have rewritten the HTML, CSS and JS to make it more hackable for
Greasemonkey - and in the process, optimized that HTML, CSS, and JS to reduce
number of connections and subsequently load time.

The backend has seen massive scaling. They added POP and IMAP.

I don't know what I would change for GMail. It's a strong email client that
gets the job done. I wouldn't consider it "worrying".

------
kilowatt
Have you guys SEEN the respective code bases for Mozilla and WebKit?

Really, this was inevitable. Their whole tabs-as-process thing is too, when
you think about it. Just imagine the potential for a browser-as-OS-with-
processes-and-everything and how much they must be salivating to get it on
devices and desktops NOT running Windows. It's a hell of a trojan horse in
their winning battle to make Microsoft irrelevant...

And open source? <3

~~~
nailer
> Their whole tabs-as-process thing is too, when you think about it.

Could you please explain this too?

I like being able to identify and kill individual tab and plugin processes.

But I don't understand why you can't garbage collect a thread like the
presentation seems to say.

~~~
jmtulloss
It's because there isn't a compacting garbage collector running. The core is
C/C++, so it relies on the OS allocator to keep memory from becoming
fragmented. The OS allocators are good, but they aren't that good. In a
browser you're constantly allocating and freeing large amounts of memory, so
you're going to end up with some holes. Its usage pattern is way different
than most applications because it's used like Google finally designed it: as a
window into a bunch of different processes.

~~~
nailer
Thanks.

------
mixmax
So soon we'll have yet another browser to check for compatibility issues in
CSS and javascript. Great.

~~~
cookiecaper
Well, assuming it uses a pristine WebKit backend, you should only have to test
in one browser with the same WebKit build. :) I guess that might be idealistic
thinking, but hopefully it pans out.

~~~
meat-eater
They seem to be using their own javascript engine, so it might need separate
testing because of that. Although if it becomes popular enough, most
javascript libraries and frameworks will surely support it.

~~~
mpk
You can bet they will. The V8 engine is unlikely to present much of an
obstacle. We have a large JS codebase and the Opera, WebKit (Safari),
Spidermonkey (Gecko/Firebird), Rhino (Spidermonkey port to Java) and JScript
(IE6/7) engines are no hassle to support.

The hard part is DOM interaction and styling. But as they're using WebKit and
are putting a lot of effort into compatibility - this should be a breeze.

The really hard work is support for IE6. 1990s JS assumptions, very bad and
inconsistent DOM behaviour, etc.

New, open JS engines with a different take on executing JS (Tamarin, V8) are
wonderful news for JS developers everywhere. And consumers too, of course.

~~~
bOR_
I know the portion of IE6 on the web is still around 25%.. but do you know
what portion of your customers is actually using IE6 still?

I wonder at what point it is justified to return a 'please update your
browser, preferrably to one of these: [list of reasonable browsers]', just
because of the effort it takes you to keep IE6 compatibility.

~~~
jmtulloss
At a small startup with a huge and complicated JS base, we've done just that.
There's no way we can justify the man hours required to support IE6.

------
13ren
This is a competitor in the AIR / silverlight / JavaFX space

Javascript can be enormously faster: compare ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0, which
are implementations of ECMAscript (which Javascript is also) in Adobe's Flash.

If Google can _basically_ get these things right - local persistence, speed
and animation tools - the Web OS that Microsoft has greatly feared will be
finally upon us...

~~~
queensnake
Who knows but that what's next on Google's plate is a great implementation of
SVG or whatever, to be a completely open alternative to AIR and Silverlight. I
think we can almost expect it.

~~~
llimllib
The webkit implementation of <canvas> is excellent, which fills most of the
need for SVG, especially with separate processes for tabs.

~~~
sratner
And with html5 video support in Webkit, another advantage of Flash evaporates.
There is still the question of distribution, though.

------
pierrefar
Confirmation from the Googs itself:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-
browser...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html)

------
babo
There are some very interesting technical points in the presentation, it's a
good thing to redesign some of the core elements of such an important
application as a browser. It's sometimes easier to implement something new
then rewrite legacy code.

------
kylec
As someone who is fed up when Flash crashes and takes down the whole browser
IT'S ABOUT TIME someone put each tab on a separate thread! The small
performance penalty will pay for itself abundantly with the improved stability
it will provide.

~~~
wmorein
IE was already multi-threaded (just not multi-process):
<http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/05/26/422103.aspx>

------
trapper
That presentation is amazing. Everyone else (adobe, microsoft, sun, ibm, w3c)
must be shi*%@ng themselves!

I can't wait to use it. I'm sick of FF's crap memory footprint and single
processes. Bring it.

~~~
kilowatt
Agreed on the presentation.

What struck me is how technical it was (for a comic book quick overview). It's
obviously geared towards developers--they really wanted to plant their flag in
the sand and say "we're doing this: here is why it is good."

~~~
rglovejoy
I liked that the actual developers were giving the presentation in comic book
form, instead of showing anonymous people. Or worse: imagine it Google had
hired Marvel or DC to do the comic. We would be seeing Batman or Reed Richards
trying to explain how multiple processes are more efficient.

The term "rock star" is way overused in the software field. It's nice to see
some developers actually being treated as stars.

------
cookiecaper
This is cool and all, but did they have to choose "Chrome" for the name? No
reason to do that other than to cause confusion, I think.

~~~
jeffgreco
Strikes me as a very catchy name for the typical user, who most likely doesn't
have "browser chrome" in their vocabulary already. And I doubt it'll be that
hard for the rest of us to keep straight.

~~~
cookiecaper
You're probably right, but there are so many other potential catchy names that
aren't the same as Mozilla's interface layer, so I don't know why they
couldn't have just gone with one of those and made it easier on everyone.

~~~
rbanffy
I think it may indicate the project started as a Chrome layer on top of Gecko
and they decided mid-project to use WebKit instead.

Just a tought.

They may as well change the name.

~~~
druswick
... but only after it's been in beta for at least 4 years.

------
gaborcselle
I love the comic book format of this - great idea!

~~~
bootload
_"... I love the comic book format of this - great idea! ..."_

Thank Scott McCloud.

McCloud is to the comic world what Stallman ~
<http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/inventions.html> (Creators bill of
rights) and Linus is to the computing world by writing & thinking extensively
how to innovate ~ [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-
url?_encodin...](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-
url?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Scott%20Mccloud)
and push both the art and science of comics as hard as he can. My favourites
include <http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-archive.html> and all time
favourite Monkey Town ~
<http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-17/mi-17.html>

~~~
yters
Thank you, those are indeed excellent comics. I think this one is especially
good:

<http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-25/mi-25-1.html>

------
iigs
This is tremendously exciting. There are tons of comments here that are
insinuating that Google is doing this to screw over Mozilla somehow. I think
this is bogus:

1) I know the comic was long, but they explicitly cover their agenda --
they're taking the time and money to make some hard decisions about the
browser that really need to be made (or at least investigated), like separate
processes per tab / embedded-object, aggressive javascript revisions and
embedding features that are relevant to the new world of applications design.

2) Mozilla sending impressions to Google is still money in Google's pocket.
Judging from Mozilla's $millions cut, it's handsome change, too. They have no
incentive to kill this golden goose.

3) With all due respect to the (tens of?) thousands of people that have
contributed to Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox, why should we even care about
Mozilla/FF? When the Mozilla codebase was open sourced, it was roughly
equivalent to NS6, which was a dog compared to IE (remember why even the
majority of geeks was using IE5/5.5? NS4 was an ancient PoS and NS6 was
glacially slow and horrendously unpolished). A lot of us only cared about NS
because it ran on the open source OSes we preferred to use, and it represented
an alternative to the MS-only world we saw coming our way otherwise. I don't
see how Webkit isn't better than the Mozilla codebase in any metric you can
throw at it.

Conspiracy theorists: Stand down. Sure, a monopolistic Google would be as bad
as any other monopoly, but I don't think this is the keystone piece to the
formation of the new evil empire.

~~~
netcan
I agree that the theory is bogus. But.. 1) Explicitly covering their agenda
only has value if you trust them. If Steve Ballmer was telling you about how
he wants to improve the web experience for everyone, would you buy it.

2)They don't lose any impressions by replacing FF. They just stop paying for
them.

3) I agree. But that just means you don't care if they kill FF. Not that
they're not.

------
neetij
Techcrunch has some screenshots from an official Google Chrome site (now taken
offline) - [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/first-public-screen-
cap...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/first-public-screen-captures-of-
google-chrome/)

------
geuis
I don't like the idea of YAB, yet another browser. It's absolutely necessary
that we have competition but it's way too easy to dilute the market.

It's like the problem of too much choice. We all face it. We go to the store
and are greeted with 10 slightly different versions of the same product. Mint
toothpaste, mint with extra-whitening, mint-flavored baking soda toothpaste. I
don't want to buy one that tastes bad. This stuff _is_ going in my mouth 3x a
day, after all. So I'm confused and cranky because I just want my normal
toothpaste. My brain remembers the box had the certain logo and the certain
white swish of box art. Found it! What size, big or small? Done, continue on
to shopping decisions I actually want to think about like what's for dinner.

These days, the choice of a browser by 90% of people is the same kind of
commodity thought given to toothpaste. They know what they're familiar with.
They identify it via the shape and color of the icon, and maybe whether it
says "internet" or not.

We've had to take 4 years to push Firefox to ~20% marketshare. Internet
Explorer still has 75% total, with 30% of that being IE6. Safari, Opera, and
all other browsers squeeze into the rough remaining 5% of the market. Adding
YAB to the party won't serve anything except to dilute the last 5% some more.

What we need is _not_ new browsers, OSS or not. We need marketing. Microsoft
had easy marketing for IE. An icon on the desktop called "Internet".

We need Apple-style ads with Jason Long as Firefox and John Hodgeman as
Internet Explored. Boil the message down to the barest essentials of the
message and make it as clear to the "other 90%" as the Big Blue E meant
"internet".

~~~
alaskamiller
The browser war was based on distribution, not marketing. Now this will be a
war based on money, not distribution.

Will Google continue to pay and support Mozilla Foundation? Because once
that's gone...

~~~
siong1987
Google just signed a 3 years deal with Mozilla. So, personally, I don't think
that Google Chrome would be direct competitor to Firefox. They are in fact in
two different market - normal browsing VS web application.

Refer: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-
lucrati...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrative-
deal-with-google-for-3-years/)

[http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/08/26/firefox-summit-
ref...](http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/08/26/firefox-summit-reflections/)

~~~
nickb
They're definitely competing but Google knows that browser usage stats don't
change overnight so they're just hedging their bets. So it doesn't matter
whether Firefox or Chrome wins, Google wins in the end.

------
emmett
This browser looks great - it has a ton of features (mostly security/stability
related) that I've been wishing for.

------
AndyKelley
<http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/22>

What would you use this incognito feature for, except the obvious? Are they
really creating a feature just for that one thing?

~~~
rglullis
Think of library computers, or the "Telecentros" in São Paulo.

Even more important. With the browser being a true OS and more and more
applications living in the cloud, there is a slight chance that people would
have less of a need to carry their own laptop around, and just work on someone
else's. Incognito mode could be a way to make that easy and worry-free.

------
siculars
good move google! this has nothing to do with firefox. it has everything to do
with webkit and ie. basically if you wanna be a big player you need your own
toys. a google browser will be googles entry to to the new app space on an
equal footing with ms. this is a place where you can bring in money by sale or
subscription - without advertising.

but beyond that, google needs to compete with apples webkit on the mobile
front. they need to embed a browser in android - preferably their browser ;)
so far mozilla does not have an answer to the mobile webkit.

i dont see this as a dig on mozilla, google is funding them. i see mozilla
remaining the best consumer app and goggles chrome becoming standard fair for
mobile and desktop app browsing/computing for enterprise.

------
rcoder
I'm curious why there aren't any platform partisans screaming "bloody murder"
about Google's obvious flaunting of GUI tradition on this one. Putting tabs on
top of the window titlebar may be the greatest UI innovation since tabs
themselves, but it's going to make Chrome windows look and act differently
from every other application on the user's computer.

That being said, a browser using WebKit + Gears + solic process sandbox model
appeals to me a _lot_. Props to Google for explicitly referencing the Biba
model, too -- if they can get web developers to start paying attention to the
body of security theory published in the last 40 years, the browser itself
could be a huge flop, and still leave us better off than we are currently.

------
dabeeeenster
Anyone got a mirror? It's crawling...

~~~
neilk
pdf, courtesy Brian Enigma:
<http://brevity.org/pic/chrome/Google_on_Google_Chrome.pdf>

zip of pngs: [http://brevity.org/pic/chrome/google-chrome-mccloud-
comic.zi...](http://brevity.org/pic/chrome/google-chrome-mccloud-comic.zip)

or, all in individual png files: <http://brevity.org/pic/chrome/>

~~~
byrneseyeview
Page 9: this is exactly what Bram Cohen was asking for
(<http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/51080.html>).

------
sh1mmer
I don't see the need for Google to try and compete in a space where there is
already plenty of competition and Open Source innovation.

Maybe they are tired of giving Mozilla Corp Ad Words money for Firefox
searches.

~~~
neilk
They just renewed the contract with Mozilla. That's got nothing to do with it.
And there's not nearly enough competition in browsers. Sure, there are lots of
projects, but few of them are serious contenders for the average Windows user
-- maybe Opera and Firefox qualify, but that's about it.

If you've ever tried to write a complex web app you immediately bang your head
against the low, low ceiling afforded by the browser. Google knows this as
well as anybody and it impedes adoption of Google apps like Gmail or Docs.
Making the browser into a better platform is good for their business -- note
they are giving away their spiffy new JS engine and the whole thing is open
source.

If Firefox adopted their innovations tomorrow or one-upped them, I'm sure the
Chrome team would be very happy.

~~~
wayne
Plus, a little less altruistically, it lets Google embed stuff like Google
Gears and Google Toolbar directly into the browser, set Google.com as the
browser homepage, and add a bunch of buttons linking to various Google
services. Companies like Google pay a lot for defaults like that.

Plus, like Apple, they've got a mobile platform now so maybe they'll use some
subset of Chrome in Android.

------
netcan
Question:

Is there any/much value in controlling the browser or owning the most popular
browser in itself?

*By 'in itself' I mean ignoring advantages such as Google's: 'We need web-apps to work' or Microsoft's: 'We need web-apps not to work'

If default Search Engine settings are actually worth what Google paid ($55m
for 15% of the market X 3 yrs) & no other revenue sources exist, the market's
worth about $120m p/y. is that it?

~~~
william42
Google gets most of its money from advertising. Eyeballs == Money.

~~~
netcan
Where is the browser == eyeballs?

BTW, I think that the big success of Google is in realising that's really
true. Web Searches == money. But not inherently.

~~~
nailer
Owning the browser is a better way to target the eyeballs.

~~~
netcan
Are you talking about eyeballs for search?

Because that'd be included in the above estimate ($120m p/y for %100 of the
market) assuming they're paying mozilla fairly for defaults.

Do you mean something else? Like eyeballs on the browser itself?

~~~
nailer
I'm talking about targeting eyeballs for ads.

By owning the browser, Google (who a media sales company) know more about you,
and can generate a better yield for their customers (ie, advertisers).

~~~
netcan
So information gathering?

------
blackswan
Google already represents the internet to a lot of people as a result of it
being perceived by these people as the entrance to the internet. "The portal
is the network." From this perspective a Google browser is a seriously good
way to lock these users in further. The multi-functional use of the address
bar is also important - many people use it like this already.

------
bprater
What's the angle for actually getting folks to use this browser? It's taken
years to get mom-and-dad to using Firefox.

~~~
neilk
If I was them, I'd be looking at:

\- selling it as a corporate intranet platform -- in fact, knowing Google,
this is probably already in beta internally

\- similarly, convincing corporations to make it the installed browser of
choice, due to improved security

\- selling a low-priced GooglePC, or even giving it away. Preconfigured
internet with some partner, and make Chrome the default and only shell, with
prominent links to Google apps.

\- putting it on cell phones via Android? But it sounds like the Android team
is going with WebKit and not Chrome just yet.

~~~
nailer
If I was them, I'd also advertise it on my website, you know, just in case
someone visits google.com one day.

------
schtog
I'm using Chrome right now and it is fine, a cleaned up Firefox, but nothing
mindblowing.

What do I sign up for in terms of privacy? I didn't read through the whole
deal(who does?) but saw some stuff about ads, does Google track my surfing?

I'm missing the top right Firefox searchbar where I can search wikipedia and
other sites though.

------
rglovejoy
All I am seeing is a lot of material _about_ Chrome, but has anyone here
actually tried it out? It is supposed to be available today (September 2); has
anyone been able to download it?

*edit: fixed grammar error

------
s3graham
I'd guess this is probably only secondarily for PCs, and probably more likely
targeted at mobile platforms.

Also, all current JS engines are doing conservative GC? Really?

~~~
william42
Yes, really. I've heard from one of the Webkit JS guys(hey, cpst!) and I think
it's because of all the C(++) code you have to interface with it's all
conservative.

------
raheemm
Wow! What an amazing explanation - I learned a lot about browser technologies
just from reading this.

------
josefresco
'porn mode' if adopted by the major browser makers will be a major blow to
adult advertising

~~~
gojomo
Please explain. Do adult ad models require long-lived cookies?

------
b1te
im having trouble explain chrome's advantages to the gf - multi-threaded
javascript engine? - its def geared towards developers..

------
azharcs
I think Google is pretty threatened by Microsoft and Firefox, they are afraid
platforms will one-up them in the future and they know it very well.

~~~
jcl
It's hard to believe that Google feels threatened by Firefox when they are
directly paying the lion's share of Firefox's development/operating expenses
-- a deal which they just extended by three years
([http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-
lucrati...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrative-
deal-with-google-for-3-years/)).

------
ryanmahoski
Windows only. No Mac, no Linux.

~~~
pqs
In the post in the official google blog they said that they are also preparing
versions for linux and osx. This makes sense, as they want everybody to be
able to use the webabs of the future.

------
shiranaihito
Well, this can't be anything but good for (us) users.

It's a bit peculiar though, how both the recently published IE8 and now
"Chrome" both have tabs isolated.

I hope Opera will be able to keep up with all the competition!

The inventors of Mouse Gestures & Speed Dial etc deserve quite a bit of
respect.

