A faster Google Chrome means what?
A browser upstart like Google's Chrome must have some
cleaving edge if it's to hack its way into the marketshare
predominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and to
a far lesser extent, Firefox. Since Google Chrome doesn't
yet have the add-on capabilities that have earned Mozilla's
browser rabid support from open-source circles as well
as from the browsing community as a whole, Chrome must
best it in some other skill. Google's browser is certainly
headed towards supporting add-ons, but what it can deliver
now is speed.
A page-loading boost of 30 percent is what Google claims
it's brought the latest browser update, version 2.0.172.28.
And it has (see our stats). Ironically, the lack of
extensibility is one factor that may help keep Google
Chrome skipping along. The more Firefox extensions in
play, users lament, the draggier performance becomes.
In addition to back-end work on the JavaScript and
Webkit browser engines in part responsible for Chrome's
acceleration, Google has added a smattering of new features.
The ability to delete thumbnails from appearing in a
visual history when you open a new browser tab is one;
full-screen mode and the ability to store and autofill
your passwords, name, and other commonly recurring data
into Web forms are two others.
Seemingly not to be outdone, Mozilla has also announced
this past week a project to improve the way it currently
handles add-ons, and Mozilla-based browser publisher
Flock released an update to its browser aimed at the
social networking crowd. Flock 2.5 reveals new support
for Twitter (including searching), for Facebook Chat,
and for cross-posting photos and blog posts to Facebook
that you originally create in the browser for another
service also integrated into Flock.
The take-home message is this. While neither Chrome,
Firefox, Flock, nor Opera or Safari can currently claim
more than a modest fraction of the Windows browser market,
the ones proactively gunning for a larger slice of the
pie understand that in an increasingly browser-based
computing world, the battle of the browsers is more
about establishing a lasting platform of computing authority
than it is about creating a neat alternative app. In
other words, watch out, Mozilla and Microsoft. If past
trends are an indication, Google is slowly building
up its browser and will soon integrate its numerous
online Web apps and services to do what it does best:
play for keeps.
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A faster Google Chrome means what?
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