Google Chrome

07Sep08

Google released a new web browser, named Chrome. Chrome may seem like yet-another web browser, to gain market share from IE and Firefox. My first thought was that Google would use it to gain personal information by recording browser history and search queries, better targeting ads towards users’ interests. Reading their comic book about Chrome, I found the true reason to be much cooler and interesting.

Chrome is not a web browser in the traditional sense, but a web application framework and run-time environment. I believe it is a major milestone towards true cloud computing. Chrome’s GUI reflects this, with the ability to create start menu and desktop shortcuts for online web applications. Chrome does not show any navigation buttons or an address bar for these web applications, so the web apps resemble a desktop application.

Chrome includes a new Javascript VM (V8) which has much better performance than existing Javascript VMs. Web applications are generally programed with a mix of server-side and client-side (Javascript) code. However, the speed of Javascript has always been a bottleneck, so that computationally intensive tasks are done by the server. However, it is desirable for web applications to run locally when no network connection is available. By improving the speed of Javascript, applications can be coded to be run locally. Cnet has a benchmark showing Chrome’s V8 Javascript VM performance compared to other browsers.

Another desirable feature of cloud computing is storing data locally for offline use. Google already has this technology, Google Gears, and it is included with Chrome. Between this and Javascript V8, I am very excited about upcoming web applications.

Chrome includes other nice UI improvements: a smart address bar, simple bookmarking (that is actually useful), and an automatically generated start page. Tabs and windows in Chrome all run in a separate process, improving robustness and security. The rendering engine is Webkit, the same one Apple uses for Safari, and based on KDE’s KHTML engine. Chrome and related APIs are all open source for others to use.

Fast Javascript, local storage of data, and multi-platform, Chrome is a major milestone towards true cloud computing. In a few years, most data will be stored online and all we must do to switch to a different computer is login. We will no longer be fixed to using a single computer, but be able to seamlessly switch between a workstation, friend’s home computer, and an ultra-portable laptop.

This raises two important topics: bandwidth and security. As more of our data is stored online, bandwidth must be available to quickly upload and download photos and videos. Personal information stored online must be secured to maintain personal privacy. I believe both topics will be hotly debated in the coming years.

UPDATE: A friend pointed me to a benchmark comparing V8 to TraceMonkey, Mozilla/Firefox’s upcoming Javascript engine. Tracemonkey performs significantly better than V8 on many tests. V8’s advantage seems to be recursive code.

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