To Dev or not to Dev

Scanning through my RSS feeds I found a link to the new Google Chrome browser download. Since I use Leopard as my default OS I was quickly informed that Chrome for the Mac is not available yet, but I could sign-up via e-mail to be notified when it does become available. I pulled open my Parallels Vista VM and downloaded the Windows version instead.

The installation was fairly straightforward, with the normal Google offline/online installer being used to deploy Chrome. The download is fairly quick and the installation starts immediately. I did notice that at no point did Vista User Control prompt me for permission to install. Once installed Chrome starts and immediately imports settings from IE. I assume it imports setting from the default configured browser, however does not prompt or ask to do the import, something I would prefer since I don't want my settings imported between different browsers as a rule. Also it does not install under Program Files but actually installs under the "UserData" folder in Vista.

The blue framed browser window gives the impression that the application is lightweight and fast. The tab bar above the address is an interesting change, however does remind me of the beta release of IE 7.0 which sported the same concept. When I started seeing the reports of Chrome I realised that this adds another browser to the long list of existing browsers that needs to be compatibility tested for Website Designers, so I immediately headed over to this site and HoneyB.co.za to determine how well they render in the new WebKit based browser. I was satisfied that both sites rendered correctly, especially since I spent a lot of time designing against Safari and Firefox.

So far the positives I have found with Google Chrome include:

• Fast startup and rendering of application
• Fast page loads, reminds me of the initial FireFox betas.
• Proper reloading of pages when clicked
• Support for Javascript and Flash

The negatives I have found has been:

• Browser "hangs" accessing certain sites (Could be a Parallels/connection issue)
• Silverlight support lacking with the browser hanging and taking forever to load
• Lack of Mac and Linux versions for cross platform testing
• Lack of a 64-Bit version.
• Separated address bar can be confusing.
• No prompts on importing from other browser

Overall I like the way Chrome is going, and as with any beta product do expect some problems to occur during its use. I generally stick to using the default browser of the OS, and must say I have fallen in love with Safari, and only use other browsers when a site does not render in Safari, however it is a browser I will most certainly use when doing demonstrations and testing.

Roll on next beta, hopefully with Silverlight support.

Google Chrome can be downloaded here.

Crossposted from Diago.co.za