Google Chrome review
Posted by Nicola
Google browser is here!
I downloaded it the same day it was available even if it’s not been easy since the link initially didn’t work so I read the beautiful comics drawn by Scott McCloud introducing Google Chrome. The first page was very promising, they said the Web has completely changed during the last years transforming pages and sites into applications we use everyday, so “Wouldn’t it be great to start from scratch?”. When you read things like these from giant of innovation as Google you start imaging any sort of things. To tell the truth after my test I can safely say Chrome won’t change our interaction with the web but it surely has many interesting innovation. Here we go.
Installation
Installation is simple and even if Chrome is installed in a non default folder you can still uninstall it via control panel as for the other Windows applications.
General interface
The first thing you’ll notice is how fast it is to start, just as launching notepad or other minimal applications. And minimal is absolutely the right word for the interface, they did a really great job in reducing the browser interface to the essential leaving all of the space to what really matters to you as user not of the browser but of a site or web based application. This is a solution that lets you concentrate on the content you’re reading and you have a really different feeling especially if you use Firefox with 3 or 4 toolbars as I do. How did they get this? Well they started frowning the title bar where you usually find the page title, after all they thought: you can find this information in the tab title, even if the tab is not so wide and when the title is quite long you need to move the mouse over it to see the complete title.
Then they got rid of the menu bar and this is a more questionable choice since a lot of user and mostly beginners tend to rely on “File” and “Edit” menus. It took me a while to find the print command under the “Control the current page” icon which happens to be a blank document icon so it reminds things such “new window” or “new tab” which indeed are the first voices. Maybe just adding 3 thin lines in the icon would better suggest that it relates also to the current page. Another missing feature is a print preview command and at the moment it seems impossible to print just a selection instead of the whole page.
Another peculiar solution is not having an icon nor the name of the application in the application bar, it just reads “Google” on the top right, and when the window is in full screen mode even that tag disappears. In a sense this helps the user to concentrate on its job on the other it makes think “what is this”, “what application am I using” but it perfectly fits to Chrome philosophy, I’m using a browser but what I’m really using is a web site, a web application and I think that when I get used to that I’ll appreciate it. To complete the slimming course they also dropped the status bar which now is visible only while downloading a page or when you move your mouse over a link. A very simple and good solution, same functionality with more space for the main content.
Navigation bar
The navigation bar together with the bookmarks bar is the only bar you have in Chrome. It has a Web 2.0 style so very simple and light colors. The first thing I noticed is the URL field since when you visit a site only the name of the domain remains in black while the rest of the URL included the “http://” becomes light gray. This is a good solution for 2 reasons: 1) it acts as a sort of title bar so you always know where you are; 2) is very useful against phishing since your eyes get caught mainly by the name of the domain.
The URL box is now called Omnibox, since you can use it even to search Google, by default, or a different search engine or search on sites such Amazon and EBay but this last functionality is not immediate so the user needs to be trained about it. The Omnibox is smart so when you start typing it try to guess what you want suggesting recent websites containing those letters in the domain name or in the title of the page. If you visited a site containing “go” it suggests … “google” but also “go.com”. So it helps you find what you need and saves your tired fingers. A very similar functionality is available in Firefox since version 3 the plus here with Chrome is that when you start typing the more appropriate URL is already highlighted and written in the URL box so you just need to hit enter. I find this incredibly useful since for my most visited sites I just need to type the first letter followed by enter et voilà I’m there.
There’s no homepage icon by default but you can enable it through options.
The favicon is displayed only in the tab not near the URL, I would prefer to see it there, that gives more comfort about being on the right site but it can easily be faked, Google Chrome’s team choice puts instead still more attention to the real URL. Also more attention is given to the URL since if you want to bookmark it the icon stands on the left as opposed to the right position chosen by the Mozilla team.
Changing browser
Moving to Chrome is very simple and painless. During the installation it imports the two more important things you need: passwords and bookmarks both from Firefox and IE.
Anyway here there’s a bug since when you change the password for a site it doesn’t update its own database and keeps on suggesting the old imported one.
Rendering
I’ve checked some of the main sites and some sites I manage and all display perfectly with no odd behaviors apart from YouTube (one of Google’s sites), the “sign in” button has its label underlined while it’s not with FF3 but it is with IE7.
At the moment the only serious problem I’ve found with Google Chrome is the rendering of unsorted list (<li> tag), the standard dots appear jagged as with like a resolution image.
Searching
Hitting Ctrl-F or F3 appears the search box but you have to pay attention because it slides out from top right and if you’re reading the bottom of the page you could not notice it.
There’s some innovation here too since besides showing the total number of matches found it also shows thin useful lines on the right scrolling bar that allow you to jump to the specific point. Indeed an identical mechanism is already available with some development tools but it’s the first time I see it used in a browser. The downside is that for non technical people it could seem a graphic error specially when you have a lot of results and so a mob of lines. It’s also useful to have all the matches immediately highlighted while you type.
History
History can be searched but can’t be ordered by site, I expected to have an autocomplete field for history but it’s a normal field, on the right of each result there’s an empty box which I think is supposed to show a preview but it remains blank. After a more thorough test I found it really shows the thumbnails, the empty ones are from my previous history with Firefox.
Configuration
In the password management the “show password” button is clickable only after you choose a site and displays just the password. I find always uncomfortable to click a slim row between a long list and then having to click a far away button. I think Chrome team made this choice for security reasons but after all if I click the button to show a password I already made sure there are no enemies at my back so showing one or a dozen makes no difference and you save the user from moving the mouse around. There’s another limitation with passwords, when you’re prompted to save one you only get 2 possibilities: save it or never save it, while it’s useful to be able to say “not now” as offered with Firefox.
Bookmarks
Here is one of the greatest lacks of this first version, there’s no bookmark management! At first I found it incredible so I searched every menu and possibility and when right clicking “Other bookmarks” I found the voice “Open all bookmarks” I thought that must be the voice but … Chrome instead tried to open all the several hundreds of local bookmarks I have and finally … crashed. So you can’t easily organize you favorites and you can’t neither label them.
Wording
With such a minimal interface there’s not too much to say here but in my Italian version I found once “nerd” in the task manager and once “smanettoni” which means “nerds” and a tab labeled as “roba da smanettoni” which sounds really unprofessional and poor.
Other features
- “Incognito” navigation lets you surf without leaving traces, no cookies, no history, … To differentiate from normal browsing the “Incognito” window has a purple color and an icon I really like, I really feel conspiring. When you open an “Incognito” window the message that Google Chrome shows sounds strange: … “Be wary of”, … “secret agents”, … Anyway it’s a good feature for example me and my wife can now check separately GMail accounts without logging out. There’s also a limit, you can’t open more than one “Incognito” window so that they’re completely separated, you can instead open more tabs, all sharing the same cookies though.
- Each tab is run in a separate memory process so if one crashes site crashes you can close that tab and keep on browsing.
- The Flash plug-in is already installed.
- To use Java you need to download version 6 update 10 which is not a stable one.
- Chrome doesn’t stop pop-ups, they’re shown by their title bar at the bottom of the window so that you can decide to kill them immediately with their close button or drag them up to see the content.
Conclusions
The first experience with Google Chrome has been really pleasant and you wouldn’t say it’s just version 0.2. What I found more interesting is: the speed at which it starts; the light, clean interface that gives you a really different feeling; no crashes (apart when trying opening hundreds bookmarks simultaneously); easy installation and import from Firefox.
On the dark side I put the lack of bookmarks management and no possibility to add plug-ins even if the code is completely open source and based on Webkit and that’s a good thing. At the moment I won’t switch from Firefox mainly because I can’t work without those plug-ins I use everyday but I’ll keep a very interested eye on the future versions.
Have you already tried Google Chrome? Let me know your experience.
Nicola
