5 Things You Don’t Know About Google Chrome
Posted in Tech News, Web Development on Sep 3, 2008
Google released their own internet browser known as Google Chrome and here are just a cople of interesting points about it.
1. A Gentle Introduction to Google Chrome
Google released a fairly detailed explanation of what Google Chrome is all about with a comic. Computer Science, software engineering students and web developers are certainly interested in knowing the philosophy behind the architecture and design of the new browser.
All the new features can be found here.
2. Rendering Engine
Google Chrome uses Webkit as the rendering engine for the browser. It’s the same engine used on the infamous Safari and Konqueror web browser. Windows users might not know what Safari and Konqueror are, but they are the default web browser on Apple’s Macintosh and KDE based Linux respectively, just like how Internet Explorer is the default internet browser for Windows.
3. Google Chrome’s Birth Date
A Google backdated web search shows that Google Chrome was never ever mentioned anyway on the web before September 1 2008. This should really be the dirth date of the Google browser. I’m seriously impressed of how Google kept such a low profile of it all this while.
4. Open Source
Google Chrome is open source. Their core took quite a lot from Mozilla and WebKit and that’s why they are keeping it open.
5. Memory and Process Management
The most singnificant improvement in web browsers design would probably be the fact that Google Crome manages memory in a new way (read the comic!) which has always been a major concern for browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Each tab is opened as a new entity containing its own processes. When something goes wrong and crashes while browsing a site, only a tab will be shut down instead of the whole browser. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 also boast about having this same feature.
Extra Tips!
6. Google Chrome’s User Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13
7. Javascript Engine
Google chrome uses a custom javascript engine known as the V8.
8. Default Installation Path
Surprise, surprise! While most of us would have thougt that Google Chrome would install itself to C:\Program Files (for windows that is), it installs to C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application instead. In fact, there wsn’t even a choice as the installation didn’t even ask where you would want to install it to.
As a conclusion, the google chrome comic is really awesome and you should really read it to know more about it. Google Chrome can be downloaded here.
If you learnt someting new by reading this, let me know 
Just be sure to read the EULA / TOS. And don’t mind the “Google Updater” it also installs without asking.
Thanks for the info Matt
Hey, another thing that u should know about Chrome is…
the comment in this site is not in the right place when viewing thru Chrome.
I love this browser, can’t wait for it to grow.
the single best feature is having bookmark bar in the new tab page.
Now i can keep the bookmark bar off my face when i’m browsing other pages.
i need it only when i wanna open a new page thou.
That’s strange, I’m using chrome now to reply this comment and everything looks fine. Hmmm…
BTW, I love the bookmark bar too!
Opera is still my favorite browser although I think Google Chrome will be getting more of my time soon. The “most visited boxes” in Google Chrome are a bit similar to Opera’s “speed dial”. If only Opera has the bookmark bar in front of my face when I open a new tab.
Let the browser war continues!
[...] works fine in Internet Explorer and Mozila Firefox but failed to even login using Opera or Google Chrome. Not sure what’s happening but I suspect it’s because of the ajax (or silverlight?) [...]
[...] Browser’s Builtin Password Manager All major browsers that I’ve tested such as Firefox, Chrome and Opera have built-in password managers. I would say that Opera offers the best password manager [...]