Google builds a better browser

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 03 September 2008 12:30

Business IT - Networking

Google calls this the 'Omnibox' and rather than there being only one for a browser window, each tab has its own Omnibox. The Omnibox also provides full text search over the history, but only returns URLs actually typed in by the user, not the massively long strings of gobbledygook of actual URL addresses.

Google has taken a multiprocessor approach to Chrome so that each tab represents a separate discrete process and any locking up of that tab does not crash the whole browser. Users can also choose to browse "incognito" so that none of the URLs they visit and none of the cookies they use in a session are retained.

However perhaps the feature that might appeal most to many users is Chrome's ability to warn users if they attempt to visit phishing or any other bogus sites. Each browser is supplied with a constantly updated list of such sites maintained by Google.

Gears, Google's browser add on designed to improve support for Google Reader, Google Docs and a number of non-Google services including Zoho has been incorporated into Google Chrome and when asked if Google would, over time add on proprietary features to Chrome designed to improve support for Google services, Pichai said that Gears would be the vehicle for these and that Chrome itself would remain service agnostic and completely open (Gears, however is also open source so can be exploited by other providers of web based services to enhance their own online applications.)

According to Pichai, a driving principle behind the development of Chrome was that it should interrupt the users experience of the web as little as possible. "A mantra when during development was to get rid of the chrome (all the 'stuff' displayed by the browser around the actual content_ and focus on th content. Chrome was our code name for the project. But when it came to choose a name we had a whole list but none of them stood up, so we stuck with Chrome."

The use of dialogue boxes has also been kept to a minimum. Pichai said: "I have been using it for a year and I've only seen one or two, and I want to get rid of those as well. This philosophy also extends to updates: Chrome does not simply check for updates and ask the user if they want to install, it just goes ahead and does so, Pichai said.

Google Chrome in beta for Windows is available at www.google.com/chrome . Information on the open source project, Chromium is at www.chromium.org.Goog .