Posts Tagged ‘chrome’

Google is marching forward on the upgrade path. Recently this popular search engine company surprised millions of Internet users by launching its first web browser called Chrome 1.0 and now within a short time span it has upgraded the browser and released the new Alpha version called Chrome 2.0.

Chrome 2.0 has got some very significant improvements over its predecessor. It’s now more flexible, speedy, user friendly and holds loads of useful functions. You can now get tools like auto complete text fields, full page zoom, enhanced spelling checker and improved auto scroll function. According to Google the alpha release of the second version of Chrome is far much reliable and faster as compared to the Chrome 1.0 and other web browsers too. It now also allows the users to import bookmarks from Google Bookmarks. On top of all these upgrades lies a unique feature called ‘Profiles’ that is not found in any of the web browsers till date. Chrome 2.0 Profiles are same as the Windows user profiles. The only difference is that here you can set and maintain different profiles for web browsing preferences such as browser settings, bookmarks, history and cookies. Clearly Google was not content with simply entering the mobile phone and mobile OS market with its G1 Android run smartphone, which is directly targeted at dethroning the Apple iPhone 3G. The Internet Search engine giant is also intent on challenging Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and of course Apple’s Safari browser.

Chrome 2.0 Alpha uses a new WebKit rendering engine that enables advanced CSS coding functions including reflections, masks, gradients, and canvas drawing. This engine is the same as the one that is used in the Apple Safari 3.1.

Since the launch of the Apple Safari web browser for Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the browser has faced many ups and downs. Initially the browser was accused of being vulnerable to online threats. The company rectified the problem as soon as a buzz was created regarding that, but still the browser has not been optimised to a great extent so that it can win the hearts of the masses.

Ok! Apple has done a great job by making Safari for Windows faster than the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox but what about it’s new born competitor, the Google Chrome? Tests showed that when it comes to handling the java scripts the Chrome leaves Safari in the dust completely. Just like Google challenged the Apple iPhone 3G with its T-Mobile G1 Google Anroid based mobile phone, so is the search engine company challenging Apple on the browser level as well. Although both Chrome and Safari are based on the same web browsing engine called WebKit, which is an open source project, Google has taken Chrome to a next higher level by optimizing it for the java script based web sites. The company did it by tweaking the java script engine used in Chrome and yes, the Chrome operates at an amazing speed while handling the java scripts. However, this is not the case with the Windows version of the Safari.

One of the main reasons of focusing exclusively on the java script handling capabilities of the Chrome is that the Google wanted its web browser an ideal one for running the Google web applications which mostly make use of java script. Alas! The Apple did not optimise the Safari for any one specialised job. So, it’s high time to revise the Safari once again before the Chrome takes away a lions share out of the web browser’s market.