Auslogics Blog

On May, 21 Google released a new version of Chrome, announcing some substantial improvements and even greater speed. I’ve been using Chrome v2 since its release, liked it in general, but hated other things.

New Features

This version of Chrome has some new features that we all missed – a form autofill feature that means you don’t have to type in usernames and passwords every time you visit a page (just make sure the website is fully loaded – otherwise your details won’t be saved), full-screen mode (hit F11) that is especially handy for netbook users, and an option to remove individual thumbnails from the New tab page, so that nobody will know that you were wasting time at work or watched… hmmmm… something inappropriate.

I’m really glad Chrome is catching up with Firefox and IE – they both have  full-screen mode and form autofill. And removing individual thumbnails from the New tab page is a handy feature if you don’t want it to get cluttered or don’t want a certain website to appear there.

The interface hasn’t changed, which in my opinion is good, because I like the minimalistic approach. If you were waiting for any interface changes, you’ll be disappointed.

Is Speed Safe?

Google Chrome 2 runs JavaScript even faster than the previous version. It also employs optimization techniques such as inline caching, which remembers the results of a previous method lookup directly at the call site, which makes Chrome pretty speedy.

However, a faster JavaScript experience has some faults, because it can also mean faster malware download. According to Stephan Chenette, manager of security at Web security software vendor Websense, malware authors use JavaScript in almost 90% of Web pages that contain malicious script.

“Malware based on JavaScript will run faster. JavaScript is the vector of choice for drive-by attacks,” said Randy Abrams, director of technical education at security software vendor ESET.

Improved Stability

Google promises better stability than before. I must say I didn’t have too many stability problems with Chrome, that is until I opened more than 20 tabs. I tried it on two different computers and the result was the same – about 70% of websites simply refused to load and some crashed. Oh and when you have that many tabs open, they become so narrow that it’s hard to get to the tab you want. And you can’t refresh all tabs at once.

Also, funnily enough, Google Chrome doesn’t always work correctly with Google YouTube. Ooops!

The Disappointing

Don’t get me wrong, I like Chrome quite a lot. Now that it has full screen mode, it’s ideal for netbooks and the speed factor makes it the browser for less powerful systems. But – still no add-ons?? No ad blocking?? I can honestly say that I couldn’t live without some Firefox add-ons, like Hyperwords and Shareaholic. Let’s face it, lack of add-ons makes Chrome a no-go for a lot of people.

And now about things that I find rather fishy. When you install Chrome, GoogleUpdate.exe starts running automatically. Which is OK. But you can’t disable it, so it constantly connects to the Internet, searches for new updates, and uses your RAM. Of course it’s good to keep your software updated, but I think it’s a bit unethical that you can’t disable the update or set it to manual.

And something I didn’t like at all.  Maybe it’s only me and I’ll be glad to hear that it never happened to you, but on both my computers the hard drive kept thrashing after I installed Chrome and it wasn’t GoogleUpdate.exe. I uninstalled the browser and the thrashing didn’t come back until I re-installed it. Maybe I’m paranoid, but it felt like Chrome was scanning my hard drive. What for?

The Verdict

Even though there are a lot of things to improve, I like Chrome for its speed and no-nonsense approach. However, Firefox is still my default browser. Let me put it this way – Chrome for speed, Firefox for productivity and Internet Explorer for those who really like it.

Comments and opinions welcome!