Google Chrome: Performance and First Impressions
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 3, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
Compatibility
Google is in a unique position to test the compatibility of something like a browser, given that the company has servers that spend their days indexing the entirety of the internet. You’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to pull from that index and produce a reasonable set of test cases for Chrome.
Plugins like Flash just work, which is nice, but not all websites play nicely with Chrome. Take a look at NVIDIA’s Force Within download page:
The download box won’t load and you’re out of luck with Chrome. Fortunately the NVIDIA example is the exception, for the most part Chrome has been working just fine for me. How about all of you?
Chrome passes the Acid2 test, but gets a 74/100 in the Acid3 test. That’s compared to 78/100 for Safari, 13/100 for IE7 (Wikipedia lists it as a 14 but I was unable to get anything higher than 13) and 71/100 for FF3.
At least Chrome does better than IE7 in the Acid3 test:
Nice
Final Words
In short - I like Chrome. It’s small, quick, efficient, and my only major complaint is that there’s no OS X version yet. As much as I hate having an overly crowded market, it’s the results of this sort of competition that truly beget innovation.
Google has played nice in the market for some time, but its competitors can’t stand idle. Bring on IE8, FF4 and Safari 4, because honestly there is a lot of sense in some of the features Chrome brings to the table.
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GarionGoh - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Not sure if it is me, but after using FF3 since its release, I can atest to its speed in loading/rednering web page, almost always faster than IE7. While in the review, we are seeing that IE7 takes the crown for most of the test sites. Anyone any comments?zebrax2 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
they probably tested it without any add-onsSylvanas - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
I am loving Chrome, very fast and best of all it's simple to use, nice UI.ubiloo - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
I see the author of the article is looking for new features, etc.I think that Aurora (in Mozilla Concept series) is really displaying some... Check here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-the-co...">http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introdu...concept-...
imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Since no other web browser does except IE. Maybe it does?I love viewing this site with 4 inches width on each side wasted in FF3. Such a classy design anandtech.../sarcasm
strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
IE7 and FF2 both display in the center with a lot of grey space to the sides on my 24" monitor. The table that spills out the end in FF though was all present in IE.Of course, all the ads are also present in IE, which is why I never use it.
theslug - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Anandtech seems to display fine for me with Firefox 3.imaheadcase - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
Try looking at AT on a 24 inch monitor. The site does not scale accordingly. The forums do, just not main site.strikeback03 - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
Define "scale correctly". It is centered, probably 1024 pixels wide, and I would imagine that is exactly what they programmed it to do.haplo602 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
what about ad blocks ? popup blocker ? session management ? page manuipulation (zoom etc.) ???