OT: Google Chrome

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:04

Tess wrote:
Vortex wrote:Chrome is so fast 'tho ..... very alluring ....
In what sense is it fast? I've been using it alongside firefox and IE and i really can't tell the difference.

Maybe you have a VERY fast processor, so any software speed improvements make no difference?

Andy_K · Post by **Andy_K** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:07

Seems ok. Two things I dislike

1) It uses a custom menu bar which looks a bit like Vista - I'm on XP and it completely ignores my schemes, and looks out of place. I don't like that.
2) It uses a custom menu bar, which is incompatible with multiple monitor software. This is a killer for me. There's no way I'm going to use a browser on a multiple monitor system when I can't have a simple 'move to other monitor' function. It'll drive me nuts.

Otherwise, seems pretty good.

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:22

Vortex wrote:
Tess wrote:
Vortex wrote:Chrome is so fast 'tho ..... very alluring ....
In what sense is it fast? I've been using it alongside firefox and IE and i really can't tell the difference.
Maybe you have a VERY fast processor, so any software speed improvements make no difference?

I have a dual core 2ghz laptop. Fast for a laptop, I suppose.

Is it the rendering of the page you find fast? I have quite slow bandwidth so my bottleneck is internet speed not page rendering.

[not as slow as JohnB's internet though, before he makes the point. again. ].

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:26

Chrome has a fast new java processing engine, so it is fast at displaying java based code, especially if is already in your cache. It precompiles the java code I believe.

This would mean you would really only notice the speed on java based pages (such as forums?) and especially if visiting a forum regularly. I think they've done this to optimise the speed and use of the google web-apps.

Tess, I think you're right. You have to have a damn fast internet connection to notice the difference.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:33

From ZDNET ...

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,100 ... 77b,00.htm

And it is fast, easily topping the chart. In particular, it's more than ten times faster than IE 7, and three times faster than IE8 b2. FF 3.1 comes closest.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 04 Sep 2008, 11:39

N.B. That test just tests teh javascript engine performance....

In combination with the rendering and downloading etc teh total performance difference per webpage will be far less that that chart would have you believe.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 04 Sep 2008, 12:16

Tess wrote:[not as slow as JohnB's internet though, before he makes the point. again. ].

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 04 Sep 2008, 12:16

SunnyJim wrote:N.B. That test just tests teh javascript engine performance....

In combination with the rendering and downloading etc teh total performance difference per webpage will be far less that that chart would have you believe.

I was going to say, that performance advantage over IE is pie in the sky as far as my experience goes.

So far the only intense javascript site I've tried is betfair, and unfortunately there's a couple of important areas where the rendering doesnt work yet on Chrome, so it's unusable. Again, I'm not seeing it faster than IE either. Anyone care to suggest a website where i'll definitely see a difference?

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 04 Sep 2008, 12:27

I hope it doesn't become popular, or I'll have to install it and waste valuable disk space, so I can test web sites I run on it.

I use NoScript to disable JavaScript, and have my Toshiba set to the "Long Life" power setting that runs my 1.6MHz processor at less than 50%, because of my slow connection and to save power. Especially after we've had the least sunny August for years, and I'm not getting enough out of my PV.

Ippoippo · Post by **Ippoippo** » 04 Sep 2008, 12:29

Not tried it myself (as I have a Mac at home), but would be interesting to see how quick it is with sites such as Picassa, GMail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook as those seem to be rather Javascript heavy.

That said, faster or not, I still hate IE6, IE7 because of it's rather casual approach to web standards and rendering.

Post by **jmb** » 04 Sep 2008, 13:00

SunnyJim wrote:Chrome has a fast new java processing engine, so it is fast at displaying java based code, especially if is already in your cache. It precompiles the java code I believe.

It's the JavaScript implementation ("V8") which is considerably faster than anything else currently out there. I don't know if it's full precompilation or JIT, like Java. (I've not yet got a Java plugin to work in Chrome, though I believe there's a guide around.)

Overall it seems to me to be faster in general, but you're likely to see the benefit on JavaScript-heavy sites (Gmail, anyone?). There's a little javascript here on powerswitch, but not enough for a significant impact. Any benefits people are seeing are probably down to the WebKit layout engine (as used by Safari, which I've also found to be pretty quick).

There will of course be much to-and-froing and ambiguous, conflicting, contrived, badly-designed and downright dodgy benchmarks on the way for all aspects of performance...

Post by **mikepepler** » 06 Sep 2008, 10:26

Apparently they've changed the T&Cs:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/03 ... ula_sucks/

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 06 Sep 2008, 12:42

JohnB wrote:....the "Long Life" power setting that runs my 1.6MHz processor at less than 50%, because of my slow connection and to save power.

So you have a slow connection, then?

landyowner · Post by **landyowner** » 06 Sep 2008, 17:10

mikepepler wrote:Apparently they've changed the T&Cs:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/03 ... ula_sucks/

Much better, more in line with their "Don't be Evil" motto now.

Might even download it now.

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 06 Sep 2008, 20:01

Allegedly it indexes bank accounts....

http://www.trustedreviews.com/software/ ... counts-/p1