Google Chrome is a new webbrowser built upon the same html rendering engine as Apple's Safari, namely WebKit. We reviewed its first public beta release. Here are our findings.
A.E.Veltstra
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Good points:
Bad points:
Conclusion: Google's Chrome is a knock-off of Apple's Safari, with a faster shell. It has a long way to go.
- installs without needing Admin privileges (increased computer security);
- seems to start up fast;
- allows to set chrome language apart from preferred web site language;
- some redraw problems with the rendering of embedded media;
- javascript parsing seems pretty fast;
- has developer tools like Opera's Dragonfly;
- loads faster than Apple Safari though both use the same rendering engine (WebKit).
Bad points:
- installs and activates an updater service without asking (decreased computer security);
- completely ignores the colour scheme specified in the operating system by the user (especially problematic for people with bad eyesight like me);
- in the options dialogue: partially takes on the user colour scheme (good) and partially uses its own scheme (bad) which results in completely unreadable texts (black text on black background) (unusable);
- detected my location or my OS language, and automatically selected the local language as the preferred language page;
- rendering is provided by AppleWebKit (Safari)... the fact that Google failed to publish a Linux version is inexplicable, since WebKit itself is meant for a Unix variant...;
- WebKit has some issues with respecting the user's colour scheme settings;
- WebKit has some issues with recognising HTML5 elements like the audio element, and does not recognise Vorbis nor Theora sources on my system;
- Complete failure to include accessibility options, as opposed to every competitive browser;
- No warning for mismatched security certificates.
Conclusion: Google's Chrome is a knock-off of Apple's Safari, with a faster shell. It has a long way to go.
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