Google Chrome, a Google initiative

“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller , you’re part of the road.”
- Stewart Brand

Our minds are obsessed with the three W’s . The World Wide Web, the defacto standard of the cyber age civilization. We don’t even think of life under the blue without the Internet.
The software application that enables us to display and interact with the text, graphics, videos images in the web page is known as the web browser.

The big players in browsers are Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Opera, Mozilla Firefox and so on.
The most recent addition to these names is Google CHROME.

Much ink and many electrons have been spilled over the fact that its advanced features has made it an icon in the crowd. It is an open source web browser. Stability, speed and security issues has been much improved compared to any other browser.

Is it yet another web browser? Not really the way we have thought about Web browsers before. Most web browsers send HTTP messages to far-off Web servers, which respond with HTML pages. But with Chrome things are quite different. When an address is typed that doesn’t exist , Chrome will send it to Google for help finding the right address. The standard homepage keeps link to most visited sites and recent bookmarks.

We can start right from the point we have left off before shutdown. Chrome can be customized as which page to be opened everytime a program is launched. Isn’t its handy for those who use numerous pages ??

The URL name can be typed on the whole, e.g. http://www.globsyn.com/ to visit the site directly or only “globsyn” can be typed to go for a search. This is indeed a versatile feature.

At the top right corner functions like print, save, cut, copy, paste etc , all can be found under a pull down menu at the top right or else just at the right click of the mouse. Its just all about to browsing a real enjoyment.

In incognito mode sites are kept off the browsing history list which allows the privacy while cruising the Web.

If one becomes bore with the same designated homepage then several shortcuts can be created on the desktop. With every start up click anyone and the browser opens it up for you. Its something really refreshing all through.
The users get continuous updates and about the phising and malware. These warnings restrict them to visit harmful sites. Other users can also get the facility through a public API called “Google Safe Browsing API”. Google Chrome wont let one bad site to crash the entire web browser.

“Sandbox” mechanism has been introduced in Google CHROME. This security mechanism safely runs programs and is often used to run untested codes or programs from unverified third party. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. This mechanism prevents malware from installing itself. The V8 JavaScript engine has features which has made it twice as fast than other popular browsers.

So the speed has become a striking factor of Google CHROME.

CHROME has implemented the multithreaded browser with a multiprocessing

architecture concept. The stability issues are taken care of very nicely. CHROME has taken the focus of World Wide Web with a lots of new features and facilities to make the Internet more user friendly and has touched the hearts of millions.

As of now, Chrome is a beta version with significant security problems yet to be addressed. By definition, it's not ready -- that's what beta means. Bugs and security holes will be fixed. But Chrome's basic business model will remain same.

Contributed by:
Rik Das, Lecturer, IS
(Globsyn Business School)